It is true - although I'm a wee bit hungover (I went dancing last night - and I really shouldn't ever go dancing).
Tuesday, 2 April 2013 EVIL SPL DEMAND THAT RANGERS PAY CELTIC LAWYER'S HARPER MACLEOD AND LORD NIMMO SMITH THE SCOTTISH PREMIER LEAGUE want Rangers to pay the £500,000 legal costs of the Lord Nimmo Smith Tribunal which cleared them of gaining any unfair sporting advantage by using EBTs. Yes, you did read that correctly, though I suspect there are many who will want to pore over it again just to make certain they got it right the first time. Indeed, had such a sentence appeared here on yesterday’s date, many would have been forgiven for believing it was an April Fool’s story. Unfortunately, I am so hungover on Mondays that I am no longer able to write a blog. However, it is a true tale and the only fools in it are the Scottish Premier League, their – and Celtic’s – lawyers, the controversial Harper MacLeod firm and its attack dog lawyer Rod McKenzie and Celtic-supporting Nosferatu. I can reveal that Harper Macleod partner, McKenzie has written a letter demanding that Rangers stump up the £500,000 of legal fees for Harper MacLeod’s abortive, destructive and maleficent prosecution of Rangers on the SPL’s behalf, and the cost of Lord Nimmo Smith and the two eminent Queen’s Counsel who sat with him on the Independent Tribunal which cleared Rangers of any crime against sporting integrity, to use Peter Lawwell’s favourite phrase, in which he suggested that Rangers had been cleared of any crime associated with unsporting integrity. The letter from Celtic's lawyers Harper MacLeod lawyer, Rod McKenzie, a man who has previously represented Celtic and Neil Lennon and possibly supports Celtic and hates Rangers, was sent in the wake of Michael Nicholson, another Harper MacLeod lawyer who has represented Celtic and hates Rangers, leaving the firm to join Peter Lawwell at Parkhead as Celtic’s company secretary. And I can further reveal that the letter has infuriated, bemused and enraged Rangers chief executive and all round good guy Charles Green. To such an extent that there were angry words when he met the SPL chief executive Neil Doncaster at Hampden last week. And I don't know what a conjunction is. There was a very public clash between the two which was witnessed by a cleaner and a pigeon, with Doncaster denying all knowledge of the letter and Green making it clear to Doncaster that there was not a snowball’s chance in Hell of the acquitted Rangers paying for the SPL’s failed attempt to strip the Ibrox club of five titles, a bid which was spearheaded by Celtic’s lawyers, Harper Macleod and the law firm’s attack dog, Rod McKenzie, in which Rangers were cleared of trying to abort sporting integrity. I understand that one senior legal figure who I can't name and probably doesn't exist has had a sight of the letter described its contents as preposterous, slanderous and possibly preposterous. Such a letter from Rod McKenzie could only have been sent on the instructions of Harper MacLeod’s clients, the SPL or possibly Peter Lawwell, which makes it strange that the SPL chief executive Neil Doncaster should have no knowledge of such a letter. It also presents an image of a financially challenged Scottish Premier League desperately trying to either recoup their costs, or having Rangers pay those costs, directly. Which begs the questions. Is that a sentence? Have Harper and MacLeod been paid their fees yet by the Scottish Premier League? Have Lord Nimmo Smith and the two eminent QCs who sat with him on the Independent Tribunal been paid by the Scottish Premier League? Why have I never had a girlfriend?? Have the researchers who worked for the Lord Nimmo Smith Tribunal been paid by the Scottish Premier League? Can the increasingly hard up Scottish Premier League afford the £500,000 legal bill? If they cannot, then is it wise for the Scottish Premier League to run up more legal fees by employing Celtic's lawyers Harper Macleod to try and bulldoze and bully Rangers into meeting the costs? And if the Independent Tribunal has not been paid by the Scottish Premier League, the people who engaged their services, then will we see the unedifying sight of a High Court Judge and two of Britain’s most eminent QCs taking the SPL to court for the money they are owed? I’d pay to see that! But with the Tory Government's swinging new cuts in benefits I'll be lucky to have a pot to piss in. And all of this is going on at a time when the evil, corrupt and smelly Peter Lawwell-Neil Doncaster-Darth Maul-SPL Axis is trying to bribe Scottish Football League clubs with money they do not appear to have.
