After a few hours of investigating, I am pretty convinced that the story the blogosphere is labelling Watergate is a little weak.
I think this one’s circled the drain and swirled down the plughole.
It was just a little too good, that one. I heard it and thought it so spectacular and off-the-wall that it was worth a little of my time, so I did some digging, tried to find the source, spoke to some people who’d know if there was a leak and got ready to hose off the half-truths and uncover the story. I wasn’t ready to simply flush it.
(That’s enough of the water jokes, I promise.)
I’m still not ready to, not completely, but there are holes in it (that wasn’t a pun, I swear) so I’m willing to call it a rumour (a wild rumour) and nothing more.
Not that it matters. The only reason this story got to the point where it was even worth my time was that at Ibrox anything could be possible, and we all know it. That club has been through so many of these, and each one sounded too bizarre, too good to be true, when we first heard it, only for us to find out that much of it was right on the money.
I have particular favourite moments, as most of us do. When Rangers went into administration the email address they published for fund-raising purposes was wrong; it sent interested parties to the website of a company that hired out clowns.
When they corrected it they got millions of pounds in pledges within hours, only to discover the chances of collecting the money were virtually nil unless “people” like Hector Taxman, Bill D. Gallows and Henrik Larceny were real and not simply hilarious inventions of a gleeful Celtic support.
On the big stuff, we’ve been right more often than not, and on the things that really mattered the Internet Bampots have a AAA ball-player’s knack for hitting home runs. Whyte turned out to be as dodgy as we all thought. Charles Green really was as unhinged as he seemed to be when he made that crazy Xmas video. Mike Ashley was fleecing them like dumb sheep and King hasn’t delivered on a single promise of “over-investment.”
Through all of it, there have been a thousand little moments of sheer madness, the kind that makes you double over with laughter at how ridiculous things are over there. The Barton saga is simply the latest of them, and the way they’ve dragged that out over weeks and given us an endless stream of stories is breath-taking. Just last week Jim Traynor flipped his lid at a press conference and BT Sport were boycotted by the club the weekend just past.
For those and a host of other historical reasons there was no way I was ready to simply dismiss a story about the club stealing water. Yes, it sounded barmy but you’d think a club which rose from the grave of a liquidation due to unpaid taxes would be especially concerned with making sure its own VAT was being paid on time, but that appears not to be the case. It would still be unbelievable but for the chequered history of its own chairman.
I repeat, nothing is too crazy to be true over there.
Although this one appears shaky, there’s enough actual trouble over there to guarantee months of fun to come.
The Barton saga is going to cost them £2 million to zero gain and with a ton of negative headlines to boot. The stadium issue is a running sore; it will come to a head before long and that’s going to hurt like Hell, and could send them down. The Sports Direct thing has fallen silent; that’s what happens when one side has routed the other, and Ashley’s people are in total control of the agenda right now and for the foreseeable future.
I cannot say this more plainly; the people inside Ibrox are no longer in charge of their own destiny. Events are moving too fast for them, and problems are mounting up like snowdrifts. They’ve been everywhere looking for extra cash; Brian Kennedy has brushed them off, Sky has told them to beat it, the SPFL and the SFA are in no mood to give them advances (especially as historical fines remain unpaid) and their directors have nothing left to give.
No bank or similar commercial lender will touch them with a 20 foot pole, so that leaves only the Wonga businesses and I’d say that going to them would be unqualified insanity except that I’ve heard pretty good information which suggests the club already has and that they were told that even those companies would be leery of giving them a penny without some iron clad security, which is impossible due to their “triple lock” guarantee to the fans over Ibrox.
When the legal loan sharks won’t touch you, that’s real trouble.
For almost any other company in the nation this would result in a simple process of cuts and realignment, but that won’t happen at their club until circumstances force them to confront the worst. They’ve been denying reality so long now that to suddenly face up to it would be wrenching.
It’s all well and good those of us who are outside of it to say that this has to be tackled eventually and that sooner would be better for all over there, but as long as they can slip by on this hand to mouth existence that’s exactly what they’ll do.
They are hoping for a miracle. No such miracle will be forthcoming. They will delude themselves with crazy ideas about our own demise being right around the corner – this is the week a major anti-Celtic story is supposed to break, if you believe the more febrile minds on their forums – and all the while they’ll console themselves with the idea they are too big to fail.
History tells us otherwise.
For those who say it can’t or won’t happen, there’s a very simple answer.
It already did.
Those who won’t learn the lessons of history are destined to repeat it.