Truth Wins at Last

by

Recently, the saga of Rangers Football Club (the original and up to now very much best version) ended when the old club finally were liquidated.

In the twelve years since administrated ended and the liquidation process was started, the initial and truthful howls of anguish from the mainstream media bemoaning the death of 140 years of history, quickly morphed into a denial that any such thing ever took place accompanied by a mantra involving the ’55’ and ‘relegation’ idioms, supported staunchly by a pathological need to accompany every mention of the new club with the addenda ‘140 years of history’ and the utterly ridiculous ‘most successful club in the world’.
Adding to that is the tiresome necessity to remind us all time after time after time that the new club is actually the old club. A unique and overwhelmingly wearying situation attached to no other club anywhere in the world.

There were of course those in the MSM who refused to recite the Santa myth. Both Jim Spence and Graham Spiers paid a career price for that, being marginalised and de-platformed by their employers.

Most though were less honest. The very writers who had proclaimed the death of Rangers reversed into denial not only that a death had taken place, but that they had ever uttered such blasphemies. Trumpian truths saw their first outing in the Scottish MSM in 2012. They were of course aided and abetted by the football authorities and the clubs themselves.

Announcers, presenters and writers at various clubs found themselves out of a job for daring to utter truths that we all know were exactly that.

And by all, I mean EVERYONE. Every single one of those who lied to keep their jobs or to enhance their balance sheets or to fend off the one-upmanship of rivals. They all knew that Rangers had died, and that the current version of Rangers playing at Ibrox is quite plainly and simply NOT the same club that fell off the precipice in 2012. Yet they persisted.

The lie however is an exhausting beast. It drains, it persistently tricks itself with inconsistencies, and it remoulds itself to morph with changing conditions. In a short time it has become complicated, in the long term confoundingly unnavigable labyrinth. In short it is unsustainable.

In fact in recent weeks, the liquidation word has been uttered on BBC and on Radio Clyde routinely. Exhaustion has overcome that lie.

As we mark the passing of the Original Rangers Football Club, the lesson we have perhaps learned is that the truth, whilst often obscured by malicious forces in the media is always easier to maintain than the lie. That is why it almost invariably wins in the end.

The real problem is what happens in the in between. People lie to gain some advantage over others. Whether the motive is financial, or cultural or political, it is inherently bad. It is theft, whether of the money in our wallets or of our ideas or morality.

The truth has won in the end, but the price we have had to pay is the theft of the integrity of our sport, the almost total corruption of our media (although many will point to the wider media corruption in 2024 as being way more problematic), and the damage to careers and reputations.

Of course for Rangers fans it was a tragedy that Rangers went under. Whoever was to blame for their demise, it wasn’t the fans. However giving then the emperor’s new clothes to wear was not a dignified way to help them deal with that tragedy, and it was a massive insult to the rest of us.

The SFA have learned some lessons though. They have new rules which have changed their definition of a ‘club’. This essentially gives a franchising power to the authorities to decide who will assume the mantle of a club which is liquidated. At least if and when it happens again, it won’t be necessary for fans, like those of Hearts for example, to move mountains and raise £millions to save their club.

And the authorities and MSM won’t have to embark on a twelve year assault on our intelligence by insisting that a white square is actually a black circle.

52 thoughts on “Truth Wins at Last”

  1. Mordecai
    14 November 2024 at 05:42
    ‘… I went back out to my car to find I now had two hubcaps missing!!’
    +++++++
    Just sat down at my pc, Mordecai, and that made me laugh out loud: thank you for that!
    Mind you, an impromtu bit of Del-boy trickery and deceit is as nothing when compared with the deceit practised upon Scottish Football -deliberately and after days of secret panicked talks- by the suits on the very Governance bodies of the ‘Sport’!
    Your scrappie guy cheated you on a one-to-one basis.
    In my opinion, the boards of the SFA and SPL/SFL/SPFL in propagating/accepting a sporting untruth failed in their statutory duties as a governance body and have corrupted/accepted the corruption of the sport of Scottish Football.
    Much more wicked than any Del-boy scrappie!
    No two ways about it!