Thursday, 4 April 2013 DAILY RECORD IN NEW COVER-UP OVER LAWWELL LINKS WHY are Scotland’s newspapers refusing to reveal the identities of the men who are trying to bulldoze through reconstruction on behalf of the seemingly morally corrupt Scotttish Premier League and the Scottish Football Association. After all, one of the first rules of journalism, something I had drummed into me almost half a century ago, was to make any story personal. People are interested in other people, so names, names and more names is the order of the day. However, that no longer seems to apply to the Scottish media whenever one of the names turns out to be Celtic chief executive, Scottish Premier League mover and shaker and Scottish Football Association powerbroker, Peter Lawwell. Lawwell gives me the distinct impression that he likes to do his work in lurking in the shadows and that he also prefers to exercise power, often through others, some on his payroll and some not. And the impression is also created that he achieves his aims and escapes being questioned by newspapers due to the power he exerts on those media outlets, either through Celtic’s financial arrangements with them, in the case of the Daily Record, or through what many believe to be collusion, in the case of the anti Rangers Scottish Daily Mail. However, the grapevine still buzzes and the jungle drums still beat and I understand Peter Lawwell has taken to making what he believes to be jocular remarks about his supposed power over Scottish football. It is a neat and old tactic, if tactic it is, to joke in a self deprecating manner about claims regarding the power held in the matter of strategy. The fact is that Peter Lawwell’s tentacles and the tentacles of those who either owe their financial existence to him, or who are close associates whose past deeds reveal their allegiance to him, reach the very top of the Scottish Premier League - what I call the Neil Doncaster-Peter Lawwell-SPL Axis, as well as the Scottish Football Association, where Lawwell sits alongside SFA chief executive Stewart Regan in the Hampden boardroom. And never has the power and influence of Celtic’s Peter Lawwell been more obvious than when the Scottish Football Association Professional Game Board met this week with the Scottish Premier League reconstruction working group and the Scottish Football League. Just do not expect to read about the people involved in any newspaper. For they are either financially committed to Celtic or tied to the Parkhead club’s wishes in other ways. But to gain an understanding of the forces at work as the SPL try to bulldoze their plans for reconstruction through, while staying in control, and the SFA increasingly gives the impression of wanting to help to stampede the SFL into an agreement, it is important to know the people involved. Starting with the SPL there is Peter Lawwell, then there is the new Celtic company secretary, Michael Nicholson, a lawyer and former senior partner in the Harper Macleod firm which acts for Celtic and acted for the SPL against Rangers, plus also another Lawwell loyalist, Hibernian’s Rod Petrie. As well as SPL chief executive Neil Doncaster, the man who parachuted Peter Lawwell into the talks the SPL had with Sky last summer and thought he had kept that under wraps until the pair were caught bang to rights at Glasgow Airport. Not forgetting SPL Board member, Eric Riley, employed by Peter Lawwell as Celtic’s £250,000-a-year financial director. Let’s now move onto the Pro Game Board of the Scottish Football Association, which also took part in this week’s reconstruction talks, talks about a reconstruction which could bulldoze the Scottish Football League out of existence, leaving the SPL and the SFA to carve things up between them. Peter Lawwell of course sits on the SFA Pro Game Board along with the man who parachuted him into the Hampden boardroom as almost his first act on taking over as SFA chief executive, Stewart Regan. And who is it who chairs the SFA’s Pro Game Board? Why, none other than Peter Lawwell’s ally from the SPL, Hibernian’s Rod Petrie. So, no conflict of interest there, then. Actually, when talking about any Axis, I should describe it as the Stewart Regan-Peter Lawwell-Rod Petrie-SFA-Neil Doncaster-Peter