So you've answered your own question, no not like Real Madrid. State aid is any form of financial assistance given by central or local government, or other publicly funded bodies, to private companies that might distort a free market.
"Glasgow City Council agreed to sell some surrounding land to the new Celtic PLC for a rumoured £1. What is staggering is that at the time of the committee conducting a vote, ELEVEN where involved with Celtic, 7 being shareholders and 4 being season ticket holders. The few remaining councillors – Labour, SNP and a Tory all voted NO to selling the land for £1. “State aid is any form of financial assistance given by central or local government, or other publicly funded bodies, to private companies that might distort a free market. In general terms, the rules are broken only when a public body acts in a way a private investor would not: so a fixed-term loan to a club at commercial rates is fine, but an open-ended commitment to plug holes in the accounts is not.” Fast forward a little more than 15 years. Real Madrid – the Spanish giants have had allegations against them that their transactions with Madrid City Council, dating back to a 1996 agreement between the two parties, constitute illegal state aid under article 87 of the Treaty of the European Community. It is alleged that *the council hugely overestimated its debt to the football club in order that the former could give Real the prime city-centre land they require for their new development. (*Note in the Celtic case, Glasgow City Council owed nothing to the club) The investigation into Real’s deal with Madrid City Council centres upon an area of land in the north of the city, Las Tablas. Having originally been valued at €421,000 when it was part of a payment by the council to the club in 1998; the same land was then valued at €22.7m in 2011, a 5,400 per cent rise, when the council decided they had to take it back. In lieu of a €22.7m payment, the club was given the land they needed to develop their stadium". http://economicsfc.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/celtic-fc-and-state-aid/ Now i'm no expert but it would appear to me that some people are rightly concerned that Real Madrid seem to have been gifted land worth EUR 22.7m. I would be interested to know what Medro and the other nutters/obsessives think the land that Celtic were given was worth. The Barrowfield area is hardly prime real estate, the land - in effect- given to Celtic was of no value to anyone. Who's going to build a house next to Parkhead?
I take it you don't feel there was anything wrong with GCC's deal with Celtic then ? (Assuming that everything in the article you posted is true)
Land is of "no value" to anyone FFS Russ - To paraphrase" People are rightly concerned that Real were gifted land worth £22m but Barrowfield is worthless..." Unless the land at Barrowfield was used to test Nuclear weapons and the soil is highly contaminated, of course it's worth more than £1. I don't know how many acres Barrowfield, but when I'm looking at land purchases for a residential development, depending on location, you'd say between £100-£250 per sq/mtr. So, I think it's safe to assume that the land is worth significantly more than £1.
I think it's also important to remember the massive redevelopment that is going on around Parkhead. Roads upgraded, railway stations upgraded, previously unused land being improved upon. With the athlete village accomodation going up for sale after the commonwealth games, massive improvements to transport infrastructure, we could see the east end of Glasgow becoming highly sought after. The land that was practically gifted to Celtic could easily be used to build houses (perhaps even a super casino) and be worth much more than £1.
Yes, of course you are correct. I was merely trying to put it in layman's terms so Russ could understand it and so there was no room for whatabootery.
Reading the piece Dev posted i was under the impression the land gifted to Celtic was around the old stadium so the new one could be built . Barrowfield has been mentioned a few times in this thread does that mean they were also gifted land where their Barrowfield training area was located i.e. near the CSC club ?
I have no idea what land was gifted and it's location but for Russ to assert that the land was 'worthless' is one of the most ridiculous claims I've seen on here for a while.
The land is now worth a lot - due to Celtic regenerating the ground and natural changes in the surrounding areas not foreseen 20 odd years back such as Glasgow getting the commonwealth games - however that does not mean it was worth a lot in 1995. Remember value is not just the price to buy something - its the running and maintenance costs. The land had to be maintained at the expence of the council - public liability insurance and maintenance and security involving hundreds of thousands of people crossing the land each year to access the ground and the potential for accidents etc means selling for £1 meant the club and not the council had to pick up those costs. Often land is sold for **** all. Celtic benefited from being the only people interested in taking it off the hands of the Council. The Council could have held onto it in the hope they got a better price now 20 years later - but they would have had to pay for the priviledge. And Rangers fans would probably then have accused the Council of paying to maintain land used by Celtic
The only land that would be worthless would be, as you say, a nuclear wasteland. Ravenscraig was heavily polluted, but they've redeveloped that. I've worked on former landfill sites and turned them into housing developments.
I would have happily paid a pound for the land, if I was made aware of it being available. Fair enough I would only have been 7, but my pocket money back then would have covered the purchase. Not sure about legal fees......lawyers are all a bunch of ****s. No exceptions
I never said everything in the article was true - or even any of it. Personally I don't give a tinker's cuss who gave who what and for how much, the only people who do seem to care are desperately sad tossers who are trying to get some form of payback by complaining about the most trivial ****e imaginable.
No. GCC knew that they were going to regenerate the East End, they've known that since the 60's. Regardless of the commonwealth games, the East end was getting regenerated. The land was worth significantly more than £1, to say it's worthless is absolute bullswallop. The old London road school, shut in 2004 and the only B-listed school left in Glasgow, has been sold to Celtic and they've been granted permission to flatten it. The council are a corrupt bunch of bastards, take team loyalties aside and it's the same. The whole organisation is corrupt as ****.
btw I was hoping Medro was going to dig a deeper hole by going on about "State Aid" again, but i'll save him the trouble: [h=2]What is State Aid?[/h]State Aid refers to forms of assistance from a public body, or publicly-funded body, given to selected undertakings (any entity which puts goods or services on the given market), which has the potential to distort competition and affect trade between member states of the European Union. https://www.gov.uk/state-aid So the sale of some land around Parkhead for a Pound "has the potential to distort competition and affect trade between member states of the European Union"
