The buzzphrase in Scottish football recently has been ‘title stripping’. Specifically referring to Rangers, of course, in relation to an isolated appeal which saw success for HMRC following two defeats.
Consequently the media has gone into a mass frenzy, with everyone and his dog having something to say on the affair and more than one ‘journalist’ again using Rangers to further their own careers and agendas.
However, the mass outpouring of froth from Scottish football fans in general has been the most notable, with almost every fan not of an Ibrox persuasion getting on their sanctimonious soap box and demanding the BIG BAD RANJURS be relieved of all titles won between 2001 and 2010.
None of these groups have stood out more than Celtic fans, with Parkhead’s finest latching onto this defeat in the courts like moths to a flame and committing moral outrage crying out for all titles won in this period to be given to them, or at least, stripped entirely.
One wonders why? Why have Celtic fans gone into meltdown despite the fact so many of their illustrious icons disagree? The likes of Martin O’Neil, Chris Sutton, Paul Lambert, Kenny Dalglish, Jackie McNamara and even high-profile ex SPFL chairman and Celtic faithful Roger Mitchell have laughed the notion off entirely?
Could it be that a certain scandal in the distant past, the biggest scandal in Scottish football history, remains a blight on Celtic’s history and they are using Rangers’ misfortune to try to ‘beat’ it in the outrage stakes? Could many of these fans, so ashamed of what happened within Celtic Boys’ Club all those years ago, be trying to make Rangers’ tax woes seem so much worse than the crime committed within their own halls?
It really does seem pretty bizarre that a tax case could cause so much fury among said fans, when their figureheads could not really give so much as a damn about it (you know, ex-players and managers who actually won/lost stuff during this period).
Of course, this is conjecture on my (and many of my peers) part. Maybe these supporters really do just feel football injustice that they were not good enough to beat Rangers on the pitch so want to invalidate any success from Govan during that time.
Or maybe they wish the biggest scandal in Scottish football to suddenly not be as big a deal.
After all, tax issues are much more serious than the health, wellbeing and futures of children, are they not?
Well, considering those trophies were won by cheating, I can see their point. And no, its not just Celtic fans… Even clubs that were runners up in the cups want the titles stripped.
talking crap again, not paying tax is no were near as bad as kiddie fiddling, or like jim mcclean giving out 7 yr contracts at a pittance, yet again rangers win the first 2 courts appeals lose the third and you idiots are on the wagon, titles are going nowere end of twats
Boring!!!!!
Since when was offering sweeteners to players who WERE GOING TO SIGN ANYYWAY cheating?
Cheating my arse ! Falsifying gate receipts throughout the 60's and 70'''s and therefore doing the other league clubs AND the tax man out of their proper dues IS cheating ! Any title stripping should start there , with the morally bankrupt club that practiced this on a regular basis !
Or maybe Scottish football fans simply want a level playing field where there is no need for ANY club to cheat to win cups and trophies.
Or maybe Scottish football fans don't want involved with clubs that are caught up in kiddy fiddling cases
Jesus wept man
What is it you don't get.
Rangers documented EBT's in their annual accounts, no one batted an eyelid as it was a legal loophole.
Call it immoral if you want but just remember all the clubs whose bank debt were wiped off with no questions asked.Think of all those bananas thrown at Mark Walters.Think of Phil O'Donnells family thinking WTF when Peter postponed the up-coming Rangers game.Now by f**k ,those were immoral
You make a cogent point. It could be boiled down to the question. What is the more heinous and shameful?
Abuse of tax? or, abuse of children?
Second one definitely abuse of children is the worst crime ever, a point that seems to be trying to get swept under the carpet in this debate notice all the Timmy trolls replies not mentioning it & this is what the blog was about you want the truth, THEY CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH remember remember the 12th of November the day the man Tommy burns tried to defend was convicted of heinous crimes against children despicable
It goes on in prodie churchs as well
To be fair though, I don't think they did that to try and gain a sporting advantage.
Well said and they can sweep it under the carpet all they want Alan Brazil for one knows the truth and I'm pretty sure theres a lot more too ashamed of the vile acts they had to endure ….it's rife through their so called church of sanctity…no sanctity within those walls from the highest to the lowest …despicable….!!
Whilst I normally I agree with most of what you write I think child abuse wherever it happens is abhorrent so let us not stoop to the level of our enemies by raising the subject within the context of football rivalry we are better than that.
