CaleyD

I'm pretty much of the same opinion as Sandy in regards the game. A neutral might have seen it as a fairly decent encounter..aside from the lack of goals. It wasn't all that dissimilar to our performance in the 6-3 game, although you wouldn't think it from some of the reports above. Just to add that I think far too many fans seem stuck in a mental rut whereby they seem to spend all their time looking for reasons to have a pop at this player or that player. Another thing that seems to stand out a mile is how local lads seem to be able to do no wrong in the eyes of our fans. It's something that caught my attention a few games ago but was as plain as the nose on your face today. Tokely, Ross etc play a stray ball and it's all claps and "good try son"...any of the rest play a stray ball, come up short or just over weight it and it's all "for feck sakes...where the hell did you find him, Butcher". I'm not talking about one or two in the crowd, I'm talking about large portions of the crowd spread around the whole ground.

Gnakpa..."off the pace"...give me a break, we would have been better off going to 10 men than having him on the park. Players have off days, days where things don't go their way etc, but there's no excuse..not a single reason...for anyone to do what he did today and that was nothing, nada, not a jot. I couldn't believe what I was witnessing, he put in zero effort and didn't even look like he was bothered by the fact. For anyone calling themselves a professional footballer, that was shameful and showed utter disrespect for his team mates, the club and the fans who paid good money to watch him come on for a wee wander around. There was one ball where he thought about giving chase, but then realised that it would take more than two steps so just gave up. I'm slower than a week in jail and I could have caught it!!! Really gets my goat up when players plainly have no interest in trying and it was so bad with Gnakpa today that I would be quite delighted if he never pulled on the ICT shirt ever again...in fact, let's just send him home now so we don't risk it rubbing off on any of the other players.

Will worry about it when the time comes.

I can report that I safely managed to read the article without choking on anything.

News coming through this evening that Paul Murray and the Blue Knights Consortium are, in conjunction with the fans and Ticketus, in the process of finalising an offer to put to the Administrators. Stinks of Ticketus trying to do a deal that would see them get more than they might from a CVA or liquidation....do Rangers really want another Investor who's main interest is not the club itself?

CONCACAF - Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football

I guess the difference might be that he is still reaping the benefits of all the muscle that the banned drugs helped build up, thus giving him an unfair advantage. Essentially a "proceeds of crime" argument....I'm not sufficiently up to speed on the medical side of things to give an opinion on whether or not that is true. However, it does seem strange that other sports/organisations would not subscribe to this theory if it were true.

Everyone makes mistakes and should be free to continue once punishment/sanction has been served. Drivers are allowed to drive after serving a ban, criminals sent to prison are allowed to return to society after serving their sentence etc etc. I fail to see why it should be any different in athletics.

Whatever happens, the whole setup needs to be looked at.

Scotty appears to be AWOL.....wonder if he and Johndo will be exchanging notes on cell conditions either side of the pond???

Looking at the big picture, Rangers only really have two options...... 1. Liquidation and setting up as a new company.....this would wipe all debt and take the Big Tax Case out of the equation. This would mean a fire sale and liquidators would sell anything and everything, the only hope Rangers would have for a quick restart would be if a deal could be done to sell everything as a job lot. Biggest problem would be sorting out who owns what and who has charges over what etc, which could drag on for months in the courts and hinder any new companies ability to trade effectively...especially if those arguments centre around stadium ownership/rights. 2. Remain in Administration until a decision is made on the BTC, lump that in with the rest and settle at Xp in the pound via a CVA. The more expensive of the two options as HMRC are not going to accept a settlement of anything less than they would get from liquidation. This means that any buyer would have to see/accept additional value/cost being added in order to maintain continuity and club history.

No, but he will hold a charge on those assets....in much the same way as a bank holds a charge on your property until you pay the mortgage. The courts, or in this case the administrators, can force the sale of property to pay for debts...but any money due to someone with a security held against those properties would be paid (in full) first. Here is what I think will transpire...... Whyte will hold a charge on the properties of somewhere in the region of £18 Million (this being what was needed to pay off the bank). Whyte raised that money from the Ticketus deal and will have needed security for that borrowing. He's unlikely to have given security directly on the assets of the club, partly because of the need to register that with companies house (where everyone would have become aware of it almost immediately) and partly because I believe he wouldn't have the direct authority, on his own, to have signed off on that (if he has then he's committed fraud). Instead he would have given Ticketus some kind of security on the repayments by the club of the 18 Million they owe him for paying the bank....most likely via some offshore business/account so it remained buried, or possibly via this pension fund that are claiming rights to the money being held by the solicitors. Ticketus are yet to show their full hand in terms of the details of the deal done and who exactly it was done with...and that could prove to be the missing piece of the jigsaw. As they too are claiming rights to the above pot then they will have to fold or show in the next couple of weeks. For now it's all just hypothesis, and no more so than in the case of much of what is in the press. The fact that it is all so complicated and messy only, IMO, adds weight to the suggestions that Liquidation was the plan from the outset. Whyte is obviously not co-operating any more than he feels he has to at any given moment with the Administrators. Then again they are "his" administrators and they have been by Whytes side since he took over...which begs the question of whether they are playing dumb. Surely if they have been involved since day 1 of the take over, were giving advice on and helping with the restructuring of the business then they would know what was where and which deals and been done and with who!!! The fact of the matter is that nobody outside the chosen inner circle has any idea of what the full extent of the situation is....yet.

