Celtic Boys Club manager 'stuffed banknotes in boy's mouth'

[Uilleam 5,929]

7 minutes ago, Scott7 said:

Expulsion would be appropriate. To their shame Rangers wouldn’t allow it. Long ago Hibs had celtic just about down. Just needed a wee push from Rangers and they’d have been gone. Didn’t happen then and sadly it won’t happen now.

Circumstances, since then, have changed.

 

The fhilth's aim, clear for a number of years, is to kill Rangers stone dead, or to render Rangers totally irrelevant. 

It pays only the most cursory of lip services to 'TOF', as it no longer views that brand as an economic imperative. 

Its end is to make Scottish league football uncompetitive, and to use this engineer a relocation to a more lucrative arena. It has friends at UEFA, assiduously cultivated, and its eminence grise is on an influential club committee there. 

 

As I have said before, rasellik is not a gentlemanly organisation. If it is prepared to conceal, for decades, the sexual abuse of minors, for its own benefit, then it will not baulk at stabbing Rangers....in the chest.

 

I hope that Rangers is sufficiently aware, to do, if circumstances permit, the right thing, and move to kick it out of football permanently. 

 

The 64 000 dollar question: is the rest of Scottish football so under the Parkhead thumb as to render Rangrers totally impotent?

 

 

 

 

 

[Thinker 887]

I wonder if this is an attempt to low-ball the compensation offer with a quick pay-out, or if the Scum are prepared to pay over the odds in order to avoid a guilty verdict.

[CammyF 8,078]

[Gonzo79 15,292]

53 minutes ago, Thinker said:

I wonder if this is an attempt to low-ball the compensation offer with a quick pay-out, or if the Scum are prepared to pay over the odds in order to avoid a guilty verdict.

They have learned from their mother Church that reputation comes before all.

 

Sadly for (both of) them, anyone with eyes and ears if fully aware their reputation is already worth nothing.  

[Scott7 6,002]

That’s a brave statement from Gordon Woods.

[Bill 13,717]

This move by Celtic is hardly unexpected and is no doubt carefully calculated but it is fraught with danger, amounting as it does to both an admission of guilt and a sign of real fear about where a court case might lead them.

[Thinker 887]

8 hours ago, Bill said:

This move by Celtic is hardly unexpected and is no doubt carefully calculated but it is fraught with danger, amounting as it does to both an admission of guilt and a sign of real fear about where a court case might lead them.

It may also result in more victims coming forward to make a claim.

 

I'm glad Gordon Woods has decided to push for justice. Much as I'd understand any of the victims accepting a life changing sum of money as compensation, guilt must be established so that those responsible (for both the abuse and the obfuscation) can be held to account. The idea that NDAs could be used to shield enablers of child abuse is absolutely abhorrent. Surely that's not legal?

[Uilleam 5,929]

2 hours ago, Thinker said:

The idea that NDAs could be used to shield enablers of child abuse is absolutely abhorrent. Surely that's not legal?

Indeed.

I don't think that the guilty may hide behind such contract in the criminal court. 

 

 

 

 

[compo 7,029]

19 hours ago, Scott7 said:

They’ll do nothing.
 

I’m not in favour of honours stripping. They need some perpetual humiliation. A black cross on the front of their shirts forever or yellow if the shirts are a dark colour.

I would bet that if it were Rangers then Celtic would be leading all the other Scottish clubs crying out for justice by way of striping honours 

[Uilleam 5,929]

So, where is rasellik's move going?

Here is the take from today's Times, which has some interesting quotes from the claimants' solicitors.

 

Celtic FC ‘ready to pay out’ millions for abuse claims

Lawyers for boys’ club players are set to enter talks

Marc Horne

Tuesday September 19 2023, 10.30pm, The Times

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/celtic-fc-to-settle-claims-in-boys-club-sex-abuse-cases-t5wg9bn97

 

Celtic are poised to make multimillion-pound damages payments after indicating they want to settle legal claims over systematic child abuse at their feeder club.

It comes after evidence disclosed in an investigation by The Times contradicted and undermined the Scottish football champion’s insistence that it was an “entirely separate organisation” to Celtic Boys Club.

More than 20 former boys’ club players have joined a class-action lawsuit that was due to be heard in court later this year.

 

Four senior figures connected with the boys’ team, including its founder, have been convicted of sexual offences against young footballers, prompting claims that it represents the largest child abuse scandal in British football.

Celtic has previously contested the claims, insisting the boys’ club was a separate entity with which it had “historic connections”.

 

However, Thompsons Solicitors, which is representing the survivors, has halted its legal action after the Parkhead club indicated that it wanted to negotiate a settlement.

 

The Times investigation began in 2019, when it disclosed that Celtic funded the boys’ club and employed the predatory paedophile Frank Cairney, 87, who ran the feeder team between 1974 and 1991.

