Uilleam

And you ain't seen nothin' yet.... Duff and Phelps has initiated a damages action against the Crown Office. I should remind that D&P took over an accountancy/insolvency practice in the UK, and it was the practitioners from that outfit (MDR or somesuch) who were involved with Rangers, and, indeed, seemed to have been involved with Whyte, etc, variously before that. D&P took the reputational and business 'hits', of course, as it was its (inherited) guys who were arrested, and prosecuted maliciously. One might guess that an NY based international financial consultancy is unlikely to accept an apology (even one from Madame Ceausescu, hersel') and token damages. Rangers prosecution: Consultancy Duff & Phelps sues legal chiefs for millions over failed case Mark Horne Friday August 13 2021, 12.01am, The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rangers-prosecution-consultancy-duff-amp-phelps-sues-legal-chiefs-for-millions-over-failed-case-vhlgcslfq A global financial consultancy firm is seeking up to £120 million from Scotland’s prosecution service for reputational damage sustained during the ill-fated criminal investigation into the takeover of Rangers FC. The New York-based multinational company Duff & Phelps claims it has suffered significant lost earnings since two employees were wrongfully arrested and faced “malicious prosecution” for their role in Rangers’ financial collapse and subsequent sale. David Whitehouse and Paul Clark, who had the task of managing the Ibrox club’s finances in February 2012 as debts grew that led to its parent company going out of business, have already secured £21 million in damages from the Crown Office and an apology from James Wolffe, who was the lord advocate, for a “very serious failure in the system of prosecution”. In total, £30 million has already been paid out to settle claims made by several businessmen arrested without probable cause. However, Duff & Phelps, the consultancy firm they worked for which employs 5,000 people in 30 countries, has launched its own legal action against the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service for the most significant sum yet. A formal request for tens of millions of pounds has been tabled, but legal sources believe the figure may inflate significantly as the case nears. An individual close to the case said: “I believed Duff & Phelps were suing for £60 million but the figure has gone up and up and is now closer to £120 million. Seemingly, the Crown Office want to negotiate and don’t want it to go to a hearing.” Roddy Dunlop QC, who is acting for Duff & Phelps, confirmed that the firm was seeking a “substantial sum”. He said: “The case is ongoing. It has been raised.” The Times understands a procedural hearing has been scheduled. Another legal source confirmed the firm was seeking tens of millions of pounds. “The [reputational] impact on the company has been a very significant one. It was a successful business with a significant turnover and, as a result, the impact could be measured in big numbers,” they said, Whitehouse and Clark were appointed when Rangers went into administration in 2012. The club’s assets were sold to a consortium led by the businessman Charles Green, who went on to become Rangers’ chief executive and this week accepted an out of court settlement of £6.4 million for also being wrongly prosecuted. The two administrators were arrested in 2014, after Duff & Phelps’s offices were raided by police, but the charges were later dropped. A Crown Office spokesman said: “This case is active and accordingly we are unable to comment at this time.”

