Since news broke that Rangers use of EBTs was to be challenged by HMRC, rival clubs & Rangers hating media hacks have been salivating at the thought of titles being stripped from the world's most successful football club. Phrases such as 'financial doping','sporting advantage' and words such as 'cheating' were bandied about, campaigns were set up, letters written to FIFA, UEFA & the SFA. Former Rangers players were asked if they would have considered signing for Rangers had they not been paid by an EBT, ex-Celtic players were interviewed by newspapers, complaining about how they were 'cheated' out of winners medals. For going on a decade now, the Rangers haters in Scotland still haven't given up hope of overturning Lord Nimmo Smith's verdict that no sporting advantage was gained.
As testified in court, and documented in the autobiography of many an ex-Celtic player, the child rape crimes carried out by Jim Torbett were an 'open secret'. Jock Stein notoriously kicked him out of the club without notifying the authorities, before he was allowed to return following the departure of the much lauded bully. Recent court cases have shown that a full scale paedophile ring was in operation at Celtic Park for decades. John Cullen, Jim Torbett, Jim McCafferty, Gerald King & Frank Cairney have all been convicted, and whistleblower Gerry McSherry has revealed he handed the police FOURTEEN names, back in the 90s. Jimmy Savile & the disgraced Cardinal Winning were regular visitors, and friends of the board and senior management and Barry Bennell, the high profile convicted paedophile from Crewe Alexandra, also confirmed that he was in contact with these vile predators, leaving nobody in doubt of what was going on at Celtic Park.
CR Smith, Peoples Ford, Umbro, NTL, Carling, Tennents, Magners and Dafabet have all appeared on the front of Celtic strips, paying huge sums of money for the privilege. Companies like Nike and New Balance have also paid lucrative sums to produce the playing kits and training gear. Maybe it's time the media asked these companies if they would have still made that financial outlay to a club, had they known a paedophile ring had been allowed to operate without the authorities being notified. Maybe it is time to ask Fergus McCann if he would have saved the rancid organisation from extinction if he knew about their heinous crimes. Maybe it's time to canvas every Celtic supporter who has bought merchandise or paid for tickets, whether they would have done so if they knew that their money was paying the wages of people who were keeping quiet about the systematic rape of hundreds of innocent children. Can we have the SKY TV cameras, BBC and Channel 4 asking Kenny Dalglish, Henrik Larsson and all their other heroes if they would have signed for an organisation knowing that their paymasters were getting child rape victims to sign secrecy letters, while Torbett received £1m of business.
Maybe Alex Thomson will be interested in the story if any of these companies or individuals admit that they would not have went anywhere near this morally bankrupt, rancid organisation, had they known the truth. Maybe then Alex will consider child abuse to be a more serious crime than retrospectively being punished for using a legal tax loophole.
Strip the titles, not the bhoys.