Today is the Celtic AGM.
Usually, everyone gets a chance to pat each other on the back, make a few jokes about Dermot not being there, and laugh at the less fortunate on the other side of the river.
We’ll find out how well we’re doing, what a great guy Brendan is, and how things look really good for the future.
And then, the club will make a statement on Resolution 12.
The smoking gun they asked for has been handed over, and now they have loaded the bullets and are taking aim.
What they are going to say isn’t clear, but I’m happy to hang on for a few hours to find out. I’m quite sure the chaps behind the Resolution 12 issue are as well. Especially as the general feeling is we won’t be disappointed.
Supporters of the resolution have been chipping away at the wall of silence around the issue for quite some time, and there has been a feeling that the dam was about to break.
To an extent , it did this morning, when the Herald published this report.
New protest over ‘Resolution 12’ Rangers Euro licence claims
THOUSANDS have signed a petition demanding answers from Scottish football’s governing body over its awarding of a licence to allow Rangers to play European football in 2011 despite tax issues.
A petition launched by a Celtic fanzine contributor
is the latest step in a campaign – known as Resolution 12 – to challenge the decision-making process within the Scottish Football Association.
The Resolution 12 issue is expected to be raised at Celtic’s annual general meeting today (Wednesday) with some fans believing the club should take the matter up with the SFA.
The Ibrox club were given a license to play in the Champions League five years ago despite ongoing issues with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs over payment of tax relating to their use of Employee Benefit Trusts. UEFA rules state clubs taking part in their competitions must declare any “overdue payables” to the taxman and reveal details on whether there is a commitment to repay amounts, or a dispute over any bill.
Failure to disclose information during what is referred to as the “monitoring period”, which is spread over two dates in June and September, can result in sanctions.
Some Celtic shareholders raised the matter at the club’s 2013 AGM, believing the club could have lost out on millions of potential revenue that would have been due to them had they entered the Champions League that year instead of Rangers who, the requisitioners believed, should not have been allowed to enter the competition.
Their questions centred on whether the Ibrox side under previous ownership fully disclosed the details of an unpaid £2.8m tax bill to taxman ahead of their participation in the Champions League five years ago.
The club then owed the money in relation to their use of Employee Benefit Trusts, in a bill that became known as the “Wee Tax Case”.
Accounts of the Rangers Football Club Plc, the oldco now in liquidation, for the last half year of 2010, and published in April, 2011, showed that provision had been made for: “a potential tax liability”.
The taxman were known to have begun targeting he club in the spring of 2010, nine years after Rangers starting using the scheme, and as EBT loopholes were being closed.
Court of Session judges decided in November that Rangers’ use of EBTs from 2001 until 2010 to give millions of pounds of tax-free loans to players and other staff broke tax rules. But the decision in what is known as ‘the big tax case’ is being appealed to the Supreme Court.
Rangers Football Club plc, the former operating company, went into administration in February, 2012, after a £9 million PAYE and VAT debt was amassed to the taxman under Craig Whyte’s leadership. The oldco renamed RFC 2012 plc is in liquidation.
Liquidators have previously confirmed that £72m of the £94.4m owed to HMRC relies on the taxman’s claim that Rangers was liable for its use of EBTs.
Some Celtic supporters took the unusual step of placing an advert in a Swiss newspaper urging the European football governing body UEFA to intervene in the matter.
But UEFA said in June it will not investigate as Rangers was not granted a licence to participate in the 2012/13 UEFA club competitions, the club entered the fourth tier of Scottish football and it was not able to play in UEFA competitions for the next three years in any event.
A newly launched petition signed by over 3000, demands that the SFA respond to allegations that it acted inappropriately in awarding the European place to Rangers.
In a letter to be sent to the football governing body, the petitioners say: “We, the undersigned, respectfully request that the SFA must respond to suggestions that they knowingly and purposefully issued a licence to Rangers FC whilst the club was in breach of the required conditions surrounding overdue payables to HMRC, enabling them to compete in the UEFA Champions League in season 2011-2012.”
The Scottish FA stated that Rangers did not have any overdue payables at the March 31 deadline set down for clubs to make successful applications for an endorsement for a UEFA club licence.