  2. Is there only one Imran Ahmad, I wonder?
    —
    From the Rolls of Court of Session
    Lord Harrower – D Allen, Clerk
    Court 10 – Parliament House
    Tuesday 19 November
    Starred Motion between 9.30 and 10.00
    Case Reference CA144/21
    [ A ‘starred motion’ requires appearance by or for a party to the proceedings]

    Imran Ahmad v The Lord Advocate

  3. I sit here quietly enjoying a snifter of a whisky that is most assuredly not Glenallachie, having just read that Billy is maybe just a mere millionaire and not a billionaire!
    Oh, what fun, looking at the desperate situation of a football club that in my opinion our football governance bodies sold their souls to save by lying!
    Honest to God.
    The whole world of ‘business’ knows that TRFC is not and could not possibly be the Rangers of my grandfathers!
    What a sorry state of affairs it is that the BBC in particular should have bought into the lie that it is that very Rangers of 1872!
    As for the SMSM?
    ‘nul points’ for journalistic integrity!
    And we just accept the lie?

    • On the subject of whisky John I am currently enjoying a few Black Bottle’s this Saturday night.

      On the subject of the BBC and the SMSM buying into the big lie…nothing, absolutely nothing, can delete from history that they once accepted, printed, and spoke the truth that Rangers were liquidated and the history ended at that point. That they so obviously capitulated to instructions from the SFA to say otherwise is their problem, and makes it forever laughable when they claim it’s the media’s job to expose the truth that others don’t want us to know.

  4. To my disappointment it is only now, this very evening, that I’ve read James Mulholland’s piece in the Scottish ‘Sun’ edition of 20 August 2024!
    This related to Elite Sports Group Ltd’s litigation against ‘the Gers’ looking for £9.5 million for breach of contract with Hummel, to do with TRFC signing a deal with Castore.
    Mulholland’s report ends with “Two weeks ago lawyers told Lord Braid that a deal had been agreed in “Fergie Time”.
    Lord Braid described it as being made ‘in the last minute of stoppage time’
    No sum was disclosed.”
    Presumably, TRFC had to pay something to Elite. Maybe well short of £9.5 million, but perhaps a good few bob to strain the coffers of the club?
    [ and a sort of further indication of the lack of Board savvy in the management of finances?]
    That football club, in my opinion, is going to go bust.
    It simply cannot cover its costs as things stand, and I think it will have difficulty in borrowing enough to avoid having to make staff redundant and generally cut back on expenditure.
    But maybe that’s just me?
    [Naw, it’s not. It’s the black and white of the balance sheet and financial reality]
    And, I note, even the SMSM are maybe beginning to ask questions.

  5. I love this wee bit from Charles Green back in the day:
    “What we stated at the meeting was that newco wants to continue where oldco was. We have this slight anomaly where, for a period, newco were not members of the SFA from 14 June until being granted membership on 3 August. It was those technical issues which caused some consternation but I was very encouraged with the meeting. It is still my position that these players breached their contracts and we are going to pursue them.”
    For all his artful cleverness, he made the mistake of publicly recognising that his ‘club 12’/SevcoScotland/The Rangers Football Club Ltd was not a member of a recognised league and could not therefore claim to be RFC of 1872.
    Basically, he did not buy RFC of 1872 as a going concern. That club ceased to exist. And his new creation had to apply, beg, even, for membership of the SFL before it could apply for membership of the SFA as a new club!!
    May he and his ilk never be successful in their enterprises.
    And may the members of the governance body of Scottish Football live to rue the day they sold their souls on behalf of untruth.
    And as for the BBC and the print media-what can one say? Except maybe to remind one of Pravda?
    It gars me greet, as our gun-running customs officer might have said!