How can PSG comply with the FFP rules after signing Lionel Messi? They do not need to French club’s Messi deal proves that FFP rules across Europe are no longer fit for purpose Martyn Ziegler Chief Sports Reporter Wednesday August 11 2021, 5.00pm, The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-can-psg-comply-with-the-ffp-rules-after-signing-lionel-messi-they-do-not-need-to-z3hswgfwj Uefa’s Financial Fair Play rules were already teetering on the brink of a precipice before Paris Saint-Germain’s signing of Lionel Messi: his arrival has just pushed them over the edge. The reality now, and one that applies as much to Manchester City and Manchester United after their expensive forays into the transfer market as to PSG, is that the FFP rules in their old form are now dead, killed off by the pandemic. Uefa is looking at a new financial regulation system — a luxury tax to take a percentage of the top transfers and wages is one suggestion — but just about everybody in European football accepts that there can be no return to the basics of the old system. The original rules required clubs in European competition to break even, with maximum losses of €30 million (about £25.5 million) over a three-year period. City, PSG and AC Milan are among the top clubs to have fallen foul of those rules in the past. The financial impact of the pandemic prompted an emergency rethink. Uefa said that figures would be calculated over two seasons instead of one, that pandemic-related losses would not be taken into account and that wealthy owners could inject capital to cover any losses — music to the ears of PSG and City especially, given that they are in effect owned by the oil-rich states of Qatar and Abu Dhabi respectively. Under the old rules, PSG would probably have struggled to comply, even though the huge transfer fees paid for Neymar and Kylian Mbappé would no longer be on the books. PSG’s turnover for 2019-20 was €541 million and their wage bill was €405 million, according to a KPMG report. Messi’s €25 million signing-on fee and annual gross salary of €63 million will take the club close to the €500 million mark — and that is before the signing-on fees and large salaries paid for three free transfers: Sergio Ramos, Georginio Wijnaldum and Gianluigi Donnarumma. The much-admired Italy goalkeeper is a client of the agent Mino Raiola, who does nothing on the cheap. The club have also signed Achraf Hakimi for €60 million from Inter Milan but in terms of income from sales there has been nothing significant. The lucrative Qatar Tourism Authority sponsorship deal has expired too, while the French domestic TV deal has collapsed, which again will be a blow to PSG’s income. It would be no surprise if, when the 2021-22 season’s figures are calculated, PSG’s salary costs are 100 per cent or more of their total turnover. That would not be permitted in some European leagues, but a 70 per cent restriction in France’s Ligue 1 has been postponed for two years, until 2023-24, because of the pandemic. As to the future Uefa rules, things have gone quiet since April when, speaking at a meeting with European Union officials, Uefa’s director of financial stability and research, Andrea Traverso, described the old break-even requirement as purposeless. He said then: “The break-even rule, the way it works now, looks backwards: it performs an assessment of a situation in the past. The pandemic represents such an abrupt change that looking to the past is becoming purposeless. “So maybe the rules should have a stronger focus on the present and the future and should definitely have a stronger focus on the challenges of high levels of wages and the transfer market. The solution to this is not easy.” Uefa’s more immediate focus has been dealing with the threat of the European Super League. Now it can turn again to its financial regulation plans. A key figure in the negotiations will be the man who became chairman of the European Club Association after the fallout from the Super League, having chosen not to join the breakaway rebels. He is also a member of Uefa’s executive committee and runs an international media group that has an important tranche of Uefa’s Champions League TV rights. His name? Nasser al-Khelaifi, the president of PSG. Elsewhere, the idea that PSG will “get their Messi money back in shirt sales in six months”, as one British TV personality tweeted, is little more than a myth. Most of the money from the sale of replica strips goes into the coffers of the manufacturers rather than the clubs. Messi shirts will be in hot demand but the idea that proceeds will cover much of his €25m signing-on fee is baseless PSG have a kit deal with Nike worth €80 million (£67m) a year and runs until 2032. The deal is understood to give the club a 15 per cent cut of income from shirt sales, so even if PSG sold a million Messi shirts at €100 each, then their income would be only €15m — not enough to cover his €25m signing-on fee, let alone his €35m salary. There are, however, some wider financial and political benefits to signing Messi. Perhaps the most important factor is that it represents the final stage in Qatar’s ten-year plan to establish PSG on the global stage. Paris, rather than Madrid or Barcelona, is now the first-choice destination for this generation of galacticos. That shift is also reflected on social media. In China, 3.5 million people on Weibo, its version of Twitter, and 2.5million on Douyin (China’s TikTok) watched Messi’s first press conference. That kind of reach in China is gold dust to the marketeers, so Messi’s signing will have a huge positive effect on PSG’s sponsorship value: expect to see a rash of lucrative new deals. Messi’s other value is to Qatar itself. Little more than a year before the Gulf state holds the World Cup, it has the globe’s most famous player at the club it owns: do not be surprised to see Messi used in an ambassadorial role of some kind. Messi’s annual earnings The Argentinian’s contract is worth £54m a year for two years, with an option of a third year, plus a signing-on fee of £21m. His endorsement deals earn him £24m a year, and have included: • A lifetime contract with Adidas, believed to be worth £9m a year • His retail outlet, the Messi Store, which opened in Barcelona in 2019 • A deal with drinks manufacturer AB InBev, which brews Budweiser. He also appears in adverts for Pepsi • He is the first athlete to partner with the Hard Rock entertainment, restaurant and hospitality brand • Wristwatch retailer Jacob & Co produce a Messi range • He has been a brand ambassador for Qatari telecommunications firm Ooredoo since 2013

Coincidentally, the very birthplace of late Palestinian leader, Yasser Ararat.

Hopefully, we will be Marching Through Armenia, in the Europa League. Or, at worst, Kazakhstan, which doesn't scan. (Either)