A know, you know & sum big guy knows that I would rather have no history than have that clubs history, now couple of points here, point 1 if they want us stripped of titles does this mean we are still the same club to them. Point 2 you mention celtic icons 1 of these being chris Sutton, well google Chris Sutton bankrupt & see what answers you get for that, dodgy deals I say wasn't his fault mind you took bad financial advice
on point 1 – clearly the old club cheated to win the titles, therefore having those title 'wins' stricken from the record will suffice. And just to clarify, the club playing in the Scottish Championship is not the same as the club that cheated to win those tainted titles. It's old rainjurs that cheated.
No thoughts on point 2, c'mon you know you want to, a know you want to, some big guy knows you want to,, hell the man who was convicted of heinous crimes many years ago today at your club knows you want to happy anniversary remember remember the 12th of November the at torbett towers was convicted
What about the gate receipts Timmy . Are you prepared to give up your 9 in a row ?
Rangers may have used a then legal loophole now this loophole is deemed cheating, Rangers have already been punished yet Celtic fans want them punished again, if someone robbed a bank off £5 million and someone else robs a bank for £1 million both people are guilty of the same offence, people wishing for furter punishment to Rangers better hope there team had not used EBT's as they have not yet been punished, oh deer all these Celtic fans who want further action i hope you realise your club used the same then legal tax avoidence loophole, does that make your club cheats?.
In the matter of sporting integrity an illegal transfer embargo was imposed on Rangers which Rangers won thier battle against it in a court of law, this embargo seemed to give other clubs an unfair sporting advantaģe, be careful what you wish for or Rangers may end up far better off as compensation may even be in order.
Gate reciepts have nothing to do with it was not a court case
What old club? SPFL say same club…think we'll go with them eh timothy… spfl.co.uk/clubs/rangers/
savile was a court case did he give his gold medals back to the so called church ????
I take from the all this ebt fiasco that other clubs involved are being hounded for loss of titles and taxes owed.
Will rangers being supposedly stripped of titles lead to other clubs punished for ebt violations.
Faux anger about about a tax avoidance scheme used by thousands of companies. Still being used in one form and another though this latest judgement obviously impacts. Arsenal won titles while using EBTs but that was OK because they paid up. But how does that take away the so called sporting advantage while they were winning trophies… One law for Arsenal one for Rangers. I also assume Celtic fans don't use Google, Facebook, Amazon because of their immoral use of tax avoidance schemes. Even better to try and equate the EBT situation to Lance Armstrong's drug taking is absolutely bizarre. No the truth is we are a nasty divided little nation that now appears to have replaced public opinion with the views of demented bloggers and half wits on social media and phone ins aided and abetted by trashy printed media. Murray made a bad choice Rangers have clearly suffered for it. Move on and let us get Scottish football off its knees.
the common misunderstanding is this, ebt's were ok, if administered correctly, no argument there. the problem arises when you hide the ebt's from the authorities when registering the player, like mr. black did. break the3 rules, face the consequences.
The rider which you must add is that Sir David DID make a pay-back offer like Arsenal.In fact,his was a better offer but was refused ? Why ? because we're Rangers.
The rider which you must add is that Sir David did make a similar offer to Arsenal's but his was rebuffed.
as most of our great players were at Rangers before the introduction of EBT'S ill or advised or not we were a better team than the rest without EBT you need to admit defeat on A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD …..DEFEATED NOT CHEATED now grow up and move on
We are the David Watts of Scottish Football.
When they all lie on their pillows at night, they wish they could be like the famous Glasgow Rangers.
Where does it end ? If gers are stripped of titles it means any board members past or in the future are done for tax evasion fraud or any illegal activities whilst on the clubs board surely all trophies in that time would be void as we'd presume his ill gotten gains would have been used to strengthen team thus giving them an unsporting advantage
I reckon that the problem is that we had a team that we couldn't have afforded otherwise. I suppose it's akin to getting unlimited money on Football Manager. Not one single footballer wants them stripped, as the game is played on the park, not in the banks. Not how fans perceive it. We play from the stands.
The SPL decided not to investigate Celtics use of an EBT benefiting Juninho because the Brazilian didn’t receive his cash until AFTER he’d left Glasgow. However, now that the 2nd Appeal decided any payment is to treated as income, then maybe the SFA should revisit their decision.
you moron celtic paid money owed to the tax man when they found out it was illegal. did your dead club even attempt to pay back what was due.
Celtic paid the money to the tax man THREE YEARS after they had handed it over to Juninho. And as a wee aside – they had NOT notified the football authorities of the bonus paid.
But they did pay it though, right?
