Phil Mac Giolla Bhain has, tonight, dropped another bombshell into Scottish football discourse, and one which will have wide-ranging impacts across the game, including at Celtic Park.
This is a staggering piece of information and one where the consequences don’t stop at Ibrox’s door.
That club has landed itself in another appalling mess because it will not get a grip on its own finances and will not operate within a budget like every other club in the land.
The financial skulduggery which is going on over there right now is easily the equal of the David Murray days and with this news tonight it is clear it is edging into the Craig Whyte era as well.
Phil Mac Giolla Bhain broke the original EBT story and was the first journalist to write that HMRC were breaking down the door of “the Motherwell Born Billionaire” over amounts owed to them during his tenure at Ibrox. Phil was the guy who hired a photographer to be outside that ground on the day the bailiffs showed up.
His work on these matters is without equal.
This development comes at a critical time for both the Ibrox operation and the board at Celtic Park.
This site and others have been arguing all season long that our club has gotten itself into a real mess here, partly because the one across the city realises that this is a battle for all the marbles. They are going for broke … literally.
They are giving it everything, and their gamble could pay off.
Think on it this way; this news makes it absolutely imperative that the Ibrox club wins this title and gets their hands on those Champions League riches.
Without them, the trouble they are currently in could move from being dangerous to being fatal.
Imagine for a second how that news might go down at the SFA – in who’s trust Celtic is placing our future tonight – and who are already on record as saying the last Ibrox operation was “too big to fail”.
How do you think big decisions, in individual matches and in terms of possible shut-downs and such like, are likely to spin themselves out?
This could be a record breaking Year of Honest Mistakes.
The stakes are enormous, and one half of the city knows that full well.
I wonder if the other half of the city realises it.
Sure as Hell, the need for real reforms in our sport could not have been made clearer tonight, or the consequences of Celtic’s inaction spelled out in more graphic terms.
I don’t know what the price of our silence is, but I really don’t know what to know what the cost of it might be.
Congratulations to Phil tonight on an outstanding exclusive.
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