FWIW: Lionel Messi to PSG: the inside story of how a stunning deal was done A call at 10pm last Thursday set the ball rolling on a move that had seemed impossible hours earlier Fabrizio Romano @FabrizioRomano Wed 11 Aug 2021 08.00 BST https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/aug/11/lionel-messi-to-psg-the-inside-story-of-how-a-stunning-deal-was-done It was 10pm in Barcelona on Thursday when Paris Saint-Germain made their move for Lionel Messi. The stunning news had broken two hours earlier that the forward would not be staying at the Camp Nou and the way PSG went about their business showed how determined they were to get their man. In transfers approaches are regularly made via intermediaries or agents, and clubs hoping to tempt Messi from Barcelona had often gone down this route. But PSG calculated this was a moment for the personal touch and, seeing an unexpected opening, they pounced. The sporting director, Leonardo, made a direct approach to Messi’s father, Jorge, and the player’s lawyers – and the president, Nasser al-Khelaifi, joined the talks later that night. It is rare for Khelaifi to get involved but he did so with Neymar’s transfer from Barcelona four years ago and his presence here confirmed the move’s scale and the seriousness of PSG’s push. On Thursday morning such a turn of events had seemed impossible. Messi and his father had travelled back to Barcelona from Ibiza for the player to sign a five-year contract to stay at the Camp Nou. An announcement was planned for 8pm and the details were clear: two years’ salary paid over five years to help the financially troubled club. Messi was stunned and distraught when Barcelona’s president, Joan Laporta, said La Liga’s rules on salary limits meant the club had no way to register him. But his father quickly stressed to him the need to find a solution and both were impressed that two of the most important people at PSG came straight to them. Messi also spoke to the manager, Mauricio Pochettino. Talks involving Khelaifi, Leonardo, Jorge Messi and the player’s lawyers went late into Thursday night and continued all through Friday. The Messi camp were excited by the project presented to them and accepted the wage proposal of about €35m (£29.6m) net, including bonuses, on a two-year contract with an option for a further season. Negotiations on issues such as taxes and sponsors took much of the time. The need to factor in financial fair play rules was discussed but PSG were always confident on that front. Messi’s deal, like Neymar’s, has a clause that guarantees him a bonus if PSG win the Champions League. On Saturday a verbal agreement was reached and PSG prepared a formal contract with their legal team. This was sent to Messi at 10am on Sunday, not long before his tearful farewell press conference at Barcelona. Although Messi denied there that a deal with PSG was done, in reality it was all but sorted. Messi’s lawyers wanted two days to check every detail and rumours that the player was flying to Paris were at that stage false. By Monday night, though, everything was in place and final agreement was confirmed at about 10am on Tuesday morning. A short while later Messi and his family set off for Barcelona airport. In the PSG dressing room celebrations at Messi joining had started as early as Friday. That was because Neymar had confidently told the squad his former Barcelona teammate would be coming. From Thursday night Neymar had acted almost like a member of the PSG board, calling and messaging Messi and pushing him to make the move. Messi was certainly tempted by the opportunity to play again with his good friend but there is no question Barcelona had been his first choice. In the last week of April Messi had, through his father, turned down an approach from PSG, determined to stay at the only club he has really known. The previous month Manchester City had made an approach via Pep Guardiola and club executives who also have a background at Barcelona. Messi had given the same response: he was continuing at the Camp Nou. This time City have not made a move for Messi. Guardiola is happy with Jack Grealish as the new No 10 and is looking at Tottenham’s Harry Kane as his priority if one more big attacking signing can be made. With Chelsea focused on getting Romelu Lukaku from Internazionale they too stayed away from talks with Messi. Less than a week ago PSG had no chance of signing Messi. But it often pays to expect the unexpected when it comes to transfers and so a seemingly impossible deal has been done.

You are forgetting the record breaking sponsorship deal with cinch.

"Charles Green says the £6m he has won from from the Lord Advocate in a settlement over his claim for being maliciously prosecuted in the collapsed club fraud case will not adequately compensate for the damage done." In that case, one is tempted to ask, why accept it? Charles Green: £6m 'won't compensate' for damage done to over malicious Rangers fraud case Exclusive by Martin Williams @MWilliamsHTSenior News Reporter EXCLUSIVE Charles Green: £6m 'won't compensate' for damage done over malicious Rangers fraud prosecution https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/homenews/19504469.charles-green-6m-wont-compensate-damage-done-malicious-rangers-fraud-case/?ref=ebln FORMER Rangers chief executive Charles Green says the £6m he has won from from the Lord Advocate in a settlement over his claim for being maliciously prosecuted in the collapsed club fraud case will not adequately compensate for the damage done. Details of the 11th hour settlement from Lord Advocate James Wolffe came yesterday as an eight day hearing into Mr Green's claim for £20m was about to take place The Lord Advocate made a public apology to Mr Green in June as the damages case was being progressed. It emerged during an earlier hearing that Police Scotland were no longer being sued as part of the action brought by Mr Green. No reasons were given as to why this was the case. The 67-year-old businessman was arrested with several other men following a police probe into alleged fraud in relation to the sale of the current Scottish champions to businessman Craig Whyte. Mr Green, whose Sevco consortium, bought the assets of the club business in liquidation nine years ago for £5.5m was due to receive compensation after Crown lawyers accepted he was subjected to a malicious fraud prosecution. Mr Green, now based in Dubai, was told three years ago he would face no further proceedings in connection with the case as prosecutors said there is "now no evidence of a crime". After the out of court settlement, his solicitor Greg Whyte of Jones Whyte said it that while it was an "acceptable offer" in a "landmark settlement" but that money was never going to be enough having hit by reputational damage by the Rangers affair. Mr Whyte said: "Nobody would ever have chosen to have been in this situation and ultimately in any damages action, all you are going to get is money. "Nobody can turn back time, nobody can change what has happened. "It is an extraordinary case all in. An apology that came in June was comprehensive and was a full recognition that this is a prosecution that shouldn't have happened. "The overwhelming emotion from Mr Green is one of relief that he can now put this behind him, because this has gone on since 2015, and that he can move on with his life. He isn't getting any younger. "He just wants to get back to living his life and spend time with his family. "He suffered a lot of stigma because of this. Lots of friends and business associates distanced themselves from him. He is now regaining that - and people are expressing personal delight that this chapter for him is now concluded." Mr Green has no intention of retiring and is now exploring a few business projects. "He intends to continue to work. The apology in June will allow him to some extent get back into the business world, he is an experienced businessman and has been for many years," said Mr Whyte. "It is a massive relief for him and we are delighted to be able to get him what he consider is a great result. "It goes someway to rectify the significant losses suffered by Mr Green as a result of the Crown Office's malicious prosecution against him." (...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................)