  6. I’ve only just read BP’s new blog” Truth wins at last”.
    A splendid piece.
    I just hope that any new rules about filling the League-place of a club that has been Liquidated do NOT allow a newly created club to claim a false history and market itself as something that it is not.

    [ I have not given up hope that the FCA will sooner or later order RIFC plc/The Rangers Football Club Ltd to remove any suggestion in their marketing and selling of themselves to the investing public and the football world generally that it is Rangers Football Club of 1872 foundation.]

  8. From the DR’s Gavin Berry online earlier today:
    “Nils Koppen has been announced as Rangers’ new technical director.
    The Belgian was appointed as director of football recruitment at the Light Blues a year ago. He joined after after previous sporting director Ross Wilson left for Premier League Nottingham Forest. And now Koppen has been promoted into a more senior position.”
    Another indication of how hard-up for cash RIFC plc must be? Not able to afford a head-hunting exercise, so promote in-house?
    There seems to be no department of RIFC plc that has been run anywhere near efficiently- including the PR ‘department’
    The upcoming AGM will be very interesting, indeed.

  9. On the subject of AGMs. The upcoming Celtic meeting has a resolution (9) requesting support for disapplication of pre-emption rights.I remember this being a thorny subject for TRFC in the past as it has the potential to dilute existing shareholder position. Generally I believe it is a way of raising new investment which begs the question why a company currently rolling in clover need new cash?

  10. Apologies if my post raised any fires…nothing to see here, having looked back at previous AGM it seems the same resolution is passed annually ,almost as an ‘if we need to’ permission slip.

  11. gunnerb
    19 November 2024 at 19:38
    ‘…The upcoming Celtic meeting has a resolution (9) requesting support for disapplication of pre-emption rights’
    ++++++
    I think it’s a fairly routine thing for a resolution calling for dis-application of pre-emption rights’ [ on a temporary basis] is proposed by the Celtic board at AGM’s. It has been on the agenda of several recent AGMs.
    I suppose it gives power to the Board to allot shares to potential (significant ) shareholders that they might think it worthwhile having as a shareholder at a below-current evaluation?
    I don’t think there is any cash-flow problem at Parkhead.

  13. Mark Pirie in today’s DR online has ‘reported’ this:
    ‘Defiant Michael Beale has issued a firm defence of his managerial record as he put the blame on his flops on unseen “snakes” behind the scenes.
    And speaking to ‘Inside the Academy’, the Londoner has claimed that his decision-making was impacted by unseen forces behind the scenes at some of his clubs: “Around a couple of the moves I’ve had as a manager, I saw loads of snakes and people come out of the woodwork. And I didn’t like it. It made me uncomfortable, and perhaps I would’ve made better decisions if those people weren’t around, but that’s for another time.”
    I would suggest that making whingeing observations like that will do him no good. If the ‘snakes’ were players or coaching staff he should have shown them the door, and if not allowed to do that by the Board (of whichever club) he should have walked as a matter of principle.
    In my view, working with ‘snakes’ is a no-no (unless you’re a zoologist!)

  14. John Clark
    18 November 2024 at 00:13

    “What we stated at the meeting was that newco wants to continue where oldco was. We have this slight anomaly where, for a period, newco were not members of the SFA from 14 June until being granted membership on 3 August. It was those technical issues which caused some consternation but I was very encouraged with the meeting. It is still my position that these players breached their contracts and we are going to pursue them.”

    TUPE or not TUPE

  15. bigboab1916
    20 November 2024 at 21:22
    ‘…TUPE or not TUPE’
    ++++++++
    Well spotted , bigboab. ( I forgot to cite the source of the quotation!)
    Naismith and the other few new that their contracts were null and void and that CG could go raffle his doughnuts.
    And their union rep knew that as well.
    TUPE had no scope because there was no transfer of ownership of RFC of 1872 as a going concern to a new owner!
    There was only the sale of the non-human assets of failed football club. Contracts of employment were automatically ended by Liquidation, and all of the players and other employees under contract were absolutely free to walk away if they had chosen so to do.
    The incompetent Administrators could not save the club by securing a CVA.
    CG bought a bundle of assets from a club in Administration and the club dropped into Liquidation and, when the Liquidation process ended, the club was dissolved and struck from the register of Companies.

