Bluedell

I will go for option c). Tell them to sling it and they agree to a CVA as they will get far more from it than they would liquidation. They need to maximise the return for their investors and are not going to prevent a CVA through spite, which results in less cash for them.

To be fair, he also justified it with the fact that a bigger crowd could see it...as if that makes the rationale any more acceptable.

They have even lost it on footballing isues as well. the previous night had one beggar phoning up believing that the cup semi between hearts and Celtic should be switched from neutral Hampden to Celtic Park because they haven't had a home tie in 4 years.

We have all been concerned about the financial problems that our club has been having over the past while, but have we stopped to think what it's doing to the minds of Celtic fans? They always seemed to have a few nutters but there now appear to be squads of them them who are so uptight about the situation that they have to phone up Radio Clyde and express their indignation at what Rangers have been up to. For example, last night I listened for a wee while and heard: - the celtic fan who worried about all the kids who were going to starve because Rangers fans would be donating to the Fighting Fund and not putting food on their kids' plates. - the celtic fan who phoned up to complain that all the show talked about was Rangers financial problems and why couldn't they get back to talking about footall. when Keevins asked him to make a football point, he said that he didn't have any and was just complaining about the fact that they didn't talk about football and then called Keevins "a weapon". - the celtic fans who already believe that we can't avoid liquidation and have to apply for membership to the SFL now, and are absolutely terrified that we will not get our just desserts. - the Celtic fans who demand that keevins be a tax expert and can't accept that he is not. These people are not right in the head. This whole episode has warped them, and I genuinely believe that many were not like this 2 years ago. They have become obsessed with us going out of business and if we come through this there's going to some serious problems in their lives as they appear unable to cope with the hatred that's built up. I'm guessing that some websites are fuelling their hatred as many seem to call up with the same points. When our club manages to come through this, I'd urge you to spare a thought for those less fortunate than yourselves. The scars of this will be with Celtic fans for many years.

I don't see any reason why they can't be behind both campaigns. The Trust are behind both as well.

C'mon. Surely most of us could spare at least £1,000 to help repay poor Ticketus? Or have I got that wrong?

King said that it was commonplace for players to have 2 contracts, with the second one relating to image rights. The fact that the auditors signed off on it every year does not imply that any tax avoidance scheme is water-tight or that they have looked at each player's contracts and were happy that the EBTs were completely discretionary. I had thought that the whole issue about our EBTs was that they were not discretionary. if that's not the issue then do you know what the premise of HMRCs argument is? Sounds like the letter (if it exists) would be a contract. if that was the case then Murray would be lying? You? Surely not.

The way you get £3 billion is by not walking away from £24 million.

I'm not sure of the legality, Craig. I suggested it was fraudulent, I believe, but that may not mean illegal. Even if it was illegal, and the seller does not want the shares back, I'm not sure that they can just be sold off. Basically, I don't have a scooby.

I believe it means that he can't replace them with other adminiostroros but not sure that it means anything else.

Looks to me as if it may be a newco, although there are conflicting opinions.

Does anyone know what the bidders (including the Blue Knights) will be buying? 1. Is it Craig whyte's shares? Can the administrators sell them? 2. Is it everyone's shares? Can the administrators sell my shares? 3. is it just the trade and assets of the club? Will it be a newco?

It sounds like it's only Paul Murray (so far) out of the old guard, and as a non-exec he would have had limited influence as to how things were run.

Hopefully. It's good that they have come out with more details, but as these things tend to work, it only raises more questions. I'm just very suspicious about Ticketus's involvement.

So Ticketus will provide ALL the cash to initially buy the club and for working capital. There would then be a share issue and after that a deal will be renegotiated with ticketus. Why can't the renegotiation be done beforehand? How much of the share issue will be used to repay Ticketus for them buying the club, whether directly or indirectly? Many, many supporters will not want their funds to be used for that.