Not after last night's debacle, surely. Only completist collectors and masochists will wish to possess the rag. Most likely destinations will include bargain bins, charity shops, and recycling centres, and all in double quick time. You could remain looking like a tool, of course.....

Completely inept. I have seen worse performances, and results -and I really can remember when- but that does not excuse the utterly abject display offered to us, tonight.

Context: the boy's from Stonehouse. I've been there: cut him some slack.

I Viola 3 Malmo 1 FGS: Wright

I don't think that Messi will find it as easy to bankrupt Paris San Qatar as Barcelona. I am not sure that he has the playing longevity even to give it a go.

A long read: FOOTBALL | BOOK EXTRACT A crying shame: Lionel Messi’s part in the downfall of Barcelona In 2015 Barcelona won the Champions League. Now they are a footballing basket case. In this book extract Simon Kuper charts an astonishing decline and explains why having the world’s best footballer did nothing to help Messi has enjoyed great success with Barcelona but it has come at a substantial cost Simon Kuper Tuesday August 10 2021, 12.01am, The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a-crying-shame-lionel-messis-part-in-the-downfall-of-barcelona-95wkn6l7w Staggering cost of keeping a genius After Lionel Messi renewed his contract with Barça in 2017, the club’s head of legal services, Román Gómez Ponti, sent the CEO, Òscar Grau, an email that consisted of one word: “ALELUYA”, with the final A repeated 69 times. Grau replied: “The extension of Leo Messi . . . was important for the survival of FC Barcelona.” The three separate contracts guaranteed Messi an annual salary of over €100 million [about £84 million], according to a document obtained by Football Leaks and passed to Germany’s Spiegel magazine. One internal club document recommended: “The player needs to be aware of how disproportionately high his salary is relative to the rest of the team.” Indeed, Messi was earning about as much as a typical top-class team of the time. Pretty soon, Barça were paying him even more. Aided by the release clause in Messi’s contract, his father, Jorge, negotiated large annual pay hikes. Over the four years from 2017 to 2021, the player earned more than €555 million in total, according to highlights from his 30-page contract published in El Mundo. A senior Barça official told me that Messi’s salary had tripled between 2014 and 2020. He added: “Messi is not the problem. The problem is the contagion of the rest of the team.” Whenever Messi got a raise, his team-mates asked for one as well. After about 2015, Barça morphed from més que un club (more than a club) into Messi’s club. “Messi-dependencia” is an old concept in Barcelona, but originally it described an incidental phenomenon: Messi winning a tight match. Over time, Messidependencia became the system. Barça parasited off Messi, until he began eating the club. In 2020 sporting disaster, economic disaster and Messi’s decision to leave all struck at once. How Barcelona and Messi stopped playing great football During Messi’s first decade in the team, Xavi and Andrés Iniesta had enough status not to give him the ball too early in an attack. But as the duo faded from the team, and Neymar left, Barça’s strategy simplified into Messidependencia. From 2017 until 2019, Messi’s shots and assists accounted for between 45 and 49 per cent of Barcelona’s annual expected goals, calculates the Financial Times data journalist John Burn-Murdoch. Barça’s system became “get to the final third, then give the ball to Messi, wherever he is”. Barcelona’s first team were abandoning Barcelona football. Instead of Messi moving as part of a fluid collective that embodied the principles of Johan Cruyff, Barcelona’s tactical mentor, now his team-mates simply reacted to his moves. Most were awed by him. Frenkie de Jong told me: “Messi’s really much better than the other players. I think people underestimate that. You’re playing with the very best players in the world, but he’s far above that. You have to make sure you’re always trying to keep an eye on him.” Meanwhile, although nobody at Barça wanted to talk about it, the king was growing old. Messi stopped defending. When Barça lost the ball, Messi would often trudge back alone, yards offside behind the opposition’s defenders. As the team aged too, Barça’s training sessions slowed down. This was a shock for Antoine Griezmann, who had come from Atletico Madrid, where “every training session was at the intensity level of a match”. Barcelona’s defenders and midfielders rarely overlapped any more. This went against the grain of modern football. The sport continued to evolve weekly, and the one-time innovators Barça were being overtaken. “Every day football gets more spectacular, the players physically, technically and tactically stronger,” Gerard Piqué remarked. “I always say that the best defenders in history are those of today.” Even Franz Beckenbauer, he added, was “worse on the ball, slower and understood the game less well” than Piqué’s generation. As for defenders who just kicked people, they had died out. Piqué was right that football kept improving — but only outside Barcelona. While Barça neglected pressing, other teams updated it. Gegenpressing, the Germans called the latest version: chasing up the opposition the moment you lose possession, so as to win the ball near their goal, before their defence can organise. It was Ajax’s “hunting” of the 1970s on fast-forward — a game so rapid it should be called “storming”. Storming teams adopted some of Barça’s innovations, such as Pep Guardiola’s five-second pressing rule, but discarded others, like the obsession with possession. By 2020, storming had become the orthodoxy, practised even by traditionally cautious teams such as Juventus and Chelsea. In February 2017 a storming Paris