  17. Albertz11
    20 November 2024 at 22:26
    “…Sent you this in June 2023…”
    ++++++++++
    Thank you, Albertz11.
    I have, of course read that Judgment.
    I’m not quite sure what point you are making, if any.
    The judgment simply upheld the ET’s view that the Professional Footballers’ Association Scotland was a recognised Trade Union, entitled to represent its members in their dispute with a new company which was wrongly claiming to own the contracts that those members had had with a company that had gone into Liquidation.
    It was not in any way confirming that TRFC was/is RFC of 1872.

  19. bigboab1916
    21 November 2024 at 16:32
    ++++
    Yes, bigboab1916.
    None of those who maintain that TRFC is the Rangers of 1872 has been able to prove their case!
    Why not?
    Because it cannot possibly in law be the case that a liquidated and dissolved entity can still exist in business!
    The truth is that the RFC of the four young men was done to death by a majority shareholder [who suffered no personal loss] when he, in effect, killed that football club by running into huge debt, and then baling out for £1.00 to sell the heart of RFC of 1872 to the likes of CW!
    Honest to God!
    What a wholly unholy arrangement that was!
    As a wee boy I read stories about valiant knights fighting for truth and honour.
    There was little of truth and honour in the field of Scottish professional football when RFC of 1872 was in dire straits
    In my opinion.

  20. The weather reports all week have been indicating problems for travel on Friday/Saturday. Now the fans for Rangers/Dundee have to sit around waiting for a kick off time that has been moved a few times. Are the financial positions of some clubs so bad that they can’t afford to travel the day before a game, stay in a hotel, rather than risk travelling in the aftermath of a storm and causing a delay in the start of a game. Also what does that do for the preparation and readiness of the team spending hours on a bus. Again we have Mr. Haji complaining about his son’s treatment at Rangers. This has to be embarassing for his son. Surely someone in his mid 20’s, a professional footballer, can handle his own wars. And, finally I see Barry Ferguson has become almost a full time reporter for the DR. Is there not an area of football that he is not prepared to offer a comment on. Could someone put the EBT issue in front of him for a comment.

  21. Can RIFC plc afford to sign up Lord Offord as their next CEO? Or can he afford to be linked with a football club that is not what it claims to be?
    What would motivate him to assume such a position? Would he be allowed time to address the realities of the financial situation? Is he to be RIFC’s Fergus, ready to put his own where his mouth is? Is he Dave King’s idea?

  22. John Clark 24/11 10.28

    Chairman not CEO
    Not even a consideration
    We’ll soon find out
    If he accepts the position then he’s comfortable with the situation.
    No
    No.

    His name was mentioned over three weeks ago so not a big surprise tbh.
    Patrick Stewart’s name however was a surprise to many.

  23. From the fortnightly political magazine “Holyrood” of 01 November last year (2023) there is this from Louise Wilson’s interview with Malcolm Offord:
    “Growing up, Offord says his family were “small-C conservatives”, though never party political. That may seem unusual given Greenock’s political history. The town has never elected Conservative MP or MSP. Indeed, you’d have to go back as far as 1931 to find a parliamentarian that was neither Labour nor SNP. The minister says there was “a feeling we were a little bit different” to those around him, though he adds there were “quite a lot of what you would call working class Tories”. “They were just a creed that said that one should work hard, try and be as self-reliant as possible, take responsibility, and get educated and prove oneself. And that’s a basic, common creed; a very typical Scottish, small-C conservative belief.”

    He only realised he was a big-C Conservative when he moved to London in the late 1980s. He owes his successful career in asset management and private equity to the so-called Big Bang in 1986. “I related that directly to the Conservative Party. That was [Chancellor] Nigel Lawson basically deregulating financial markets, allowing enterprise to flourish. And so that would be the point where I said, right, I am now a Conservative.”