If Rangers did have an overdue payable by the June deadline, they would have had until September 30 to prove the matter had been resolved.
It is said that there was no question of Rangers having been excluded from European competition in 2011/12. Instead, any sanction would have applied to future seasons.
And SFA chief executive Stewart Regan has previously said that the governing body has nothing to fear over its handling of Rangers’ European licence in the 2011/12 season.
He insists that the SFA followed the rules in allowing the Ibrox club to participate and the body had been in dialogue with Celtic Football Club on the matter.
In the end, Rangers’ European adventure in 2011/12 did not last long as they were knocked out in the Champions League’s third qualifying round with an aggregate defeat to Swedish side Malmö at the beginning of August. By the end of August they exited the Europa League with defeat in a qualifer against Slovenian team NK Maribor.
Martin Williams, the senior news man at the Herald deserves a big thank you for running with this, and when you are in the shop today, pick up a copy of the Herald. Hide it inside a copy of “Bare Bums Monthly ” if you have to, but as a thank you for going with the story, where no one else would, the least we can do is show a bit of support.
In fact, you’d think the guy behind the petition would be a little grateful, instead he seems a wee bit cold and callous about the whole thing.
@MWilliamsHT I love you and want to have your babies.
Which, if you are to believe what they say about the guy over on follow follow, a well known website that caters for those who type with one hoof, might actually be a quite frightening proposition for Williams…
Thread: They’re at it again – SFA Petition re 2012 Champs League
Theres a few pages about it, the title itself suggests they’ve entirely missed the point, which is to be expected, and about halfway down on page one…
Let off some steam Bennet
State of the prick “Richard Mcginley Stoke on Trent”
Not bad for 51, if i do say so myself..
But they don’t seem to think so…
No Surrender Davie Weir
Looks like a fkn rapist.
I’ll bow to his superior knowledge on that one.
Guy must have eyes in the back of his head.
What really irks them , of course, is that their club died, rose again and took all their money off them. Had they got guys like those behind Resolution 12, they might not have died.
But they haven’t, so they did.
On the same main page where you find that thread, theres another saying why Stewart Regan has to go….
But, it seems like the persistance of all involved is about to pay off…so it might just have been worth it.
As for those on the other side of their city, those who can’t quite make up their mind whether i’m a rapist, a child abuser or just simply mentally ill, I’d like to ask them to, if I may…beause i know they like their music and their marching bands…
Back at the ranch, there are all sorts of things going on, with the Steven Gerrard, as we told you weeks ago, still top of the list. In a question and answer session, Scott Sinclair said he’d be a great addition to the squad, which is unusual in itself to see a player commenting on another, especially if its just a rumour.
And at least one player seems to have a good game while away on international duty…
Tom Rogic was also in action, and he played a full game, so its umlikely he’ll feature in Fridays game at Kilmarnock, where another absentee will be Kris Boyd, the greatest player to have ever graced these shores.
Boyd, of course, recently told the media that Scotland aren’t very good because of what happened to Rangers , although of course, he couldn;t bring himself to say just what did happen to Rangers, but he’s sure it was pretty bad.
Now, it appears he’s injured, presumably after his pants went on fire while he was talking to the reporter.
There was another article that grabbed the attention yesterday, written by someone called alan Clarke, for the Record…
Rangers AGM 2016: All you need to know from Joey Barton to
Mike Ashley and share issues
It contained the usual guff we’ve come to expect from the PR company behind the paper, including this line, which was obviously aimed at whoever started the story…
Sadly, though, we don’t hold out much hope this year of hearing why Rangers have been stealing the local church’s water supply and therefore saving cash on the water bill.
That’s despite some heavy hitters reporting to the contrary.
There were also stunning revelations about Celtics latest superstar, striker Moussa Dembele , and it seems we have seen him beofre somewhere after all…
Caption competition now, and yesterday you told us what this is all about..
CAPTION…
Sevco investigate new free water source.
and today, you can tell us what this is all ab…outand no, its not their first holy communion.
Today may well be quite an important day not only for our club, but for scottish football.
Lets hope we’ve got something to shout about later.
