View From Gorgie

Well, well, well. It would seem that not only are Celtic presumably delighted that Dundee United felt the need to bend over and take the 5% charge up the rear. It would also seem that they want to hang on to ALL of the takings from ticket sales to their fans to squeeze a few more pounds in interest payments before they pass the cash on to United.

Just have a look at this story taken from www.bbc.co.uk/sportscotland yesterday.

Dundee Utd report Celtic to SPL

Dundee United have reported Celtic to the Scottish Premier League alleging late payment of ticket monies for the match at Tannadice on Sunday 17 August. United say they are owed in the region of £85,000 for tickets sold by the Glasgow club for the game in Dundee. League rules state that payment must be made within 10 days of the match.

The complaint comes in the wake of Celtic imposing a 5% handling charge for tickets sold by them to the Glasgow club’s fans for away games. Celtic and Glasgow rivals Rangers imposed the charges despite opposition from rival SPL clubs, including United.

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Just a little update folks.

The petition has now been printed 10 times as promised. This weekend will see it stuffed eagerly into envelopes and posted along with another letter to the 10 non Old Firm clubs (either owners, chairmen or chief executives).

They will be receiving the petition containing 2426 names, which in just under one month, only being publicised on internet forums (and one small newspaper story) is pretty damned impressive in my opinion.

But PLEASE! Don’t let it stop here. Keep it going. Get more people to sign it and get them to get more people to sign it. The more names we get, the more chance we having of stopping this nonsense.

Cheers

youngy

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Dear Mr Boyle
The picture above shows pretty much exactly what a lot of your supporters would love to do to you right now.
It is your supporters that seem to have done the most work AT grounds to try to have this 5% charge stopped. And all you can do is ask “Exactly how far would you like me to bend over??”
You really should be ashamed of yourself!

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On August 15th I wrote an entry to this blog telling of the huge profit that Celtic Football Club had made in the last financial year. In fact, I pointed out that they had, in fact, made an even bigger one the previous year.

I once again asked the question “Just why do they need this 5% surcharge when they already turn a very, very healthy profit?” The answer of course is that they don’t need to claim this 5% from the 10 non Old Firm fans at all. They just simply want to! It’s a nice easy way to further weaken the other teams in their league after all isn’t it? For all of their annual posturing over the fact that they don’t have enough real tests or competition in the SPL is no more than empty words.

Today, Inverness Caledonian Thistle have published their annual accounts. And guess what? Yip, you guessed it. They made a loss! A loss of £432,000 So, of course it makes perfect finanical sense to start paying a charge to another club that you never had to before doesn’t it? It makes perfect sense to WEAKEN yourself and directly STRENGTHEN your opponents at the same time doesn’t it?

NO IT BLOODY WELL DOESN’T!!

Do boxers let their opponent fight them with weighted gloves? NO!

Do Ice Hockey teams send only half of their players out with sticks? NO!

Do NFL teams say “We won’t wear pads today fellas”? NO!

Would these 10 non Old Firm clubs send their players out to play against the Old Firm wearing loafers instead of football boots? NO!

That would be just plain silly now wouldn’t it? So, why should they be asked to hamstring themselves in a financial sense? And more to the point. Why the hell are they sitting back and allowing it to happen?

The petition has made it to 2,420 signatures but (probably due to me not updating the forums for a few days) the number of names being added has slowed quite dramatically.

I would really like to have 2,500 names by the end of the week. Whether that happens or not, I will be printing off the petition and sending it to the 10 clubs. So, come on folks. Let’s get as many names on this thing as we can!!

Cheers,

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An even better banner this time and a stronger message too. Thanks to Owen from The Well Boys for sending us this picture taken at their game against Aberdeen last weekend.

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Yes folks, you read the title correctly. Celtic Football Club – you know, one of the clubs that is demanding a 5% fee to distribute tickets to their own fans – made a PROFIT. A profit in the region of £4.44 MILLION! Not only that but they have lowered their debt to £3.52 M. Add this years figures to the fact that they also made an enormous profit of £15M last year and you really do have to start asking yourself what this 5% demand is all about. If you can turn massive profits WITHOUT other clubs paying towards your ticket office costs. Why the hell do you need it?

How many of our clubs can boast a profit? Never mind ones as large as Celtic are making. Most of our clubs run in the RED! Yet they are expected to put themselves deeper into debt to allow Celtic (and Rangers) to get stronger!

Let’s keep the petition going folk. Even if you have to go down the route of “tell 10 to tell 10 to tell 10″. Our clubs and the press need to be told that it is a MAJORITY of their fans that want them to stand up to this money grabbing. And they have to stand up to it NOW!

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Hi folks

On the 9th August I told you that I had written to the Office of Fair Trading regarding the 5% scandal.

Well, yesterday I received a reply from a nice gentleman who pointed out that, on this occassion, it wasn’t really a matter for the OFT.

The main reason that the OFT won’t look further into it is mainly down to the responses given so far by Falkirk, Hearts and Aberdeen. Because Hearts and Falkirk have chosen to sell directly to Old Firm fans, the charge is obviously not mandatory. And given Aberdeens reaction of also charging 5% TO Rangers and Celtic (which I still believe to be shortsighted at best) competition would, on the surface, appear to be alive and well.

So, unfortunately, the fact that these 10 clubs have not shown a united front from day one, may in fact see the “big two” ultimately get away with robbing yet more money from the rest of the SPL.

cheers
youngy

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Quote from Alan Esselmont – Head of programming at MG Alba the gaelic channel that are going to show some games from the SPL with gaelic commentary.

“The SPL is more than just Rangers and Celtic,” Esslemont added. “As a channel we are about grassroots Scotland and about giving coverage to areas that don’t regularly get television coverage.

“I’d be very interested in showing the other teams in the division and giving them the showcase they deserve.

“I also believe the SFL is where local talent can thrive. As a television channel what we want to do is to create a showcase for local talent and hope that talent can reach a level of national and international significance.”

Okay, it may be a very small, fledgling channel but their stance is to be applauded. THEY realise that there are clubs outside of the Old Firm. Why can’t everybody else?

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Unfortunately, the gremlins would seem to have gotten into my email system on Friday and the update letter was NOT infact sent out to the 10 non Old Firm clubs.

I have sent it today and have made sure that it has been sent this time.

(petition signatures currently standing at 2123!)

cheers
youngy

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Excellent work by The Well Boys ’86 at Tynecastle yesterday

Just the sort of banner that is required. If we ALL let our respective owners, chairmen or chief executives no what we think, this won’t get simply brushed under the carpet!

If you have other pictures that might be useful to the cause, email them to me at bloglinks@viewfromgorgie.co.uk

cheers
youngy

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