    With that in mind, he began making donations to the party because he “felt that they were my party and I should support them”. Interestingly, though, he did not become a fully paid-up member until recently, when he decided to run to become an MSP. He was placed fifth on the Scottish Conservative’s Lothian list for 2021 and so failed to gain a seat, but less than five months later it was announced he was to be made a life peer and Scotland Office minister under Boris Johnson.

    That inevitably raised questions and accusations of cronyism. Offord had donated just shy of £150,000 over a 15-year period – but he categorically denies that had anything to do with his elevation to the Lords. He describes the phone call from Scottish Secretary Alister Jack inviting him into government as “completely out of the blue” and insists there was “no expectation” that he would be offered such a role when he made the donations.”
    —
    Will he splash the cash for RIFC plc, I wonder, to save it from itself?

    • It must be truly awful for the SMSM these days, compared to the halcyon days under David Murray. They Lorded it for years with a blank cheque from a Scottish owned bank. When that bank fell out of Scottish hands, they then decided to let the taxpayer fund their success. Never were the SMSM happier than they were in those days, and their continued celebrating of the managers and successes of that era shows they really don’t care how success is funded at Ibrox, they just want a return to those days. Yet it was admitted in a court of law that the illegally administered EBT’s were used to attain a level of player that otherwise could not be afforded. Why on earth would ANY journalist want to celebrate that?

  24. “Neil Lennon has urged Celtic to turn off the Rangers title bragging tap by matching their rivals’ haul of 55.’
    Apparently, this appeared in the DR yesterday.
    How they must enjoy having chumps like Lennon support the myth that TRFC even existed prior to 2012 to take part in any sporting competition let alone win 55 titles!
    Never particularly took to Lennon, I confess, and I could see him far enough now, for lending support to an actual, factual untruth.

  25. Albertz11
    24 November 2024 at 11:03
    ‘…John Clark 24/11 10.28

    ..Chairman not CEO ..’
    +++++++
    Apologies to you and all, Albertz11. I think I meant to write ‘Chairman’!
    I take it that your first ‘no’ is your reply to whether he would be a ‘Fergus’? I was thinking along the lines of him becoming a significant shareholder as well as Chairman, and therefore able to exercise powerful influence over the Board rather than a mere ’employee’ and able to be definitive about the business plan that (by all accounts) is required to be in place for a season or two, a plan that would have to insist on urgent financial retrenchment etc etc.
    Your second ‘no’ must be to the question as to whether Lord Offord might be DK’s man?
    If you’re right, then things might become very interesting, for us outsiders.
    Can Offord work the oracle and, basically, save RIFC plc/TRFC from Administration while retaining the support of the fans?
    A good few bob is needed now if the season is to be half-salvaged.
    Will there be a significant share issue if ‘pre-exemption rights suspension’ was authorised at the recent AGM?
    (As a wee aside, will the fact that the expected Chairman is a Peer of the Realm, a status higher than a mere ‘Sir’, raise expectations that ‘twice as much’ as another club spends will be spent!)

  26. I found it interesting that the latest Ranger’s appointment was in the director’s box on the weekend. How ironic if this appointment turned out to end in the same frame as the last major appointment who sat in the hallowed box before being trmpeted as the most recent saviour. Let the dreams continue.

  27. This is from ‘Rangers News’ from Cameron Willis
    “John Gilligan pulls brakes on new Rangers appointment amid swirling Ibrox reports
    Mon 25 November 2024 14:00 ”
    ++++++
    What is it with RIFC plc that they can’t get people to keep their mouths shut?
    Even the most unprincipled of sports journalists have to have had some nod and a wink, some suggestion of fact or expression of expectancy before they can embellish stories!
    The world and his/her/their partner believes that his Lordship of Garvel will be Chairman of RIFC plc!
    Gilligan as at 2.00 p.m. today seems not to be too sure!
    Not that I’m bothered, just curious.