Alex, secured creditors get paid before unsecured creditors....Craig Whyte would (maybe) fall into the secured creditor category. The only thing that will stop him walking away untouched is if it can be shown that he is/was in some way in breach of contract and not honoured the terms of the takeover agreement. Further to that, if it can be shown that he used his status as a Director to manipulate the situation to his advantage without the knowledge and agreement of the rest of the board then he could also find himself facing criminal charges. We are still far from the endgame on this and I would be reluctant to guess at the outcome.

Precisely OCG, and my statement was perhaps a bit sweeping....each parent can only be expected to hold influence over their own children.

I also find it strangely ironic that the current generation of parents seek to complain about the activities of the kids when they are essentially the cause and the ones best placed to bring about change.

The don't need it to run the game, they need it to finance the game. A TV deal is essential not just because of the income it directly generates. it also impacts on the value of sponsorship that individual clubs attract. TV deals ensure a level of national exposure. Please do not under estimate the value of indirect revenue from a TV deal I sometimes wonder how football has survived as long as it has....all teams must have been millions of pounds in debt and going to the wall every other week before the TV deals came along!!! Oh no, wait a minute, they didn't....in fact more teams have gone out of existence through financial mismanagement (by a long way) in the last 25 years than the rest of the history of the game put together. I'm not saying we get rid of TV, we just have to better manage it. Look at the drop in attendances since the TV deals begun and fans started staying at home instead of going to stadiums. If you could turn back the clock and offer clubs the income from those lost crowds or the income from TV deals then I would wager that clubs would opt to keep the crowds every time....I'm putting forward a suggestion that would see them benefit from both.

Caley D as I have explained before, the product does not necessarlily become less valuable (however I would strongly argue that it does especially interms of audience numbers for TV). But if I use your assumption and say the Broadcast deal is the same value then that sum is divided into more pieces. In the current structure the team finishing 1 and 2 revcieve a disproportionatly large amount of that pool leaving the rest of the league substantially worse off. This is before you even consider that increased costs of team stepping up to the SPL in terms of players, policing etc. This is very much a case of more teams mean less for everyone. I never made any assumption about the TV deal being the same.....but I would say that less people watching on TV and more people actually attending games would be to the benefit of the game. If it was up to me then I would get rid of live domestic football (i.e. no live Scottish games broadcast in Scotland, but available to the rest of the world). This would help get more people back into stadiums whilst still benefiting from some kind of TV deal. I am confident enough that such a move would increase attendances and income at the turnstiles sufficiently to counter any reduced TV income that would result from such a move. Any restructuring of the league finances would, I agree, need to involve a fairer split...removing the disproportionately large amounts paid to the top 2. Even if we use your assumption that I assumed the pot would remain the same, it might be spread out among more people, but it would still mean an increased revenue for many, levelling the playing field and making it more competitive. Moving from 12 to 16 teams means that, on the simplest level, clubs would need to increase average attendance by 12.5% to counter the cost (at turnstiles) from such a move. I am confident that in conjunction with a more competitive league (with fairer distribution of finances to offset all these additional costs you talk about) could overcome that shortfall. The game is on a quick downwards spiral and no one thing is going to halt that, far less reverse it. We're also beyond the stage of fixing things without having to endure some kind of short term pain....and speeding head on in to a situation where trying to tinker will only result in us getting to a situation where administration, part time football and all the other negatives will be a certainty for the majority of clubs. Do I think my ideas would turn things around over night? Not at all, but short term tinkering is not working and the decline continues. Do I think there will be casualties with my ideas? Almost certainly, but not as many as if we fail to take radical action. I'm talking about having to make some pretty ballsy decisions....but that's what it is going to take to get the game out of the mess it is in and back on its feet.

Feck sake guys, read the whole thing and don't just focus on individual parts and cherry pick comments. As far as the SPL (or whoever it be in future) is concerned, they do not need a TV deal to run the game (financially) and it should not be taken in to the the equation, certainly not as heavily as it is, when making decisions on what is best for the game. FACT....TV deals, and the subsequent loss of those deals, are what caused much of the financial problems....or more accurately, the heavy reliance on the income from those deals for the long term when deals were only short term. It is naive in the extreme to ignore that and to launch a long term plan for improvement on the back of finances that are not guaranteed for any more than a couple of seasons at a time. How can you build a stable platform on such unstable foundations? If clubs want to take a gamble on relying on that income beyond the agreed deals then, as I said, that is for them to decide, but they would be doing so within a structure which does not mean that the league suffers one way or the other should the wheels fall off. Just look at how things are now where the threat to one clubs existence is being viewed as a threat to other clubs and the league as a whole....is that really the way we want to be running the game?