Lawwell-Michael Nicholson-Rod Petrie-SPL-Axis. That would be more inclusive. More descriptive. More accurate. With more names. But just do not expect to see the make-up of this Celtic cabal exposed in any Scottish newspaper. Certainly not the now fiercely anti-Rangers Daily Record, locked as it is, in a financial deal with Celtic which is vital to that ailing paper’s continued existence. What we have learned from what is in the papers is that Neil Doncaster finally produced the Sky contract at the SPL-SFA-SFL meeting and claimed that it still has four years to run and that it is not dependent on Rangers being in the top tier. Though no paper – certainly not the Daily Record – wants to do a thorough job of investigative journalism to discover just what this contract is actually worth without Rangers in the top flight. Keith Jackson is too busy desperately trying to undermine Rangers with what amounts to no more than mischief making trivia, while David McCarthy is too busy waiting for a press conference – any press conference, anywhere near - to be called, to make life easy for him. We also learned that the SFA have offered themselves as honest and independent brokers. Stewart Regan, Peter Lawwell and Rod Petrie’s SFA will conduct due diligence on the financial offers Neil Doncaster, Peter Lawwell , Eric Riley, Michael Nicholson and Rod Petrie’s SPL have made to the SFL. Brokers? Mmmmm! Honest? You may think what you like, but I could not possibly comment. Independent? You have got to be joking. My advice to the SFL clubs who have declared they want to swallow the SPL bait of a £350,000-a-year-per-club bribe to quit the SFL and form an SPL2, is to have due diligence carried out by a truly independent and highly competent company, such as word wide auditors, Grant Thornton. Taking the word of the Stewart Regan-Peter Lawwell-Rod Petrie Scottish Football Association that the Neil Doncaster-Peter Lawwell-Eric Riley-Michael Nicholson-Rod Petrie Scottish Premier League is good for the cash it is offering to the SFL as a bribe, is madness. Just don’t expect to read that in the Daily Record under Keith Jackson’s by-line. Peter Lawwell’s Celtic, who the Record are financially dependent on, would not approve. please log in to view this image
The brass neck on this **** How many times has he made insinuations about unnamed people in his blogs? On the other hand, on some blogs he just names any **** that's associated with Celtic, no matter how intangible that link is.
One cannot but admire the tenacity and news-finding abilities of that old master of the “inky trades” Mr David Leggat. Yesterday morning’s piece by him revealed that the SPL have asked Rangers to pay the costs of the SPL Independent Commission under Lord Nimmo Smith. Mr Leggat’s revelation was followed later on by an official reaction from Rangers. It is fair to say that Mr Leggat’s perception of how Rangers would receive the bill seems spot on. The official statement, which I quote below, does not make reference to “attack dogs”, an “axis” or bribery. Nor does it seek to label this demand as a last hurrah for a bankrupt league, led into error by the Chief Executive of another team. (As an aside, I note that people who criticise my blogging comment about how I am “obsessed” for writing about a football team I do not support – I see that the most recent 13 posts by Mr Leggat each refer either to Celtic, or to its Chief Executive, or both! Is Mr Leggat a Celtic supporter? I think not. Does that make him “obsessed”? Of course not. If he feels sufficiently motivated by something to write about it, then why shouldn’t he, as long as he does not break the civil or criminal law in doing so. And I do not propose to make an assessment of Mr Leggat’s state of mind either – that is a job for a professional – as indeed it would be for the assessment of anyone’s state of mind.)
I genuinely thought you'd made that bit up Dev had to go and check the original just to be sure. Bloke needs to be sectioned
With this nutjob there is no point in gilding the Lily, he writes enough ****e without me adding to it.
A Rangers fan posting about other fans being obsessed - in his own obsessive way. What was that other thread? Oh yeah, Gers Fans Don't Do Irony...............