  29. nawlite
    26 November 2024 at 10:24
    ‘…JC, interesting to see there are many others who share your view of the FCA!’
    +++++++++++++++++++
    nawlite, thanks for posting that link. I must dig out such communications with the FCA as I had years ago now when I tried to query the Prospectus. They eventually ignored me. That was not long before the FCA Adrew Bailey became Governor of the Bank of England.
    I suspected then that there was no will on the FCA’s part even to check what I said I believed were the facts.
    And given that a trusted body like the BBC Trust cowed BBC Scotland into making a false distinction between ‘company’ and ‘club’ I was really hacked off!
    I still harbour doubts about the integrity of supposed ‘regulatory’ or ‘governance’ bodies. Learning that hundreds of others have doubts cheers me up!

  30. Just for fun I give you this: I had written to the Insolvency Service and they took quite a time to reply.
    Eventually I got this:
    “The nature of your enquiry – “I have not received a reply to a letter addressed personally to the Chief Executive officer Mr Dean Beale posted to the Manchester office on 8th December 2020.
    Today is 3rd February 2021.
    I appreciate that the effects of the Christmas/New year holiday were exacerbated by the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic, and I do not wish to underestimate those effects on routine administration.
    I would, however, be glad to receive at least an acknowledgement of receipt of said letter.
    The letter relates to the claim made by a plc in Prospectus to its IPO in 2012 that it is the holding company of a football club that is the ‘most successful football club in the world’, whereas in fact the ‘most successful football club in the world’ went into Liquidation in 2012.
    In fact, the football of which the plc in question is the holding company was created only in 2012, and was admitted into professional football for the first time in 2012.
    If I need to, I shall copy the original letter if somehow the original has not been received.
    If you can respond to this email soon, I shall be very grateful.”
    —-
    And there was no meaningful follow-up.
    No querying by the Insolvency Service as to how a newly formed plc could claim to be the holding company of a liquidated football club!
    I would have thought that that kind of thing was maybe of interest to the Insolvency Service.
    —
    And what an education that the whole death of Rangers of 1872 has given us about the business and governance of football as a Sport, in Scotland.
    Lie after lie…by governance bodies for filthy lucre’s sake, and f..k the concept of ‘sporting integrity’!
    And the thing is……they know they are liars!
    Not a one of our football governance people goes to bed in innocence of heart.
    God bless the poor gutless wretches.
    Honest to God.

  31. ‘Rangers boss has already held talks with new CEO Stewart’
    I laughed at that ‘headline (in the Scotsman online at 20.38 this evening)
    Is it not more likely that it was the new CEO was the one who ‘held talks’ with someone who will on 16 December become his underling?
    Honest to God, a football team manager whose jacket is on a very shoogly peg is in no position to be the one who decides to ‘have talks’ with the guy who will, in all probability, be the guy who terminates his contract on or about 16 December!
    I don’t know whom I despise more: dishonourable people in the business of football governance or ‘soi-disant ‘journalists’
    Well, naw, I do know.
    The grubby world of professional football and its untruths is as nothing compared with untruthfulness in the world of ‘journalism’.
    The SMSM including BBC Scotland, bought into the untruth that RIFC plc is the holding company of the now recently dissolved Rangers Football!

  32. I’m intrigued by this, by Scott Burns, on the DR online an hour or so ago..
    “Rangers have raided Aberdeen to appoint Kevin Bain as their new head physio.
    The Light Blues have headhunted the Dons head of medical, who was taken to Pittodrie by Jim Goodwin in 2022. He is seen as one of the top physios in the country with an impressive record of injury prevention.”
    It’s an aspect of the Sport that I know virtually nothing about, never having given it much thought.
    Anybody able to fill me in on the subject?
    ‘Head of medical’ sounds quite significant. Who gets into that line and what qualifications are required and does every club have to have a medically qualified doctor/physio on its staff?
    And is there much of a transfer market for physios?