Lol, love that sweet silence from the Rankers fans…
Not being a huge football fan myself I disagree in part to your points made, I do think that some punishment should be enforced onto Rangers old or new. They did infact cheat the whole game by bringing in players at huge costs and not paying tax for them.
I work in the financial industry and if I had done the same I would be punished, so my point is that maybe not strip titles but hit them in the pockets and fine them
What about Real Madrid when they had a $800 million tax bill which they could not pay and the city of Madrid wrote it off as Real said they would leave. Are you going to take away their titles as they could not and did not pay for a lot of this tax bill. How about Star Buck do you still drink the coffee they only paid $6 on a $4.5 billion profit in your country.
Excellent article in the Gaurdian today ,yes strip Rangers of the titles give them to the runners up ,them shut down Scottish football when these other clubs go into bankruptcy paying the bonuses to the players and other staff that are due these win bonuses.and there is also they money that would have to be paid back to Euefa for money paid to Scottish clubs due to the fact Rangers actually reached european participation. Then see the mess that will be left
learn to spell donkey
Is it not the way you spelt it also donkey has also been spelt donkey ya donkey
Learn to construct proper sentences, ya illiterate donkey.
When the decision of the tax case appeal came out we had the legendary former Celtic player Darren Odea tweeting yes I have just doubled my medals to four then one of the morning rags say at last we have found a Celtic player who wants the titles taken away they trace him to Mumbai in India( playing cricket maybe ) and interview him Low and behold he then says he is not interested in the medals but only in the club being stripped of the title a complete reverse of what he said in his tweet this sums up exactly the attitude shown towards our club in this whole situation
hahaha all the tims on here. where did rangers cheat? what law was broken? Fully disclosed everything apart from small admin errors… no sporting advantage was gained! yeez are as ever, howling at the moon. And for the people saying we shouldn't talk about child abuse….. YES WE SHOULD!!!! We should be reminding these people for the rest of their lives what they did. What kind of example does it set saying things like, this should be kept a secret and never spoken of. God forbid if any child you know becomes a victim of Celtics horrible crimes they to will believe these things are better kept a secret. Keeping silent about abuse puts you in the same boat as the abuser…. In the words of the Celtic legend Billy McNeil under oath… "It was an open secret at Celtic park"… ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS TELL THE POLICE!!!!
Hear hear. It really is astounding that these idiotic tims think you can pick and chose which ruling you adhere to and which laws are to be obeyed. The sweep sweep brigade are on overtime this last week. The youngsters abused will never forget and I for 1 will never forgive using the death of an ex player to gain advantage. The glorification of ira terrorism is possibly the worst. Get to fuck the lot of ye our titles are going nowhere
Why be exclusive to Celtic fans, fek all to do with Celtic, they don't want the silverware. All Fans want to see justice done and stripping of unfairly won titles should be the least of rangers worries. The oldco/newco same team debate will come back to bite you, simply because the team won those titles, the team played player who broke registration rules so the current team being the same team et al could find themselves heavily punished not just by the SFA but UEFA.
If EUFA GET INVOLVED IT'S TA TA TO THE SFA WHEN THEIR CORRUPTION IS UNVEILED.
Thats not the reason that they want the titles stripped that lot will take everything they can get for nothing including the the tainted titles that there getting now, titles won before a ball is kicked in august,they want those titles so they can overtake Glasgow Rangers the most successful football club in the world,they want to be able to say that about their lot, but hey they can try their hearts out because its not going to happen
Çheck our Chairman's most recent statement. Fiduciary responsibility must be adhered to by all people connected , officially, to all Scottish clubs. Read very carefully what he has stated. What is spouted on social media is mainly by crass, ill informed nonentities who have never contributed anything positive to football at any level. Free country and we pay our admission money, I hear them cry. Well remember the cash Rangers fans spent in the 4th and 3rd tiers and now in the Championship. Queens Park and two home league matches with over 40k spectators probably took close on half a million in gate receipts. Negative brain cells cannot cope with facts such as these. Tax case is unfinished business. Years ahead yet and Rangers will not flinch.
will the Tim "ANONYMOUS" piss off .What you doing on a Gers forum?.
Couldnt care less about past achievements.rangers won them regardless of how much money they threw at players. But what the gers fans to refuse to grasp is that they avoided paying millions. If they do go back into liquidation and eventually die completely then it will give them something to remember as they look back on the empty void that once was their club. Maybe some good will come from it.such as the hateful bigotry.
If Rangers were ever to disappear, which will not happen much as you dream of it, Scottish football would die. Nobody else, anywhere, is interested in Scottish Football without Rangers.
