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The Establishment Club. The SPFL Board aka Peter's Place Men decided upon the voting options available to the clubs in lieu of the onset of Covid variant, omicron. Neil Doncaster, Rod McKenzie and, Murdoch MacLennan provided the required analysis, the preferred options and, the get out of Jail free card(Dundee's John Nelm's spam folder) to the SPFL Board and assured Peter that ra Selllik's growing injury crisis was a most manageable problem. They were pursuing the common sense approach and were confident of the outcome. Sellik have cultivated a raft of politicos these last three - four decades, at one point the two Boards running the club contained a former Vice Governor of the Bank of England and three Cabinet Ministers. The Kerrydale Soup Kitchens were serving Vichyssoise and Bouillabaisse. Pottage dripping from his chops, Billy Bunter aka Ian Blackford furthered his Humble Crofter credentials, "the proposal to bring forward the footballing winter break is a sensible proposal". John Swinney was bad cop to Blackford's PC Murdoch, "the League Cup final may have been a super spreader and I urge football supporters to refrain from attending festive season fixtures". Look closely, the seemingly mixed message is the same message. The compliant Scotttish media was on message, the consensus among SPFL clubs was to utilise the winter break as a circuit breaker. Bringing it forward by a week was good sense, the only dissenting voice was as ever, Rangers. Of course, it was important last night's fixtures were completed and Boxing Day's matches be played in front of a maximum of 500 spectators at each game. Sellik could handle a Covid hamstrung St Mirren and bottom of the table St Johnstone, couldn't they? Pat Bonner explained on Sportsound, "every team will have played the same amount of games, no one will have an advantage". Last night's Sportsound was hosted by Big Dick; he was joined by Wullie Miller, Pat Bonner, Michael Stewart and, Alan Preston. Mikey thought the SPLFL decision was, "the sensible approach". Preston approved, "common sense has been applied" and, Wullie was comfortable being part of the majority, "it's only Rangers that see it another way". We were not informed of the other way but found out concurrently Aberdeen Chair, Dave Cormack was e-mailing Nicola appealing for a significant rise is allowed Boxing Day attendances. St Mirren Boss, Jim Goodwin was tasked with leading his lambs to ra Sellik slaughter and he was definitely off message. Strange, he had been photographed at Hampden on Sunday sitting in ra Sellik end with his son replete in green'n'grey scarf. Jim told us the SPFL had broken their own rules, bent over backwards to ensure the fixture went ahead, "I have been allowed to recall four teenagers from loan spells at Lowland League clubs but not the three more experienced loanees at League one and two clubs". He went on, "I have a bench with no Premier League experience whatsoever, there are several players in my dressing room meeting each other for the first time". After the match, when Karma prevailed the atmosphere on Sportsound was best described as 'choking'. Goodwin received some deserved plaudits but mostly there was an atmosphere of every shoulder being applied but Ange could not oblige. Big Dick left it to the end, "the League table looks like this, Rangers are six points ahead. Hibs move into the top six, Aberdeen drop out and St Johnstone are anchored at the foot". Everyone agreed the SPFL took the sensible approach but we never did find out what the other way entailed? As a BBC License Fee paying Rangers supporter, perhaps I can articulate : The Imminent Scottish Football Shutdown. Due to a new Covid strain called Omnibollocks which is unique to footballers, the SPFL look again to give into Sellik's demands and postpone all football until Sellik are happy. Symptoms of this new strain are pulled hamstrings from over exuberant goal celebrations against lesser opponents. Apparently playing AngeBall heightens risk of infection. Boffins claim this new strain first appeared at Sellik Park in 2008 after the club's post season tour of Japan. It may be an offshoot of Sportingintegrititus prevalent in ra Stade de Gadd at this time. It is not believed there is any connection to SeparateEntititus which has surfaced in connection with former employees spending time at Her Majesty's pleasure. Further, Sellik have proposed a contingency plan to the SPFL in case the league cannot be completed. Apparently, the true test of Champions is the ability to pass the ball more and it is accepted that points accrued is sectarian and anti-Irish. If Sellik's proposals are not endorsed completely, the club will make application to play in Palestine. Just saying like.

A most enjoyable result in Paisley last night. Overall 'winter break' situation frustrating but it is what it is so three points on Saturday against St Mirren a must. Then we have an opportunity for us to reset, absorb more of the manager's ideas and be ready for a mid-January restart at Pittodrie. As much as recent events leave a bad taste in the mouth and once again highlight Rangers' lack of 'political' clout, we can use the opportunity to get Helander, Roofe and Jack all fit as well as look at recalling one or two loan players or even make a signing. We can benefit too! It's very hard to sit back and simply accept Celtic's off-field machinations but it's always going to be the long game in terms of changing things there and, as always, money talks even if the science and common-sense suggests crowds will not be back any time soon next month.

it's also nonsense there are loads of free midweeks unless we make the EL final ffs. If he was genuine about this then this nonsense yesterday should not have happened.