  34. paddy malarkey
    3 December 2024 at 22:37

    ‘While the company owning Rangers FC was liquidated in 2012, it had
    previously sold the club to another company, thus enabling the
    club, which had to restart at the fourth domestic league level,
    to retain its old records’
    +++++
    Thank you, paddy malarkey.
    There is encapsulated the big lie told to UEFA and the international football world!
    The football club was not sold to a new owner!
    The football club lost its share in the SPL and in consequence lost its membership of the SFA.
    And all the liars in the SPFL and SFA cannot get away with the lie that CG bought RFC of 1872 out of administration and liquidation.
    CG bought nothing but a bundle of assets sold to him by guys that are now millionaires!
    We are dealing with bad, bad distorters of truth in the SMSM when it comes to reporting the truth about the death of RFC of 1872.
    In my humble opinion.
    Honest to God, that I should live in such a rotten ‘sports’ environment!
    Does ma heid in!

  36. bigboab1916
    4 December 2024 at 22:47
    ‘…Then how could this fixture not be fufilled……’
    +++++++
    bigboab1916, thank you for that link.
    It reminds us all that the Truth was initially acknowledged.
    And then (my hands are shaking as I write!) evil sods (as they are in my opinion) turned truth to falsehood.
    And a too readily compliant SMSM bought wholeheartedly into the Big Lie!
    The thing is, they know, they KNOW, that they lie.
    And on their very deathbeds they will know that they die as dishonourable persons.
    Not worth grieving for, whether as ‘journalist’ or as persons with duties of governance of Scottish football.
    And the rest of Scottish Football bought into the lie.
    Honest to God!

  38. paddy malarkey
    6 December 2024 at 19:16
    ‘…A tonic for the troops…’ link
    ++++++++++++
    “Lawyer Stephen McGowan, representing Rangers Football Club, said the club want to “enhance hospitality and the match day experience” for fans.
    He told this morning’s licensing board that places in the marquee must be pre-booked with no walk-ins allowed and there is a 200 capacity limit”

  39. re my post at 16.55 above. Apologies, I pressed send before I wrote what I was intending to say.
    I won’t bother now, it was just a point about how that arrangement could be managed and how a significant profit could be made?

  40. Well, tonight’s game was certainly not an exhibition of upper-end footballing brilliance, except perhaps that I would say both goalies did pretty well.
    I can’t remember a game between any two clubs, even in the lowest UEFA competition, where there were quite so many faulty passes and gifts to the opposition as there were tonight!
    To be fair, plenty of grit and determination, but at that kind of level of football that we tend to see in the lower leagues.
    One or two quite clever skills , but overall, two pretty mediocre teams .
    Nothing to sing the ‘national anthem’ about!
    ( I was in Wetherspoons on the corner of George Square in Glasgow this afternoon, absolutely unconnected with the game, and there was a number of Spurs’ supporters there)

  41. t’s 7.30 pm on a Friday evening and I note that RIFC plc’s page on Companies House shows that a ‘Confirmation statement’ is overdue.
    Another example of somewhat less than ordinary, routine, by-the-diary date efficiency behind the scenes?
    I suppose a small fine will be imposed?
    Mr Stewart will surely have to kick some ass when he takes up post.

  42. Anent my post at 19.35 today, a sudden thought flashed through my mind a couple of minutes ago: what if RIFC plc is experiencing an identity crisis?
    Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they had suddenly realised that they are the holding company of TRFC of 2012 creation (company number SC425159) and NOT of RFC 2012 2012 plc (company number SC004276)? and should not be even hinting, let alone allowing it to be CLAIMED anywhere, that it is the holding company of Company number SC004276, the Rangers Football Club of the four young men, now dissolved!..
    …And that all the information in their annual reports and finance statements might conceivably raise questions about the truth-telling accuracy about who they actually are as a plc and what their revenue streams are based on.
    Potential investors need to be told the truth by any company seeking investment.
    If only we had some honest folk in sports governance, or in the sports press, or in BBC Scotland to ask the obvious question.
    What a Christmas ‘scoop’ it would be if, say, the world of Finance regulation were found to be reviewing company prospectuses for their truth-telling.
    Who knows?
    If the people of Syria can totally unexpectedly find truth in really, really serious matters, maybe we might find truth in the relatively inconsequent matter of football (with a wee nod to the late Bill Shankly!) if our Financial Conduct Authority/ Companies House/ other government agencies/finance houses did a wee bit of questioning now and then.
    “Santa baby, hurry down the chimney tonight” (I was 10 when that song was released, I note with surprise!)