I know Celtic fans who spend 85-90% of their football conversations debating Rangers, how much they hate them, what should be stripped, what should be fined, etc, etc ad nauseam.
Interestingly enough, the other 10-15% of their time is spent going on about their second biggest obsession, Celtic. They never want to talk about the poor people whose lives were defiled and destroyed by their club. As Tefal said, an open seccret at Celtic Park. But their main obsession is Rangers. Strange that, when Celtic went through a crisis, before the Bunnet took all the fans' money, I spent about a minute a week laughing, then went back to my obsession. My own club, nobody else's club.
But then, I am not a Bitter And Twisted, or BATty Bhoy
I know it is a bit early but I have spent some time thinking about the Sports Personality of the Year. There can be only one winner for me. Mike Ashley.
If I were a fan of The Rangers I would be worried about their long term (perhaps medium term) viability. Serious question marks will be resolved regarding the sale of assets to Charles Green. Assets once values at circa £100m, sold for a tiny fraction. Waiting in the wings will be HMRC who will have a claim for most of that. If things go against The Rangers, HMRC will want the lot. The new/same company debate will be an irelevance.
Lets compare and contrast a while. Rangers Ebt scheme fully disclosed in annual accounts. Celtics Ebt scheme was not. Cheating is a clear intent to decieve is it not ?. Hows about Celtics notorious scheme of under reporting attendances under the white and kelly era. Were did that undisclosed income go ?. Not in payment of tax owed on that income that's for sure. Its ironic now that celtic do quite the reverse. 20000 in the stadium with 42000 declared !!!!.
Ironic also that Micheal Kelly was first to go on television shouting for Rangers to be stripped of titles , the fucking hypocrite !
Here's one for all the bitter twisted armchair supporting Celtic fans ……or Pacific shelf 595 fc …..big jock knew
An illegal vote by member clubs against Rangers, an illegal transfer embargo imposed on Rangers, an illegal demand by an extremely corrupt FIFA calling on the SFA to punish Rangers for taking the SFA to a court of law, a defence against illegal actions is the law, now we know why FIFA can't have Fa's contesting court cases (thier secret may have came out). As all this happened prior to liquidation Rangers lost over £45 million worth of players for nothing, major apoligies should be in order rather than calling for tittle stripping, after all these offences administered on Rangers prior to liquidation would drive any company to bankrupcy, all clubs involved in the vote,the SFA and FIFA should all be severely punished through the law courts and forced to cough up for Rangers loses then the HMRC may actually be able to get their money they think that they are due for a scheme thousands of companies used was Rangers being a test case a racist thing as Several English clubs used the scheme to a far larger amount of tax avoidence than Rangers, Rangers offer HMRC a far higher rate than Chelsea and Arsenal yet only the Scottish clubs offer not accepted or do HMRC have a sectarian agenda as only Rangers faced action when Celtic used the same scheme. Please don't get me started on the media's involvement, selectiveness by the media is not freedom of speach where the media are concerned it's biased. Rangers in public opinion morraly did wrong, legally didn't yet the media witchunt led to public opinion trying to force action against Rangers, it's time to get over it as Rangers have been punished and accepted it, why can't people move on now and try to save Scottish football and not destroy it?, in my opinion Rangers should take all these points at the top to the European courts but they have chosen to accept and moved on, END OF.
Do certain rangers fans resent a proddy for managing celtic?
Big Jock Knew?? Not according to the judge. Check it out.
We have checked it out and nothing was proven against big jock but most quarters said he had suspicions and knew but stayed quiet about it so what you are saying is it wasn't proven in court so ha ha he got off you are a sick man don't like Celtic but most of their fans are alright you are a fud
The abuse of children should NEVER be swept under the carpet,and Celtic FC should never be allowed to forget how they were responsible for the biggest scandal in British football history.
As to the "old Rangers" and "dead club" nonsense,you do realise,again,that sheet hatred/biterness will not make anything a fact. ALL football governing bodies together with the word of LAW have decreed Rangers FC to be the exact same club it's that simple..and they make the rules not a bunch of deluded bitter folk who pretend to support a club in the East end responsible for the most shameful episode in Scottish sporting history. Check out the following website ….and before you all start frothing at the gums remember this. It would be ILLEGAL,both civilly and criminally,for Rangers and the SPFL/SFA to say Rangers are the same club if untrue. Why not email Companies House to complain…and let us know how you get on. But remember what happened when you (twice) tried that with the Advertising Standards Authority. 🙂
spfl.co.uk/clubs/rangers/
We have. And he did. As did quite a few others within that sordid club.
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