With football taking a break just now, the mainstream media are doing their best to keep it in the public eye. Unfortunately, despite there being a number of issues worth considering during this time out, which could be used constructively to bring forward a few ideas to improve the game north of the border, they’re simply content to do a bit of cheerleading for a club which frankly, needs all the cheerleading it can get.
The Craig Whyte trial, as anyone with experience of the courtroom knew, stumbles to a halt well ahead of schedule as the defence decied not to bother calling any witnesses.
The Judge will do her summation on Monday, and until then the media will have to wait before unleashing their full fury on those who destroyed the reputation of the game whilst simultabeously burning the club they used to do tat.
Will our esteemed and brave journalists gamble their livelihoods to expose the truth ?
The draw for the Betfred Cup was made yesterday. “rangers ” were not in it. This means that despite falling foul of the Financial Fair Play rules, or at least seeming to be, they have been admitted.
Even so, there has been no explanation from the SFA.
And no one is asking them for one.
The trial of Whyte has raised some interesting points regarding the Resolution 12, notably that they were spot on about the wrongful granting of a licence for the reasons they claimed.
Again, we have to ask, where is the outcry ?
Where is the pressure on Regan, Ogilvie, et al to explain their actions ?
Where they duped, or did they go along with it, in the full knowledge that what they were doing was a betrayal of the trust paced in them by the other clubs in the game ?
The trial will soon be over…
Which is not putting too fine a point on it.
The British Prime Minister at the outbreak of the first world war was a chap called H.H. Asquith-presumably he was a Tim and it stood for Hail Hail, had a phrase with which he would become forever associated with-
Well, we will wait and see, but not for too long.
RTC summed it up…
In the coming months we need to establish if @scottishfa were “duped” over UEFA license 2011 or if they were a willing accomplice to fraud.
Weeks, though, not months.
Another thing worthy of discussion came with the release of the bloated payments made to English based clubs who participate in the Sky football super sunday League, or whatever they market it as.
We sometimes get drawn into rows with down market tabloid radio stations, or half witted internet trolls about the size of our club, or how we’d perform in England and so on.
Of course, as Celtic have more English first team players than most English teams, we don’t fit the criteria down there, but one wonders how we’d compare should the tv money be removed from last years figures…
Wonder no more !
Factor in the difference in match day ticket costs, add the increased revenue from a club with a genuine world wide support, suddenly available on live tv to that support, and the introduction of Celtic to that league would be the epitomy of the sleeping giant awakening…
No wonder they don’t want us.
Any one of maybe ten teams would lose their place on the gravy train, and any of of six would be missing out on the champions league.
The issue is for Scottish football to sell what it has-the small grounds, the opportunities for youngsters to break through, and most of all, the passion and fervour on and of the pitch.
There’s no need to point to the Sky league as our biggest problem when we are quite capable of creating our own.
There’s a tv channel -BT Sport-who are doing a great job in promoting our game.
Give them full and exclusive rights. Work with them for the benefit of both parties.
Its our game, lets pull together and make it work.
Another issue surrounds the continuing pantomime at ibrox. Several new characters have been introduced, and maybe they will have a decent team out on the park next season.
Maybe it will strengthen the league, with possibly four or five teams battling for european places, or for the cups.
Can’t do any harm, can it ?
Unless….
“rangers ” have made a bid for Graeme Dorrans , a Scottish international currently with Norwich, which has been knocked back by the English club. apparently they are not happy with the staggered payment structure, said to be £480,000, consisting of a deposit of £150,000, with three payments of £110,000 spread over three summers..
Maybe someone at the SFA’SPFL should be asking to see some accounts, and securing some independent financial confirmation that there isn;t to be a second insolvency event at Ibrox in five years.
Which brings us full circle to where we came in…the governing bodies have form in ignoring the imaginative and refreshing fiscal policy at Ibrox.
We could do without them dragging the name of Scottish football through the mud again.
While attention is focused away from matters on the park, there really should be a spotlight turned on the SFA, so that we can see what goes on over there.
One more thing, CQN revealed that Celtic will receive 15% of any fee above the £13,5m paid by Southampton for Virgil van Dijk when the dutch defender is sold this summer.
Oddly enough, no matter what that fee is, it will probably be almost exactly the same as the fee for Patrick Roberts….
Yesterday we had this picture…
The picture brought back some memories…summed up by..
Desmond White: “My expertise as a CA enables me to state categorically that the attendance at tonight’s European Cup Quarter Final against Real Madrid lies within the range 18,543 to 18,550.”
Today, we begin a series of wonderfully misogynistic photographs which can be intrepreted in a number of ways..