  43. Remember this, anybody?
    from the ‘Sun’

    “TRADE SECRET Celtic and Rangers jointly renew ‘Old Firm’ trademark week before Hoops insist ‘we’re not half of anything’
    Stewart Fisher
    Published: 10:42, 10 Mar 2021Updated: 16:51, 10 Mar 2021”
    I had a wee look at that.
    Immediately I ‘fired off’ a query to the Intellectual Property government dept to ask for the company number of the ‘Rangers’ that is joint holder of the trademark ‘The Old Firm’.
    Is it RIFC plc, or TRFC Ltd? …..
    What good fun!
    And I will not forgive Lawwell and Celtic for accepting the untruth that TRFC is continuity Rangers of 1872 any more than I could accept the mealy-mouthed SFA as a governance body of sport and sporting truth.
    In my view it’s time to come clean in Scottish professional football.
    Face up to sporting, legal, business facts!

    • On this point John I would give Celtic a pass. We might not like the continued use of the term but it has a value and so makes sense for Celtic to protect their investment in that value. Let’s wait and see what value pops out of the arrangement…

  44. My post about Trademarks on 18 December 2024 at 00:08 refers:
    I give you this from the IPO’s website page under the heading ‘Trade Mark Details as at 28 March 2013’

    https://www.ipo.gov.uk/trademark/history/GB50000000002264673.pdf

    Date
    22 November 2018
    Type
    Recordal registration.
    Recordal type: Change owner details
    Text
    Change of owner details has been recorded due to recordal RC000116100 received on date 30/10/2018; owner(s) Celtic F.C.Limited (id: 218706), Sevco Scotland Limited (id: 613831)
    has been updated to
    owner(s): Celtic F.C.Limited (id: 218706) The Rangers Football Club Limited (id: 613862)

    Date
    22 November 2018
    Type
    Recordal registration.
    Recordal type: Full assignment
    Text
    Full Assignment RC000115952 received on date 30/10/2018 has been recorded, resulting to the change of ownership FROM
    Celtic F.C.Limited (id: 218706, country: GB),The Rangers Football Club plc (id: 613657, country: GB)
    TO Celtic F.C.Limited (id: 218706, country: GB),Sevco Scotland Limited (id: 613831, country: GB). The effective date of assignment is 14/06/2012.
    Date
    21 November 2018
    Type
    Edit owner
    Text
    Name and address details were amended.”
    ______
    There is a bit of jiggery-pokery going on there, in my opinion. The IPO clearly saw a distinction between The Rangers of 1872 and SevcoScotland by giving them different ID numbers.
    I think I may have a very serious bone to pick with the IPO, in its apparent readiness to suddenly accept that TRFC was continuity ‘Rangers’. If bighands had bought Rangers of 1872 there would have been no need to tell IPO because nothing would have changed in terms of the trademark ownership!
    And that backdating! FFS!! Stinks!
    As my dear friend Hamlet frequently tells me, ‘Something is rotten’.. [ in the state of government agencies in their inability to cope with the shock of the death of RFC of 1872]
    Even more rotten is the participation of those in the world of ‘journalism’ who help sustain and broadcast a lie.
    How can they (and, of course, they know who they are) look in the mirror and even begin to think they are any kind of journalist like those, for example, reporting from war ravaged areas?
    Am I right or a meringue!

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