Prompted by the official SPFL Twitter/X account the mainstream media are all on board the Happy Bus promoting this years Scottish Cup Final.
Showing all of their traditional laziness, the issues that are sending their industry into the abyss, it is a case of all systems go for the first O** F*** final since 2002. The SPFL seems very keen to promote the SFA competition as they countdown to their dream fixture on May 11.
That of course conveniently overlooks some very uncomfortable FACTS! over the last 22 years such as administration of Rangers followed by the liquidation that has still to be completed.
In February 2012 the club that beat Celtic in the 2002 Scottish Cup Final with players that were ineligible through dual contracts went into administration, cancelling their debts and accounts with 276 companies and public bodies left holding pointless invoices.
HMRC were owed the bulk of the money, Rangers stopped passing on the Income Tax and National Insurance that they had claimed to have deducted from salaries. The players were unaffected while Her Majesty missed out with schools, hospitals and the Armed Forces going without in order to keep the wages of Kyle Lafferty and Allan McGregor’s topped up.
Football clubs also suffered, Rapid Vienna were owed money for Nicola Jelavic who was sold on to Everton at the end of the January transfer window. Arsenal and St Étienne were also owed transfer and loan fees while Scottish clubs including Dunfermline, Dundee United and Inverness Caley Thistle went unpaid for tickets sold by Rangers to their fans.
Over 6,000 fans bought Debentures in the early nineties, putting £7.7m into the club but were left with worthless certificates for their loyalty. The SPFL trophy has never been won in front of those fans, left grasping worthless certificates for 12 years like a losing lottery ticket.
For four months Duff and Phelps tried to find a buyer, various factions made noises about putting in bids and business plans to take the club out of administration but when it came to the crunch they all walked away.
The Scottish business community, the wealthy bankers and business barons in Edinburgh didn’t want to know with various ‘investors’ from the USA and Far East touted as saviours. After 15 minutes of publicity their interest in the toxic club and the debts built up by Dave Murray quickly cooled even before they got to look around the ‘data room’.
Eventually the comic figure that is Charles Green appeared on the scene, a gobby ‘businessman’ from Yorkshire with no obvious wealth who sang like a canary about how he would put the world to right and knock Barcelona and Real Madrid off their perch as the biggest clubs in the world.
When it came to the crunch Green was barely able to put together a CVA worthy of the name. Her Majesty and Dave King were among the creditors that rejected the flimsy deal as 140 years of a football club came to a halt.
Sharing the ‘tragic’ news the Daily Record, Herald, Scottish Sun, Evening Times, Scotsman, Express and Mail all led with front page stories as the creditors led by Queen Elizabeth of England turned down the plea by Green to save the institution.
Celtic and Rangers will meet in the @ScottishCup final for the first time since 2002! 👀@CelticFC | @RangersFC
— SPFL (@spfl) April 22, 2024
After the failed CVA and the front page news things became very cloudy in the mainstream as the factual reporting was punted sideways as the reality dawned that once the excitement was over their cherished O** F*** was dead, kaput. Gone like Third Lanark, Clydebank and Gretna.
Green was presented as having purchased Ibrox and Murray Park for £5.5m just a few years after those assets were valued at £130m to keep the club solvent.
Watching an outsider buy the crown jewels, which Craig Whyte held as a floating charge, stunned the old style bluenoses.
With Walter Smith fronting their consortium Douglas Park and Jim McCall tried to pressurise Green to hand over the cut price assets that he had obtained.
On 14 June 2012 Smith stated:
I can today confirm that following talks over the last few weeks I am leading a new bid for Rangers Football Club.
I have been assisted by Jim McColl, Douglas Park and other prominent Scottish businessmen with a shared objective – that Rangers Football Club should be in the hands of Rangers people who will stabilise the club and protect it from future situations like we find ourselves in today.
With this in mind, representatives have, on behalf of my group, made representations to BDO, Duff and Phelps and indeed Charles Green, notifying them of our willingness to offer on the “Newco” basis on which Mr Green is proceeding.
We would call on Mr Green to step aside and allow us to proceed with our deal which is in the best interests of the creditors, the employees, the fans and the various other stakeholders of Rangers Football Club.
Green was quick to reject offers for the cut price assets, like Ally McCoist Smith was brought on side for a salary, brogues and a blazer having wished the new Rangers club every success.
During that period with talks on going with the SFA the line started to take root that it was the company that had gone into liquidation, a football club will always survive and can just ditch their debts whenever they like.
