Rangers and the £108m debt

The Herald newspaper has redeemed itself to a great extent today revealing that Rangers owe £108m to Murray Group Holdings.

The same newspaper has run various stories over the last few months proclaiming that various individuals are on the verge of buying Rangers suggesting that a £30m bid is all that is required to make the garden rosy again.

£30m or less may buy Rangers but with the overall debt of Murray Group Holdings causing Lloyds/TSB serious concern they are unlikely to allow a fairly cash-rich part of the empire be given away at a bargain price.

The level of debt owed to the Murray Group explains why no local businessmen have given serious thought to buying Rangers.

Anyone looking to buy Rangers is likely to require to pay off a serious chunk of the debt to the Murray Group, make a realistic offer for Sir David Murray's shares and also satisfy Llyods/TSB that they have a sound business plan to pay off the debt in a realistic time frame.

Until those conditions are met Rangers can expect to function in the same manner as they have over the last 18 months with incoming transfers unlikely regardless of how much money the club generates.

How Celtic capitalise on this is the question for the Celtic board- whoever takes over as manager from Tony Mowbray will comeinto the job knowing that their only domestic rivals are at their lowest possible ebb.
Herald story

New date for Rangers game (February)

With two months notice the SPL can't be criticised for putting back the Rangers-Celtic game scheduled for February 27 to February 28.

The third derby match of the season will be screened live by Sky Sports, hardly a surprise, with a 12.30 kick-off.

Celtic's trip to Aberdeen on Saturday February 13 will have a 12.30 kick off to enable it to be shown live on ESPN.

Other less exciting fixture news sees the u-19 side face St Mirren tomorrow at Barrowfield with an 11am kick-off which makes it possible to catch the first half before heading along to Fir Park.

Jim Gannon's thoughts on that match should be interesting after his recent criticisms of referees and in particular 'supremo' Hugh Dallas.

EXPLAIN

The Motherwell boss has come out with some risky comments over the last few weeks and can expect a request to visit the SFA to explain himself.

Last year's embargo on directly criticising referees has been disregarded by the new intake of bosses with Gannon not prepared to stay silent on issues effecting his team and indeed others.

His comments about the abysmal performance of Craig Thomson in the opening Rangers-Celtic game of the season were stronger than anything issued by Celtic at that match.

On the subject of the SFA it seems that Celtic are still awaiting an explanation for the criteria for incidents referred to the SFA Review Panel.

RESPONSE

Celtic issued a statement on October 16 saying: "We have received no substantive response on this issue so far and the procedure by which Glenn Loovens and Scott McDonald were referred for review remains unclear.

“Therefore, we still do not understand the procedure by which Glenn Loovens and Scott McDonald were referred for review and other similar incidents in recent months have not been. The process seems to be disparate and arbitrary."

This disparate and arbitrary process has not been used so far this season...

Tom Boyd's thoughts on the Robbie Keane rumours

Youth's in action today at 1pm

Is it really a December morning?

The sun is shining brightly and the u-19 side are in action at 1pm when they face Brora Rangers in the SFA Youth Cup.

Stevie Frail's side will be looking to bounce back from their first defeat of the season away to Dundee United by making it into the fifth round of the national knock-out cup.

The Highland League side must have something about them to have reached the last 16 of the competition but hopefully their journey ends today.

I've no idea of what sort of side Celtic will put out but James Forrest and Josh Thompson, who have oth been on the first team bench this season, are likely to be playing.

On a normal grotty December Sunday this game would likely be for die-hards only but it looks like being a dry afternoon for those heading along to Lennoxtown.

Korcsmar on trial at Celtic

Youth's prepare for (Brora) Rangers test.

Celtic's u-19 side face Brora Rangers on Sunday in the SFA Youth Cup, kick-off 1pm at Lennoxtown.

After a 4-1 win away to Threave Rovers in the last round Stevie Frail's side will be confident of progress against their Highland League opponents.

Last Saturday the young hoops lost their unbeaten record in the SPL when they lost 2-1 to Dundee United at St Andrews University.

Celtic haven't won the SFA Youth Cup since 2006 when they defeated Hearts to win the trophy with Darren O'Dea, Simon Ferry, Charlie Grant and Scott Cuthbert in the side.

I spoke briefly to Grant before the Hapoel game and he seemed to be in good spirits and hopeful of picking up his career soon and is currently in full training.

'Growing problems' have halted his progress since the summer of 2006 but hopefully they are coming to an end and he'll be given the chance to resume his career.

As a red headed central midfielder the comparisons to Neil Lennon were obvious with Grant but was more of an attacking box-to-box midfielder than our former captain.

The SFA website has added match details on the Youth Cup going back to 1983/84 when Peter Grant captained Celtic to a 2-0 win over Rangers.

If the site can include team-lines as well as results it will become a haven for stattos!