Saint-Germain beat Barcelona 4-0 in the Champions League. Barça won the second leg 6-1 with their famous remontada (comeback), but then lost 3-0 away to Juventus in the quarter-final and were eliminated. In 2018 they lost 3-0 at Roma at the same stage and were eliminated again. The good news was that Cruyffian attacking pressing football still worked. The bad news was that other clubs had modernised it. Yet the club did not hire a coach to turn their ageing players into a high-intensity storming unit. Barça’s thinking was that, with a core of veteran world-class players, topped by Messi, a strong coach would only get in the way. Every Barça coach from 2013 until 2020 understood his own shrunken role. When I visited Ernesto Valverde in 2019 at the first team’s training ground, the Camp Tito Vilanova, his white office walls were almost bare, except for the team’s schedule. There was scarcely a personal touch in the room. Valverde knew he was just a caretaker. On May 1, 2019, at half-time in the home leg of the Champions League semi-final against Liverpool, with Barça leading 1-0, Messi said: “Try to calm the match. I know it’s hard, but try. If we play one against one, they are stronger. We’re not used to it; they’re quick. Then we’re going up and down; it’s a lottery. If we have control, it’s another story.” In a seven-minute spell in the second half that night, Messi sealed a 3-0 win. Afterwards, a smiling Jürgen Klopp bounded into Liverpool’s forlorn changing room shouting: “Boys, boys, boys! We are not the best team in the world. Now you know that. Maybe they are! Who cares? Who cares! We can still beat the best team in the world. Let’s go again.” That night, it sounded like bravado. Barça really did look like the best team in the world. Three days after clinching their second straight Spanish title, they had one foot in the Champions League final, where they would be favoured to beat Ajax or Tottenham Hotspur. There was life in the old dog yet. Six days later, in the second leg at Anfield, Barça returned to their changing room at half-time 1-0 down. Jordi Alba, whose error had given Liverpool the goal, was in tears. The whole team was anxious. Once a group of players has been together for years, every new match becomes an echo of past matches. The thrashings by PSG, Juventus and Roma had given Barça a complex. At this point Messi decided to stand up and remind his team-mates of their deepest fear. “We have to start strong,” he said, his monotone louder than usual. “Remember Roma was our fault. Nobody else’s. We mustn’t let the same thing happen. It was our fault, nobody else’s.” As the Irish journalist Ken Early remarked, Messi seemed to believe that “ ‘Let’s talk about the thing that we desperately don’t want to happen, and get that very firmly in our heads before we go out and play’ is a sound basic format for a captain’s gee-them-up speech.” In the second half Barça crumbled, succumbing 4-0 to Liverpool’s storm. After Anfield, Messi gave his first press conference with Barcelona in four years. “The worst thing,” he said, “and for that we can never forgive ourselves, is that we didn’t fight.” When the team needed a rocket up the arse, as the English phrase goes, he saw it as his job to deliver it. The end is nigh If 1992 had been Barça’s annus mirabilis, 2020 was their annus horribilis. Everyone had seen the cracks in the cathedral’s ceiling. But nobody expected the building to collapse. That year an almost carnivalesque string of mishaps occurred. It started on January 13, when Josep Maria Bartomeu, the club’s president at the time, sacked Valverde after a 3-2 defeat by Atletico Madrid. Though the role of Barça’s head coach had been denuded of most of its responsibilities, one remained: the coach serves as designated scapegoat. He is sacrificed so that the president can live on. The sacking looked harsh. Admittedly Barça hadn’t been playing well, and Valverde had closed the team’s door to gifted players from the Masia, the club’s academy. Still, he had won two Spanish titles in two seasons, and he left with the team top of the league again. The sacking upset Messi: though he does not care much who the coach is, he thought Valverde was a nice guy. The Argentinian was outraged when Barça’s sporting director, Eric Abidal, told a newspaper: “Lots of players were not satisfied [with Valverde] and nor did they work much.” Messi posted Abidal’s interview on Instagram, with a red circle around those words, and wrote that the players had no responsibility for the sacking. Barça offered the coach’s job to Xavi, Ronald Koeman and Mauricio Pochettino. None of the preferred candidates wanted to take over in mid-season. And so the obscure, jobless 61-year-old Cruyffista Quique Setién, who had spent the previous day walking among the cows of his home village in northern Spain, received a surprise call. But in fact, Setién’s unremarkable CV reassured Barcelona. At least a C-list coach would not delude himself that he was the boss of Messi. During half-time at one of his first matches, away to Betis, he asked him what he thought. “What do you think I think?” snapped Messi. He was irritated that the inexperienced Junior Firpo (a protégé of Setién’s in their days at Betis) had started at left back instead of Messi’s friend, the veteran Alba. “This isn’t a youth team!” Messi shouted. “Play your best players.” Soon after half-time, Alba replaced Firpo. On the field Barça were faltering, and at that point the coronavirus came along to shut down football and devastate Spain. In 2018-19 Barcelona claimed revenues of €990 million, but in May 2020, Barça’s vice-president, Jordi Cardoner, told me the pandemic had already wiped about €130 million off the club’s revenues. Spanish football resumed in June. If only it hadn’t. Barça lost the league to Real Madrid, and then, in their Champions League quarter-final in a mercifully empty stadium