If only Motherwell, Dundee, Partick Thistle and Livingston had known that they could have sidestepped the CVA process of agreeing terms with creditors and moving on.
Stewart Regan of the SFA and Neil Doncaster at the SPL knew that their comfy salaries and bonuses were under threat with half of the O** F*** deid, the CEO of the SFA even claimed that there would be civil unrest in Scotland without a Rangers club to act as a focal point for hatred and bigotry.
Thanfully Regan was forced out of office but Doncaster now heads up the SPFl for no obvious reason or benefit, recently the Board of the SPFL awarded him a two year notice period, largely since his future career options are extremely limited.
A shoddy deal was stitched up between the SFA, SPL, Scottish Football League, Duff & Phelps and Green that provided the new club with a place in Division 3 of the SFL, the Five Way Agreement is contrary to UEFA rules and has never been published. In the sumere of 2013 the SPFL was formed through the merger of the SPL and SFL, all to benefit the newest member of the SFA.
Asked at the 2019 if anyone at Celtic had been involved in the Five Way Agreement Peter Lawwell laughed and said that he hadn’t even seen it. A claim that he repeated at the 2023 AGM.
Scottish football clubs refused to ask questions about the Continuation Lie, the media was all on board as it allowed them to concoct the most ridiculous O** F*** stories imaginable as they talked up Ally McCoist’s new starts morning, noon and night.
No explanation was given over the reasons for Kyle Lafferty, Allan McGregor, Steven Whittaker and Steven Naismith walking away as free agents. TUPE was a bit too inconvenient as 140 year history was shoe-horned into every Ibrox related story.
The new club competed in the SFL Challenge Cup, later sponsored by Irn Bru, Petrofac and Tunnocks Caramel Wafers.
There was no European football, they started off in the first round of the League Cup and the same stage of the Scottish Cup but the gullible were all told that actually nothing had changed despite those awkward front pages from June 2012.
Now the media can wire in with all their predictable O** F*** cliches and claptrap as they amuse their elderly readers that this seasons cup finalists have a rivalry dating back over 100 years.
Funnily enough newspaper circulation has tanked since 2012, in Scotland at a far faster rate than elsewhere. The credibility of BBC Scotland and Sky Sports has been trashed as they try to push the Continuation Lie at every opportunity. The SFA and SPFL won’t comment as they try to entice sponsors to be associated with Scotland’s Shame.
The more that they push the lie the more ridiculous they appear, they know the uncomfortable truth with those pushing the porkies strongest heading in the same direction that Rangers did in 2012 when they ceased to exist with 276 creditors left out of pocket.
CLICK HERE for BBC Scotland report as Walter Smith offers the new Rangers Football Club the best of fortune.
CLICK HERE for the rumours about Crawford Allan quitting.
According to the evidence from Companies House, Sevco, renamed Rangers, were only incorporated in 2012 so Celtic couldn’t have played them in 2002. Glad I cleared that up for you pic.twitter.com/IhJ3cFhvhE
— Marcas O’Greachain (@MarcasOg135) April 22, 2024
The Rangers International formed in 2012.
The SFA tried to parachute them into the Premier League when they formed but every club in Scotland reminded the SFA of the small matter of rules.
— Papillon (@LucaCelli67) April 22, 2024
Celtic and Rangers(Mark II) will meet in the @ScottishCup final for the first time. FIXED IT FOR YOU, gaslighting no one since 2012
— Brian (@BmacTank) April 22, 2024
Celtic will play The Rangers in the final of the Scottish Cup. Contrary to reports, this won’t be the first SCF against them since 2002. This will be our first SCF ever against this 12 year old club.
— kevin mcgowan 76 (@kevinmcgowan76) April 22, 2024
Celtic and Sevco have never contested the Scottish Cup final.We know it. You know it.And most importantly,Sevco knows it. Rangers were liquidated in 2012.Their players could walk away for nothing. Sevco had to buy the history of the dead club. Hardly the actions of the same club.
— Den Byrne (@DenByrne2) April 22, 2024
And the myth gets perpetuated by the Media as usual.
— Minkster (@minkster36) April 22, 2024
Release the 5 way agreement pic.twitter.com/0cBX9URu0d
— CELTIC GLASGOW 🍀 (@NealonMichelle) April 22, 2024
I love that we all know. Makes it much more fun when the media entertains the myth.
— Alan Kelly (@karner78) April 23, 2024
*no. Incorrect. Please update your records. The 2002 final involved a club that is now defunct.
— Lynchian (@AtDaystrom) April 22, 2024