There is simply no justification for these draconian actions , no science , no increase in hospitilisations no increase in deaths , this is wholly about being different from Westminster , we live in dark dark times im afraid , and the increasinginglyaggressive tone towards those who have made the choice not to get vaxed or take the 3rd jag ( I for the recored am jagged but do not believe I have the right to tell someone else what to do with their body/health etc) is becoming increasingly worrying and aggressive in tone .

Lots I’d suggest. Not being investigated by polis Alba this time unfortunately for him. Both the FCA and the city of London police are in a different league

Sorted. You're welcome.

Ha f**king ha. Truth to be told, I didn't even know they were playing tonight. What a nice wee surprise before hitting the hay.

yup been in a snow shower in shots in July

If applicable. I suspect BDO think otherwise

I presume it’s the actual sum BDO are disputing. this whole thing is turning into a farce. I always remember back in 2012 the headline figure of debt owed was £134m of which £94m was owed to HMRC. BDO have already knocked £30m off that £94m leaving it now at £64m of which they’re now disputing £51m. The total value of the EBTs was around £48m so at what rate did they think they’re taxed at? >100%? Going back to the £134m figure, if £94m was ‘owed’ to HMRC then that leaves £40m owed elsewhere. £27m of that was owed to ticketus but D&P got the deal declared illegal and terminated it in court meaning they got nothing. That leaves £13m of which £7.7m was owed to debenture holders and just under £3m football debts which got repaid by Green. The rest was small debts The reasons for administration and then liquidation are diminishing day by day. Then there was the rejection by HMRC of Murray’s offer to settle the EBT’s. That was refused. Doesn’t look to me HMRC got a good deal for the taxpayers in all of this so was there a political influence in all of this? the names are still out there

Aye, he does know we are based in Scotland? Seen snow in Harthill in July....

Has anyone informed the weather gods about this? 🤣

You can't keep a good man down. It would appear that the FCA continues to investigate him. If he is tried in England, he won't be a hero to an SNP supporting jury. He might be best, then, identifying as a woman, allowing her to serve his porridge in a women's nick. (I think that's right.) There are a few lads who would be willing to help with surgery, even if it is not actually required. Ex-Rangers owner Craig Whyte arrested at airport Greig Cameron Thursday December 23 2021, 12.01am, The Times Football Craig Whyte is accused of failing to give passwords to seized devices https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ex-rangers-owner-craig-whyte-arrested-at-airport-33gln2qh3 The former owner of Rangers has appeared in court after being arrested at Manchester airport. Craig Whyte, 50, has been charged with failing to provide passwords for various laptops and phones seized more than three years ago. At Manchester and Salford magistrates’ court yesterday Whyte said he was not guilty, which means a trial will have to take place. He was released on conditional bail. The Financial Conduct Authority, the financial services industry regulator, had requested the arrest, carried out by Greater Manchester police officers on Tuesday. The punishment for anyone found guilty of failing to comply with a statutory notice under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act could be up to two years in prison. The FCA said “the arrest is in relation to non-disclosure of key passwords for various laptops and phones” seized from Whyte under a warrant issued in April 2018. Whyte bought Rangers for £1 from Sir David Murray in May 2011 and promised to invest. It later emerged he had funded the takeover using a loan based on future season ticket sales. The club failed to pay various taxes during his short period of ownership which resulted in Rangers being put into administration in February 2012. In 2014 the Insolvency Service banned Whyte from being a company director for the maximum of 15 years for his part in the financial troubles at Rangers. It emerged that he had previously been disqualified from being a director for seven years from 2000. He was one of several people who were arrested and charged as part of a police investigation into the Rangers insolvency but the only one still facing charges when the High Court trial started in 2017. Whyte was cleared of both charges against him. Since then he has published an autobiography, Into the Bear Pit, about his time in control at Rangers, while his business dealings have continued to make headlines. It has been suggested he was heavily involved in Fortress Restructuring, a UK company where his father, Tom, 75, was listed as a director. Fortress, founded in 2018, was involved in various areas including providing cashback deals from online shopping and giving advice on how to restructure businesses to try to avoid having to pay debts.It is now in liquidation, according to documents at Companies House. Comments for this article have been turned off

Only if you envisaged it short, merciful, and painlesss, and not long, lingering, and agonising.

Apparently, the Referee was intent upon ten minutes injury time tonight in Paisley. However, he cut it to seven when he heard half-a-dozen of the St Mirren players had school tomorrow.

BBC reporting St Mirren and Celtic are back out on the pitch ready for the 3rd half to kick off

Even 5 is way too much! no stoppages! no injuries! scandalous!

Ho ho ho! 🤣

we will have plenty of free midweeks post dortmund realistically. we should bounce these games back out of sheer spite.

Nonces get what nonces want. Why am I unsurprised by this? Why am I no longer disappointed by the catamites of the SPFL?