in Lisbon on August 9, went down 8-2 to Bayern Munich. Six of their starting outfield players that night were aged 31 or over. An era — an unusually long era, by football’s standards — had ended in one night in Lisbon. Now Barça needed to recruit a new team. The problem was that they had run out of money. Setién, whose 15 minutes of coaching fame had at least secured him a nice pension, was dispatched back to his village. Months later, interviewed by Spain’s former manager Vicente del Bosque in El País newspaper, he unburdened himself about Messi. “There’s another facet that’s not that of a player, and that is more difficult to manage,” Setién said. “He is very reserved, but he makes you see the things he wants. He doesn’t speak much. But he watches.” During Setién’s seven months at Barça, he had always been aware that Messi could get him sacked at any moment. He had felt helpless around the player, unable to be himself: “Who am I to change him if they have accepted him for years here and have never asked him to adapt?” Setién diagnosed in Messi a permanent anxiety fuelled by the pressure to win matches. Barça replaced Setién with Koeman, who arranged a meeting at his captain’s house and reportedly told him: “Your privileges in the squad are over, you have to do everything for the team. I’m going to be inflexible.” As so often before in Barcelona’s history, Dutch directness had encountered Latin etiquette. Messi was offended — nobody spoke to him like that — and more so when Koeman then informed Luis Suárez in a one-minute phone call that he was no longer needed. Worse, nobody from the board rang the Uruguayan to thank him for his 198 goals for Barcelona. Messi could accept Barça’s decision to discard his best friend, but he couldn’t forgive the disrespect. It hardly mattered anyway. Messi was planning to leave the club regardless, frustrated that Barcelona were no longer competitive at the highest level. But at the time, Barça held him to his contract and barred him from leaving. In September 2020 I took a train from Paris to Catalonia. I disembarked in a stricken Barcelona. I’d come to meet a director for a post-apocalyptic briefing. He said that the pandemic had slashed revenues by a total of €300 million across two seasons. Barça had offered refunds to its 85,000 season ticket holders (435 of whom had said: “Keep the money.”). The club’s debt was ballooning out of control. The director played down the dreadful figures, but no other big football club had as urgent a need to buy a new team. And no other club in any sport had a higher annual wage bill than Barça’s €500 million, about a quarter of which went to Messi. On top of that sum, noted the director, Barça had to write off another €200 million a year on transfer fees. If a club sign a player for a fee of €100 million and give him a four-year contract, they write off €25 million a season in their accounts. That’s not a problem if he’s a youngster who can be resold later, but Barça’s collection of oldies had little resale value. Adding together the salaries and write-offs, Barça’s total outlay on players was about €700 million a year. Shockingly, that was more than the club’s entire revenue for the 2020-21 season. (Before the pandemic, the club’s target for 2021 had been to surpass €1 billion.) In short, salaries at Barça had got out of hand. Now a period of austerity loomed. La Liga, hoping to prevent bankruptcies during the pandemic, had quietly tightened its spending controls on Spanish clubs. The club were about to pay Suárez millions to leave. It would still end up hundreds of millions over La Liga’s limit, and without money to sign new players. In 30 years of visiting Barcelona, I had never seen the club laid so low. It was now possible to imagine that football’s biggest spenders of the 2014 to 2019 period would eventually have to sell rising stars such as Pedri and Ansu Fati to richer clubs. At the Barça training ground, Koeman’s efforts to change club culture earned him the nickname “Sergeant Koeman”. Players had to report an hour before practice started. Training sessions were extended from one hour to 90 minutes, and became quite strenuous, by Barça’s standards. Koeman said that coaching Barcelona was “the most stressful job” he’d ever had. His wife couldn’t bear to watch their first few matches, and instead went out with De Jong’s girlfriend, who couldn’t watch either. Things on the playing side improved a little after Christmas 2020, with Messi seeming to rediscover his pleasure in football, and combining happily with his young team-mates Pedri, De Jong, Sergiño Dest and a newly professional Ousmane Dembélé. But even with Messi’s salary jettisoned, the financial outlook remains grim. The club’s debt is now about €1.2 billion. The league has slashed Barcelona’s total permitted spending on transfer fees and players’ salaries to somewhere between €160 and €200 million for the coming season — down from €656 million in 2019-2020. Where now for Barcelona? Maybe the Barcelona model is coming to an end. For a while now, the club’s business executives have been planning for a future of mediocrity on the pitch. One told me in 2019 that Barça should expect to be less successful in the next 25 years than it had been in the previous 25. The worst-case scenario was becoming AC Milan: from European champions to national also-rans. If that happened, Chinese kids would stop watching Barça matches and buying their shirts. And if that were the case, Barça risked dropping out of the top three when it came to European clubs with the highest revenues. The foreign fan base — which now consist largely of youngsters in love with Messi — may age over time. As a senior club official told me, “After Messi you see the desert, you see darkness.” This is an edited extract from Simon Kuper’s new book Barça, which is published on Thursday. Simon Kuper is an FT Weekend columnist