From the Evening Times: PAUL MURRAY today confirmed his Blue Knightâ??s consortium will lodge a bid to buy Rangers and meet this Fridayâ??s deadline for offers. Speaking from London after he held crucial talks with the clubâ??s administrators, Duff & Phelps, Mr Murray also told the Evening Times he would proceed with the plan â?? which will heavily involve finance company Ticketus â?? only after he has shown fans groups â??all the fine detail and receives their full backing with complete transparency absolutely crucialâ?. Mr Murray is hopeful the Blue Knights will be granted â??preferred bidderâ?? status to take control of the club through a Creditors Voluntary Agreement. However, there remains takeover interest from groups in Singapore, North America and also from Scots businessman Brian Kennedy, the owner of Sale Sharks Rugby team. These will also be considered by Duff & Phelps before a decision is made. Mr Murray, a Rangersâ?? director for four years before he was deposed by Craig Whyte after his takeover last May, is fronting a rescue bid for the stricken club, which has now been in administration for four weeks. Major players in his consortium are finance company Ticketus, which advanced Mr Whyte £24.4million for future season ticket sales â?? which he then used to buy the club. Executives from Ticketus accompanied Mr Murray to the meeting with Duff & Phelps joint-administrator Paul Clark. â??We had a very good meeting with the administrators. It was an open meeting with very constructive dialogue and myself and the executives from Ticketus asked a lot of questions, and answered a lot of questions,â? Mr Murray said. â??We are in good shape for Friday. We will be making an offer to buy Rangers. Itâ??s obviously up to the administrators to evaluate any offers that come in, but I think they will have to crack on in terms of a decision. â??I would like to think we would get an answer next week and we are hopeful of being able to take control of the club and stabilise the situation. â??That is the main thing â?? Rangers needs to be saved in its current form and then plans can be put in place from there. â??In terms of the Ticketus involvement, what I want to do is make sure this time we have absolute transparency. â??My colleagues in the Blue Knights will sit with the fans groups and say to them, â??This is the deal.â?? â??We will show them every detail and what we are asking them to buy into. It will be totally up front, with the best interests of Rangers the main factor at all times.â? The decision to bring Ticketus on board raised eyebrows, given that it was shown in a bad light due to its association with Mr Whyte. He entered into an agreement to sell the company, which is an off-shoot of finance house Octopus and which has a net value of £3billion, more than 100,000 season tickets over four years. But he then used the money advanced to pay off an £18m Rangersâ?? debt to Lloyds Bank. But Mr Murray was keen to outline exactly how the arrangement with Ticketus will work. And he did not rule out it could be a short-term partner, with Rangers possibly reverting to a bank for its credit facilities should the club be returned to a sound footing under the stewardship of a new board. He explained: â??It is important to point out Ticketus is a very big business with substantial cash reserves. It has been painted in a bad light due to the Craig Whyte deal, but it entered into the agreement with him in good faith. â??We have held extensive dialogue about how it can work in terms of alignment with the Blue Knights. â??When you are bringing a consortium of 10 people together to put up funding it can take a bit of time. â??Ticketus will, in effect, underwrite stage one of our plan, which will be to back the cash purchase of the club and provide initial working capital. It can show quickly the money is in place. â??The Blue Knights will be a body standing behind them. The individuals will give personal pledges to Ticketus against the money used in stage one. â??We may not need all of the working capital set aside as you would hopefully have season ticket money coming in about the start of May. However, you have the reassurance of it being there as the transfer market opens. etc. â??Stage two would then be a share issue open to all. Again, the Blue Knights would be investing into that, as well as the cash pledges being put up to complete the purchase. â??Stage three would be to renegotiate the terms of the Ticketus arrangement to something the club can afford to pay. Craig Whyte did it short term and we would arrange something far more attractive to the club. â??That said, it could be we may â??take Ticketus outâ?? down the line once the club is on a stronger footing and stabilised. We could look at other more traditional options. â??People may look at Rangers as some kind of financial basket case, but when the business is running properly under the stewardship of the right people there is no reason why we could not have normal credit facilities like other clubs.â?

I agree to a certain extent. I didn't fully explain the point I was trying to make. I think that UEFA would object as they treat Scotland and England differently, and any legal challenge would likely be dismissed by EU as football tends to be regional and they would allow UEFA to set reasonable rules. The EU would not prevent it per se but they would not allow UEFA rules to be overturned. You may disagree with this and I'm no EU legal expert, but it's just my opinion. I don't buy into the freedom of trade argument as then you could have clubs just creating their own leagues left, right and centre and I think that they would argue that there has to be some restrictions due to it being sport. However you never know and it wouldn't be the first time that the EU legal logic has shocked me. Being UK certainly makes a far more compelling argument than, say, Belgium to Holland, and I would hope that this could be the loophole that could be exploited if we were to go down this route. I don't think the historic precedents are really of much relevance to this though. Which one?

That was individual employee rights, whereas this is not. It's about national team competitions and I doubt that the EU would agree to teams being able to switch from country to country.

I had a look at their site yesterday. They want fans' details but don't say who they are. Very suspicious and potential for a reverse operation Tango. I just don't see it being bears.

Ah OK. Though you meant just BBC. I couldn't do that. The whole family watch too much TV.

Nothhing to stop it. It's nothing to do with UK law, but just a restrictive covenant in the guy's contract, which is fairly standard.

UEFA would stop it.

If you watch live TV of any sort (not just BBC) or record live TV on a video recorder or Sky+ box you need a TV licence.

That will just be due to the notice period in his contract with Forthports.