Celtic’s Links To The Co-Operative Bank. The “Labour-Celtic Nexus”.
Then it was issues with the Co-Operative Bank.
They had fallen into heavy debts. An investigation would turn up our “crooked” loan terms and reveal that we’d illegally obtained them. You’ve also doubtless heard about the “hidden debts” that those accounts conceal. These things are directly related, and scream “conspiracy.”
Way back when Fergus took over, Celtic were still using the Bank of Scotland, the backers of Murray and his cohort, the people who tried to put us out of business over £7 million. They had allowed MIH to run up sums fifty times as much. At the height of Rangers’ financial trouble their debts were in excess of ten times that figure plus change. McCann smelled a rat the minute he walked through their doors, asked them for an overdraft and was told to offer Celtic Park as security.
He closed our accounts and moved the lot to the Co-Operative.
Bear in mind, this was back in the early 90’s.
The conspiracy theory pays that no heed. In their world, it was our “Labour Party links” which got us a good deal with the Co-Operative, and the loans to rebuild the club. Those loans, according to the theory, are still outstanding and mature … round about now. The “evidence” for this is that we had two former Labour cabinet ministers on our board. The nonsense here is off the scale. The theory further alleges that we used the land purchased in the State Aid case to obtain further illegal loans from the Co-Operative back in the O’Neill era.
When the Co-Operative Bank ran into financial trouble a couple of years back there was a brief flurry of excitement on the Sevco fan forums that this, at last, would offer proof of the Smoking Gun vis-a-vis state aid and our other crimes. Last year, when they were rescued in a £700 million deal the same people who promoted State Aid were telling us that the end of the road had come for their cushy relationship with our club … and it was nonsense then and now.
The Co-Operative did not loan us money because we had politicians on the board. It is a ridiculous allegation. I have no doubt that the makeup of our boardroom factored into the decision to loan us money, but that had more to do with gravitas and professionalism than corruption.
It pains these people to accept we’re well run … so they dredge up this nonsense over and over again.