...............and here is the good news: Charles Green trousers £6.3M+ of public monies, in a settlement from the Crown Office. Oh, and legals, too. Ex-Rangers executive Charles Green wins over £6m from Lord Advocate in malicious club fraud prosecution By Martin Williams @MWilliamsHTSenior News Reporter UPDATED Ex-Rangers executive wins over £6m from Lord Advocate in malicious club fraud prosecution https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/homenews/19503046.ex-rangers-executive-charles-green-wins-6m-lord-advocate-malicious-club-fraud-prosecution/ FORMER Rangers chief executive Charles Green has won over £6m from the Lord Advocate in a settlement over his £20m claim for being wrongfully prosecuted in the club fraud case. Details of the settlement came as an eight day hearing to judge the amount of damages was about to take place. Garry Borland QC for Mr Green said the settlement from Lord Advocate James Wolffe came overnight and that the former Rangers executive was "content to accept it". He said settlement came in the form of a judicial tender in the amount of £6,393,046 pounds plus Mr Green's legal costs. It emerged during an earlier hearing that Police Scotland were no longer being sued as part of the action brought by Mr Green. No reasons were given as to why this was the case. The 67-year-old businessman was arrested with several other men following a police probe into alleged fraud relation to the sale of the current Scottish champions to businessman Craig Whyte. Mr Green, whose Sevco consortium, bought the assets of the club business in liquidation nine years ago for £5.5m was due to receive compensation after Crown lawyers accepted he was subjected to a malicious fraud prosecution. Mr Green was told three years ago they would face no further proceedings in connection with the case as prosecutors said there is "now no evidence of a crime". The decision by the Crown Office had marked the end of the two-and-a-half-year long proceedings which saw only Craig Whyte face trial and led to no convictions. Part of Mr Green's claim related to losses made from two businesses after he was prosecuted. The Lord Advocate has previously made a public apology to Mr Green as the damages case was due to be progressed. Mr Green's solictor Greg Whyte of Jones Whyte LLP said: "Mr Green is today relieved to settle his claim for malicious prosecution. He looks forward to putting the last six years behind him and moving on with his life." Mr Green is today relieved to settle his claim for malicious prosecution. He looks forward to putting the last 6 years behind him and moving on with his life. – Greg Whyte, Jones Whyte LLP. A full hearing in his £20m damages claim over wrongful arrest to decide how much should be awarded was due on Monday. But Mr Borland said: "Mr Green was the victim of an egregious wrong at the hands of prosecuting authorities and the proof this morning was fixed to deal with the quantification of his claims against the Lord Advocate. "Last night the Lord Advocate, made an offer to settle this case, in the form of a judicial tender in the amount of £6,393,046 plus payment of Mr Green's legal costs to date. "That offer of settlement by the Lord Advocate was made overnight. "I took instructions this morning and Mr Green is content to accept that settlement offer. "And I therefore move the court this morning to grant decree in favour of Mr Green. He added: "In conclusion, my lord at this stage, it will be for the public enquiry, to examine how this malicious prosecution of Mr Green could possibly have been allowed to happen. But at this stage, I would simply thank this court for its handling of these civil proceedings." Lord Tyre said: "Obviously, from my part, I'm happy that the case was settled. I could grumble about the fact that it took until the morning of the proof and therefore, it would have saved me obviously some work if this had happened last week, but in the circumstances I shall refrain from doing so." Gerry Moyniham QC, for the Lord Advocate James Wolffe said: "There is no opposition to what my learned friend has made by way of motions, and it's not appropriate for me to add anything, or comment. Mr Moynihan said at an earlier hearing that more information was needed about the financial losses relating to Mr Green. He said one of the issues in the cases related to the amount of damage that was done to a company both men had been involved with called Proton International. There was further information needed on damage done to a firm Mr Green had been involved with, Florida-based firm called Croton. Mr Moynihan said Mr Green’s legal team had submitted a report written by staff members of international financial services company KPMG about the financial losses. Mr Whyte, who ended up being the last man standing in the long-running case, was cleared in the summer of 2017 of all charges in connection with his takeover of seven years ago. The cases brought by Mr Green come in the light of admissions made by the Crown in another case brought by businessmen David Whitehouse and Paul Clark. Prosecutors admitted Mr Whitehouse and Mr Clark were wrongfully arrested and prosecuted and the two men sought a total of £20.8 million from the Crown Office and Police Scotland. But they later settled their action with each of them receiving £10.3 million each - their legal bills, thought to be worth £3 million each, were also paid for.

