Aberdeen v. Inverness Caledonian Thistle
Dundee v. Kilmarnock
Heart of Midlothian v. Hamilton Academical
Partick Thistle v. St. Johnstone
Ross County v. Motherwell
Raith Rovers v Falkirk
My working title for this article, which I started yesterday, was The Bold Firm but I was seduced by the aliterative appeal of duplicity and derby. I’m not the only one to have chosen this title on social media, but if you compare this piece with another one (by Timomouse) you can clearly see that the only connection is the title.
Scottish football is in rude health. Neil Doncaster was lying through his back teeth when he ludicrously conflated the rise in attendances in the Premier league last season with the anticipation of a Rangers return to the top tier. Would Doncaster have us believe that the box-offices throughout the country faced unprecedented demand due to Mark Warburton’s appointment? Did supporters from nine of the ten ‘provincial’ clubs that I have listed in my preface accurately predict that Rangers, who had just failed at Motherwell, would earn promotion at the second time of asking? How about the fans of Raith Rovers and Falkirk who meet tomorrow in the pick of the Scottish Championship games?
If you live in the North East, you are spoiled for choice with Ross County and Aberdeen both at home. On Tayside, Dundee and Kilmarnock look well-matched, and the game in Gorgie looks like providing a great afternoon of entertainment. In Glasgow, if you are fortunate enough to live in the West End or Kelvinside, why not drop by and marvel at the wonders of a mascot that was created under the influence of LSD, and hope that St Johnstone had an equally bad trip from Perth. The truth which is a stranger at Hampden was that clubs who do not have the spending power of Rangers only had Deila’s faltering Celtic between them and a cup win.There was also the lure of European football.
The New York Times, which is not buying Doncaster’s cold continuation fare, are calling the club from Ibrox, Rangers Sevco, which is a bit of a mouthful but accurately interprets the events of 2012 and Charles Green’s creation of a phoenix club. However Doncaster insists that showbusiness is back in Scottish football as Everton-supporting Joey Barton takes on the former Liverpool manager, Brendan Rodgers. However the Merseyside derby is an inordinately more civilized affair, as Liverpool reserve their real enmity for their other Mersey rivals, Manchester United, who knocked them off their perch. Willie Henderson laboured the point that at 34, Barton’s lack of pace is being exposed by the speed of the Scottish game. To exacerbate matters King pulled the plug on the Lescott deal, leaving Hill, who will be 38 next month, trying to shore up central defence. The only advantage of both was that they were out of contract, so as opposed to spending money to acquire talented players such as Sinclair (£3m),Gamboa (£1.02m) and Dembele (£500,000 development), Rangers have had to patch together a team of Dad’s Army misfits who have yet to be challenged by a leading Scottish club. With Celtic, Aberdeen and Hearts coming in quick succession, King’s latest lie, the ‘going for 55,’ rhetoric will be exposed. Doncaster seems to have forgotten these important clubs. How remiss of him.
King will have to return to the Hong Kong wishing/washing well of loan finance for Rangers to see out the season. Chairman Charlotte, who is on a masonic roll with the Scottish Judiciary, believes he can raise £4m of his £9m shortfall from the former incumbents of the Blue Room. If we were to believe Phil Mac, and on this occasion I take serious issue, King has been compelled to pay back the £5m he borrowed with £1.25m interest. This is inordinately unlikely. Rangers raised circa £10.5m from season ticket sales, which after VAT is deducted is a mere £8.4m. They received a broadcasting payment in August for winning The Championship and an undisclosed payment from 32 Red. This will round up their nett income to circa £9m. If they paid back £6.25m now they would be insolvent by Christmas. My information, from a source close to Ibrox, is that Barry Scott and Andrew Ross are trustees in King trust funds, where he squirrelled away funds via his ownership of NOSA. He used this company to evade tax and breach South African currency export restrictions. SARS, who were fully aware of his career criminal artifice, insisted on NOSA being repatriated to South Africa. King would not have agreed to this if he had nothing to hide. The RIFC accounts, when they are published next month, will be instructive.
In regard to duplicity, one wonders when King will be charged with the £25,000 procurement of misappropriated data? When will Mr Stevenson face charges? The following article was sent to me on Twitter this morning. I have redacted one piece of information in the original article:
“Amid an on-going investigation by Police Scotland into leaks of private emails, documents & sound recordings relating to Rangers football club and the saga which ultimately led to the club’s demise into insolvency, it has now emerged from sources at Scotland’s Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service(COPFS) that retired & currently serving Police officers may be implicated in the burgeoning scandal. According to prosecutors, the revelations if true, may make it difficult for Police Scotland to impartially investigate the affair.
Sources within the Crown Office identified allegations contained in material now in the possession of prosecutors which refer to possible discussions between former Police Officers and serving Police officers in what would have been Strathclyde Police under the command of Chief Constable Stephen House.
Quotes from documents in the hands of prosecutors appear to indicate suggestions of discussions between “internal security people” and “still serving colleagues” with a view to obtaining details of operations & investigations being conducted by HMRC officials regarding the football club’s tax affairs.
Prosecutors now appear to be convinced such conversations and possibly meetings between ex Police Officers & serving Police Officers took place.
In an unannounced move, a senior Crown Office prosecutor has now been appointed to look at whether persons identified in the leaked documents may be charged with criminal offences over revelations that photographs & personal details of HMRC staff and civil servants may have been obtained and published online in an effort to derail investigations on the Rangers tax case in 2011.
Prosecutors are also looking into whether the information identifying HMRC personnel may have been provided by serving Police Officers to former colleagues and those with an interest in defending the football club from the tax investigations.
No one from the Crown Office or Police Scotland was available to give official comment on the current state of the investigation.”
One wonders whether this alleged practice fell under the purview of Rangers Head of Security & Operations, Kenny Scott, who resigned in October 2010 or his successor David Martin? Were they acting under instructions from SDM who wanted to derail the HMRC investigation? Is it true that both Scott and Martin were former officers in Strathclyde police?
Did David Murray, or Mr Black as he was referred to in the Upper Tier Tribunal, subvert an HMRC investigation? Could this be the reason why Police Scotland are loath to prosecure King and Stevenson given that it could well expose their own dirty laundry?
