One of todays newspapers, to use the term loosely, has been stung by criticism that it’s investigative reporting department may not quite be performing as expected.
Today, they have a story !
Tax dodging ? £400 million worth ?
Could this mean we’ll have to come back as “The Celtic ” ?
Do we need to find some “real Sellick men ” to bail us out ?
No, of course not.
This is , in fact , old news. As the media still appears to think that it has sole rights on passing information to the public, they perhaps don’t know that this particular scheme and its fallout has been common knowledge for some time, and despite the best intentions of the paper, there is no link to a tax dodge perpetrated on the other side of the city a few years ago.
Tax breaks can be achieved with investment in the movie industry, some countries, such as Ireland, offer enormous concessions to bring the business to their shores-like the one in Wexford where they filmed Saving Private Ryan- but its very complicated, very risky, and therefore something to be avoided.
If it comes off, you can save and even make a few quid, and your involvement would depend on what your accountant said, and what your friends accountants have told them.
Whatever way you look at it, tax avoidance schemes are not illegal. Whether or not they will save you money is debatable, and if it all goes tits up, then you are left with a bill. Thats all, a bill, and not jail time, which is the case with tax evasion, as another club’s players found out.
Oh, I forgot to mention.
Letters from Her Majesties Revenue and Customs have begun to drop through peepils doors, and this story may well be a plant to kind of make the financial affairs all of these greedy footballers appear to be of a similar ilk.
They aren’t.
Although both schemes, if I may call them that, could well have been sold as a way to avoid tax, only one of them has been shown to have the purpose of evading tax, and only one of them involved the payments from a club to their players.
The one in the paper describes what the players did with their money after they were paid.
A small, but important difference.
Which is why one club is in liquidation, and the other is in the Champions League.
We have heard that a couple of players who received the EBT payments have been asked by HMRC to make up the shortfall in their tax payments to date.
Which, as a cynic, I think is the real reason for the Record regurgitating an old story, and it means we can look forward to the follow up story with a bowl of jelly and ice cream.
The story, or the timing of the story, comes as no real surprise.
To refresh your memory, have a look at this list, which might well be appearing in the papers this week..
Theres all sorts of rumours about a certain new club becoming another statistic-90% of new companies fail in the first five years-and there are apparently a whole host of stories about to hit the newstands, which incidentally, provide gainful employment for anyone , such as say, Graeme Souness, who might be facing a little more money going out than he’d budgeted for.
Away from all that, which is tiresome in one sense, but important that it precedes a real story, and the Scottish League may be powerless to prevent Celtic from becoming wealthy, they sure as hell want to make sure the fans aren’t.
Have a look at the fixture list for December…
You’ll notice , first of all, how many of them there are, and then , when checking which ones you have already paid for, you’ll note they are all midweek games.
Three games , that for season book holders outwith Scotland, become impossible to attend. Or fifteen per cent of the games covered by the book.
Which, in turn, makes the book a purchase that will be reconsidered next summer by a lot of supporters.
Smaller crowds also lead to less revenue for the club on matchdays, so it may be that they could announce their displeasure at the way the fixtures have panned out. It may not change anything, but it will at least let the support know the club are on their side, if, of course, they actually are.
And if I were in PR at the club, I’d be using it as a diversion from the Record story, by concentrating on real issues that affect the support and the club.
But what do I know ?
The four Celtic players involved in Scotland’s international matches are all on their way home, none of them having picked up injuries, although Leigh Griffiths may have gone a bit dizzy after he was awoken from his slumber on the bench and asked to get warmed up.
Gordon Strachan’s side lost 3-0 to Slovakia, and although there is still a long way to go, Stracha’s insistence on playing journeymen from the lower end of English football will mean that there’s little point in applying for Russian tourist visas, and thankfully we’ll have plenty of notice to save anyone paying money out.
club football returns this weekend, and Celtic face Kickers Motherwell, who may alter their tactics having conceded quite a few goals to the Hoops in the last two meetings-7-0 and 5-0.
Note also that Celtics home matches domestically have seen four, five and then six goals scored.
The first 7-0 of this season beckoning ?
Its doubtful, even if Mark McGhee has one eye on the Scotland job, because professional footballers learn from their mistakes, unless their accountant tells them otherwise..
McGhee is expected to try a different tactic from simply kicking the opposition this weekend, and we have exclusive access to the relevant paperwork.. taken from a couple of shady guys seen hanging around after hours outside Celtic Park.
It seems they were going to break in and alter a few things…
making it tough for Celtic to score.. for instance
The hoops may struggle on the flanks..
there will be attempts to distract the players
The away section will be a little more intimidating than usual
and the main objective ? To sabotage the watering system at Celtic Park, to make the game a little more unpredictable..
They won’t need as much help as you might think. The referee is John Beaton, not noted for his impartiality or talent. Or ability to decide what constitutes a penalty kick, as we saw earlier this season against Hearts.
Mind you, if the police are still rounding up these scary clowns, we could always ring them on saturday and tell them where to find one…
Yesterdays caption competition, this picture, surprisingly not in todays papers with a big wooden cross photoshopped behind him,
drew this winning line.. on the same lines
Caption: “Strachan prepares to be crucified again by the laptop loyal.”
Today, we have this image.. all the way from Tokyo