Rangers first priority should be the health of our supporters, players and staff, everything else should be secondary. Based on the available public health advice the game on Boxing Day shouldn't have a crowd at it. As has been pointed out by others the likelihood of these crowd reduction measures being reversed by mid-January seem slim, so for me whether we go into a winter break now or in early January as planned is fairly moot, we'll all be playing behind closed doors at some point I think. The argument that a delay to mid-January will benefit Celtic as it allows them more time to get players fit is fair, but with Balugun, Barasic, Davis and Roofe, all potential starters if fit, also in danger of missing out perhaps a delay might not be that bad for us either. The African Cup of Nations taking possibly 3 of our players away for nearly a month is a problem. Losing 3 players does mean we can legitimately ask for postponements of matches but that would really cause fixture chaos, particularly if our next 3 matches are postponed as well. The club is well within its rights to point that out. I suspect Rangers, and every other club in Scotland, will be looking to minimise the number of matches played with few or no spectators allowed in. A look at last year's accounts shows just how important having a full Ibrox is for the club's finances, and that applies to every club up here. There's no fat for us to fall back on, losing our biggest revenue stream, again, provides some significant challenges for our board. I can understand why bringing the winter break forward is appealing to many boardrooms, if it means there's a chance of fewer matches being played behind closed doors. Of course no one actually knows the answer to that. Politically these recent measures have been unpopular, and with populist governments in place in Edinburgh and Westminster, it maybe that opinion polls rather than health advice carry more weight around cabinet tables this time round. So maybe restrictions won't last as long as they did last year. Or maybe they will, no one knows for sure. (I'm not trying to make a political point or agree or disagree with Government and public health advice. So don't @ me, I don't care.) All we can expect of anyone in our boardroom, or any other club's, is to deal with what they know, not what they suspect. For now that means a loss of crowds and revenue for 3 matches. That being the case bringing the winter break forward and so moving those 3 matches to later in the season is the sensible thing to do, even for Rangers. As an aside, as none of us really know what will happen, it's worth remembering that Celtic are in the Vauxhall Conference Euro Cup. Despite everything that's a tournament they could reasonably expect to progress quite far in. It's not inconceivable that come March and April Celtic are still playing European matches while trying to fit in 5 postponed SPFL matches around a diminishing fixture calendar. I think our board should be looking to book a tour of Japan for this summer, just in case.

Would love to know how much public money has been spent in total from the HMRC side pursuing this. HMRC staffing costs, multiple legal fees, court time, and then the cherry on top of the cake we went through an administrative process protecting assets which results in HMRC being able to claim very little back. I am at risk of repeating myself but the public deserve an investigation into this and the individuals responsible should be held to account.

All taxation is theft by deceit. No one has ever asked me if I'd like to pay tax or consulted me on what it would be used for. I have no control over how much of my earnings will be stolen from me, no control over when it's taken and no control over what it's used for. Worse, the harder I work and the more I earn, the greater the proportion that's stolen. When my stolen money is wasted or misspent, I have no recourse and the misuse usually results in having even more of my money appropriated. I have money stolen when I earn it, when I spend it and when I save it. I can even look forward to being robbed posthumously when I die. I'm not even free to spend what is left as I might like to - I can't buy a gun, I can't change a listed building, I can't build a still in my shed, I can't even buy spiked nunchucks ffs. Not that I particularly want to buy spiked nunchucks. Beyond a minimum fund for agreed community use, taxation is the biggest confidence trick of all. The saddest thing is to see how taxation is conflated with morality in the minds of the particularly stupid who, I'm afraid to say, are oblivious to being farmed like the cattle they are. Basically, we now spend our entire lives on a treadmill, providing resources for a very small elite. It's socialism on steroids. Can you imagine what "life" will be like 50 years from now.

Unexpectedly on the move this afternoon, my only access to a score was by sportsound and even that intermittently. Thank God because I couldn’t have tholed ninety minutes. It was angry. Very, very angry. An angry Paul Mitchell was commentator with an angry John Robertson and some other angry bloke. Rangers were 0-2 up when I joined and they weren’t much interested in describing the play. Instead I quickly learned from Mitchell that Rangers had lost their first away match of the season at Tannadice, relevant to today’s proceedings I know not how. Next, the intriguing statistic that up to today, Hearts hadn’t conceded a first half goal at home all season, a record only matched by celtic. At that point I had to attend to other matters so I don’t know what further gems of non-information were ofered I next joined at halftime into an excited debate among the commentary team about whether Rangers’ first goal was offside or if there had been some other infringement. The matter was settled more in sorrow than in anger by Richard Gordon in the studio telling them that pictures revealed the goal was legal. Suddenly, like Dracula rising from his coffin, an even angrier Tom Gibberish intervened to say that Rangers had been very good for about four minutes but before and after, Hearts had been the better team. Somebody must have drawn up the studio blinds because that angry creature vanished as suddenly as he had appeared but he’d thrown a comfort bone to the commentary chaps who picked it up and started gnawing at it confident that Hearts would get the next goal and it would be a different game. Luckily, I had to tune out for the rest of the programme. Force majeure aside, I would have switched off anyway. It’s many years old since I listened to that programme. Mitchell used to be not too bad. How @26th of footcopes with this sort of stuff, I do not know. Must be down to good Covenanting stock and the rigours of the Parachute Regiment. Double armour that I do not possess.