The Club could, I think, decline arbitration, and force them into court.

That's a little concerning. I hope that the Board know what they're doing. I think that the Club would find it difficult to breach commercial confidentiality, here, without incurring the wrath of the party/parties with whom the contract is made. Of course, they may be prevailed upon to disclose details to the SPFL, although I am disinclined to hold my breath on that. Surely, however, all that is needed is formal depositions, or somesuch, from the Club and from the other party/parties confirming the nature of their business, that there is a contract in place, with its operational date, and its likely date of conclusion, and that discharging the alleged obligations to Messrs cinch would be inimical to its and the Club's interests. It could be complicated if there is an optional right of continuation, of course, as there would be no determinate end point at which the cinch contract could kick in. I think that the SPFL has bolloxed this. The question is whether this is deliberate and malicious or down to arrogance and incompetence.

Here's a laugh. The Daily Bedlam finally has real bedlam to report. SPFL asks the SFA to intervene in their sponsorship row with Rangers after warning the champions their refusal to promote the league's £1.6m-a-year deal with car firm cinch could affect their distribution of prize money The SPFL have asked the SFA to arbitrate their sponsorship row with Rangers The Ibrox club are refusing to promote the £1.6million a year tie-up with cinch Despite weeks of discussions, the two sides have failed to sort out the problem SPFL board have 'reluctantly' referred case to the SFA for an independent ruling By STEPHEN MCGOWAN FOR MAILONLINE PUBLISHED: 15:23, 9 August 2021 | UPDATED: 15:28, 9 August 2021 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-9876931/SPFL-asks-SFA-intervene-sponsorship-row-Rangers.html The SPFL have asked the SFA to arbitrate their simmering row with Rangers over an £8million cinch sponsorship deal after warning clubs that the dispute could hamper their ability to pay out prize money. The Ibrox club are in legal dispute with league chiefs after refusing to promote the £1.6million a year league tie-up with the online car firm on their jerseys or within their stadium. Rangers insist that rule I7 of the SPFL states that clubs are 'not obliged to comply with this rule if to do so would result in that club being in breach of a contractural obligation entered into prior to the commercial contract concerned.' Ibrox managing director Stewart Robertson claims the league were also informed that Rangers 'would be unable to provide the new sponsor with many of their rights due to a pre-existing contractual obligation' and accused the central body of blowing £500,000 of club cash on agency fees. Despite weeks of discussions, however, the two sides have failed to sort out their differences. And the SPFL board have now 'reluctantly' referred the matter to the SFA for independent arbitration amidst fears cinch could rip up the deal and walk away, depriving clubs of revenue. In an email breaking the news chairman Murdoch MacLennan told member clubs: 'The one SPFL club that has failed to deliver club inventory for cinch is also hampering the SPFL from promoting the SPFL's relationship with cinch by, for example, refusing to permit cinch-branded interview backboards to be delivered to, or used at, its home ground and to be used for broadcast partner interviews with club representatives at away matches. 'At their opening league match, none of that club's players wore the cinch branded sleeve patch; there were no LED advertising or static advertising boards with cinch branding allowed in the stadium; and the club concerned also refused to allow the use of the standard SPFL broadcast partner interview backdrop board displaying cinch branding. 'Over several weeks now, your board has sought to engage with the club concerned to find a way through this very serious impasse. 'However, we have been met with a refusal to give the board sight of any pre-existing third-party contract that would prevent the club from providing inventory for cinch. 'The refusal by one of our clubs to provide inventory for cinch presents a real and substantial commercial risk to the SPFL – and one which materially threatens the SPFL's fee payments to all 42 SPFL clubs. 'This is the first time in the history of the SPFL, or the SPL before that, where a club has not provided agreed inventory to the League for use in fulfilling a commercial Contract. 'Your board considers it has been left with no realistic option, in compliance with Scottish FA articles, other than to refer this dispute to Scottish FA arbitration. Your Board has reached this conclusion with great reluctance. 'However, your board believes that it has a clear obligation to embark upon this course of action to protect and advance the interests of the SPFL and all of its member clubs.' Rangers hit back at the SPFL by claiming they told them about their concerns over the £8m cinch sponsorship deal before it was signed Writing to clubs last week Rangers MD Robertson insisted the champions were within their rights to take issue with the £8million contract, writing: 'For the avoidance of doubt, Rangers continues to comply with the rules of the SPFL. 'One of the key rules that protects the commercial interests of all members is Rule I7. 'When the SPFL Executive put forward the written resolution with regards to the new sponsorship contract, Rangers immediately notified Neil Doncaster that, in line with Rule I7, we would be unable to provide the new sponsor with many of their rights due to a pre-existing contractual obligation. We cannot breach an existing contract. 'This is a legal principle which is founded in Scots Law and is the reason that the SPFL has Rule I7 within its rules. 'Rangers has complied with and will continue to comply with the SPFL rules and fulfil all sponsorship obligations which do not conflict with our pre-existing contractual obligations.'

They have just beaten Dundee 6 (six) - 0, and that is after scoring 4 on Thursday. We'll be lucky to hit 10 by the end of September.

Perhaps not......

I hate to say it, but, today, we were beaten by a better side.

Can we salvage a draw?

I'm surprised only that it took so long. We have looked short all game.

I hope that this mob run out of steam, because, football wise, they are bettering us for the most part.

1 - 3 Kent

Jordan Jones - Wigan - permanent - undisclosed fee- offishull https://www.rangers.co.uk/Article/jordan-jones-departs-rangers/1HXAkYM5oHzLbwEoV3WMIm