 

 

The abusers Jim McCafferty, Frank Cairney, Jim Torbett and Gerald King

 

 

It also revealed that Jim Torbett, 75, who was jailed three times for molesting boys after the former Celtic manager Jock Stein granted permission to launch and lead the boys’ club in 1966, ran Celtic’s chain of shops selling official merchandise.

 

The law firm said: “Thompsons Solicitors are pleased to confirm that Celtic have indicated their intention to enter settlement negotiations within the context of the . . . litigation.

“This litigation relates to cases of historical abuse at Celtic Boys Club by the convicted paedophiles, James Torbett and Frank Cairney.

“Celtic have not formally admitted liability [nor] made any other formal concessions but their desire to enter negotiations to explore the possibility of a settlement of this action has been made clear. This means that parties will ask the court to adjourn the forthcoming proof to allow work to be undertaken to value individual cases.”

 

A source close to the survivors said that they were delighted by the breakthrough. “This finally destroys, once and for all, the ludicrous claim that the boys’ club was a completely separate entity,” the source said.

“We always knew it was nonsense and our tactics finally dragged Celtic kicking and screaming to the negotiating table. We have been vindicated. There is still a long way to go but this is a very good day.”

 

Investigations by The Times disclosed Celtic funded the boys’ club and employed the paedophile Frank Cairney

Lawyers acting for the former players argued that the boys’ club and Celtic were “intimately connected” and the senior club was “vicariously liable” for assaults carried out in the youth set-up.

It is understood that damages settlements will be negotiated on an individual case-by-case basis, with the expectation that Celtic will pay substantial multimillion-pound sums.

 

At a hearing in February Ian Mackay KC, acting for the survivors, said that lawyers had uncovered evidence of close links between Celtic Boys Club and Celtic FC. He argued that the clubs were intimately connected.

“Players played in Celtic strips and wore blazers that were virtually identical to those worn by Celtic FC players,” he said. “Football kit, holdalls and training gear [were] provided by Celtic FC. Celtic Boys Club trained at Barrowfield, the training ground of Celtic FC, and Celtic Park.”

 

Mackay said that in the 1980s and 1990s Jack McGinn and Kevin Kelly, then senior members of the Celtic board, spoke to the suspected abusers and ordered an internal inquiry when allegations of abuse in the boys’ club emerged.

“Because of the controlling hand of Celtic in the boys’ club, we say that Celtic FC are vicariously liable,” he said.

 

In January a sheriff found that Cairney indecently assaulted a teenage player in the changing rooms and tea room at the Parkhead ground and a training facility used by the first team. He exploited his position to prey on three boys between July 1978 and June 1989.

In 2019 Cairney was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for abusing seven boys over 20 years.

During the latest hearing, a police video was shown in court, where Cairney said he had been directly installed as head coach of Celtic Boys Club by Stein in 1970.

Cairney said: “[Stein] says, ‘You will take the Celtic Boys Club under-16s. I will put s-forms [schoolboy players] in there and you are responsible.’ It was called Celtic Boys Club but it was Celtic under-16s.”

 

In 1990 Celtic View, Celtic’s official magazine, said the boys’ club manager was on their payroll. It congratulated Cairney, “in his 20th year on the Celtic staff”, and said that the Celtic board had decided to “increase their support and investment in the boys’ club”.

A year later Cairney stepped down after returning from a team trip to New Jersey. McGinn, then chairman of Celtic, accepted his resignation and “pressure of work” was given as the reason for his sudden departure. It later emerged that a 16-year-old player had accused Cairney of abusing him in the United States.

 

In March Torbett was found guilty of sexually abusing a 13-year-old player, causing “incalculable harm”. Before jailing him for three years, the judge, Andrew Cubie, told Torbett that he had used the club as “an elaborate front for recruitment of young victims”.

He was imprisoned in 1998 for abusing three boys, including Alan Brazil, the broadcaster and former Scotland international. Torbett was jailed for another six years in 2018 for molesting boys between 1986 and 1994.

Torbett ran Celtic FC’s chain of club shops in the early 1990s and organised testimonial events for first team players and coaches, including Tommy Burns and Sean Fallon.

 

In 1986 Celtic opened an investigation after concerns were raised about the welfare of young players. It cleared Torbett and other boys’ club coaches, describing the claims as “false and scurrilous”.

 

In 2019 Jim McCafferty, a former boys’ club coach and Celtic kit man, was jailed for six years after admitting 12 charges relating to child sexual abuse. He died, aged 76, in prison last November.

 

In 2018 Gerald King, a former chairman of the boys’ club, was convicted of abusing four boys and a girl.

 

Three other men with ties to Celtic and Celtic East Youth Club, a now-defunct feeder team in Edinburgh, have also been found guilty of serious offences against boys.

 

Celtic was contacted for comment.

 

 

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