I've not mentioned it because I thought the programmes were a waste of TV License payers money. For a start there was no real fan representation in the entire discussion, just the same old group of football chums sitting around having a wee chit chat about how bad it all was and stroking each others egos by saying how great each of them was doing in their own little way to try and bring about improvements. Far to much talk on resurrecting and/or saving old institutions, traditions and ways of doing things and very little about what positive action can, should and is being taken.

The problem with those making the decisions...Chairmen, Boards, Financial Officers...is that they are all "short term" people. Therefore as much as they might like to talk about the long term, the reality is that they are more concerned about things not going tits up under their watch and will only ever worry about the short term. One example is Neil Doncaster who continues to spout the "16 team league would cost the SPL £20 Million a year" line. That figure is based on carrying forward all the figures etc as they sit here and now and only making adjustments for fewer games and (possible) reduced TV income....although I've not seen anything from TV companies to suggest they think the product would be less valuable with a larger league!!! No allowance is made in his calculations for the positive effects of the change....and that is largely due to the fact that the real benefits are long term and go beyond the 2 or 3 year TV deals. What's more, no lessons seem to have been learned from the last time leagues/clubs operated a model based on TV income. Granted, the amount of money from TV now may be less, but to rely on it when we know it could be pulled from under our feet at any given moment is sheer stupidity. For that reason, TV income should be all but taken out of the equation when deciding on a structure and business model that is sustainable for the long term. If individual clubs want to take a risk on operating with a reliance on that income, then that is for them to decide, but it is not something which football governing bodies should be encouraging, far less using as a beating stick to maintain a setup which does nothing to secure the long term future of the game. Whatever way you look at it, it comes back to the fact that the only long term factor that you can rely upon are the fans....but only if you give them the voice and the power to direct not only the clubs they support, but the overall setup of the game in a manner that fits with the wants and needs of the majority. Until that happens, football will continue to lurch from one disaster to the next under a series of short term "fixes" being put in place by short term Chairmen/Directors/League Authorities etc. who are more worried about making themselves look good here and now, than they are about the real long term future of the sport.

Yeah, it is already being looked in to. The situation with the SPL is that the rail seating (as far as they are concerned) would be an automatic thumbs up. Anything else would need to go through a proposal and investigation process. Let's also not forget that just because SPL say aye, it is still subject to local authority and police approval before it can go ahead. Each new bit of info or idea helps build the options, so keep it all coming.

Under administration, players and staff are essentially working on the basis that they are not guaranteed their wages, but any unpaid wages would make them a creditor and "settlements" would be via any CVA that is agreed....or claims via the liquidation process should that be the outcome. The administrators are gambling on getting enough players to voluntarily walk away without a settlement to offset the pay due for the extra days that this is being allowed to drag on. Those who have agreed to walk away without settlement are really only giving up any claim to unpaid wages from last pay day till today.....others will be buying themselves a bit of time to get deals elsewhere in the knowledge that sitting tight until pushed will at least give them a claim for something, which is better than no claim at all.

What he said

I feel sorry for the Hibs fans who have paid for train tickets back to Edinburgh thinking the game starts at 12. I see mentioned on p+b a whole family have shelled out for train tickets that will depart Inverness at 1520 after staying over night in Inverness. The game should never have been scheduled for 12 in the first place. The fans are never thought of. I wouldn't think there's too many of them....the original time prevent them from getting a train up to the game in time for kick-off (and many complaints were received in that regard). Not suggesting that excuses the constant messing around with fixture dates and times, but a midday kick-off was a ill thought out plan from the start and 3pm should suit more people.....even better if that had been 3pm on a Saturday!!!

The Supporters Trust are in constant communication with the club, this is one of the items being discussed and we will offer support and assistance where we can. It's those discussion that sparked the start of this thread, partly to see if the interest is there and partly to look at ideas for raising/acquiring the funds to make it a reality. The bottom line is that if it is to happen, then the money needs to come from somewhere. The club don't have it and the Supporters Trust don't sit on the kind of funds that would allow them to just hand over £10,000 for 100 seats. What the Supporters Trust does have is a resource to allow us to go out to the fans and, as has been done here, look at the ideas and suggestions and, with the help of the fans, put a plan of action in place which aims to bring about what the fans want to see happen. We totally appreciate that not everyone, as individuals, has the funds to just throw money at things. We also appreciate that football is expensive enough as it is without asking for people to dip in to their pockets over and above for stuff like this....however, people often do have a bit of spare time and if we can get enough willing bodies and we can harness that time and focus it towards a common aim, then I don't see why we can't achieve what we want. Perhaps a better way to tackle it would be to ask if there's any fans willing to give up a bit of time to work with the club/trust in coming up with a plan and making it happen. Any takers?