I note my friend and fellow Vanguard Bear John McCrae has put his pen to paper about the Commonwealth Games. We really should talk more as I was writing my own take on the games. Hopefully our scribbles complement each other.
Due to the diligent (and ongoing) work of some Vanguard Bears, alongside @pzj and the Football Tax Havens blog, the long held perception that the Glasgow Commonwealth Games was bid for by Glasgow City Council to act as cover for regeneration of the area around Celtic Park, is becoming more and more apparent as each FOI is avoided, stalled, ignored and finally responded to.
Most of the responses have been published on the football tax havens blog, and more lines of enquiry are being followed.
While I have had no involvement in any of this, I must show the greatest gratitude for the work of these bears in seeking to uncover acts that will almost certainly have an adverse impact on Rangers ability to compete with Celtic over the years to come.
This collaboration, where the distinct avenues of enquiry being explored by different individuals are now being pursued together is especially pleasing for me. At a time where Rangers fans have had our own distractions of their own importance, with internal squabbles threatening to rip the Rangers support apart, a number of individuals have quietly ignored or distanced themselves from the madness, and focused on the long term future of the club, with respect to fighting to ensure that Rangers return to the top is not simply the end of the journey, but the beginning.
Their view, which I wholeheartedly support, is that Rangers should not be disadvantaged in years to come, due to the various suspect land deals both relating to Celtic's training ground complex at Lennoxtown and the area around Celtic Park.
While these are the most obvious direct benefits that Celtic have already secured, with astonishing detail laid bare already, the view I have, which I suspect many others will share is that the deals already covered are just the tip of the iceberg, and that the efforts of a handful of dedicated people can only go so far, without the mainstream media throwing real resources behind a full investigation.
While the European Commission are reviewing evidence submitted to them, the mainstream media in Scotland are reticent to approach the subject.
While Bill McMurdo and VB may have had our differences in the past, he has it bang on when he assesses the options open to Scottish voters to choose between the Nationalists and Scottish Labour. For the record, I am a proud unionist for a number of reasons, but the prospect of further devolution to Glasgow City Council and a capital injection of £500M currently pending from Westminster directly to Glasgow City Council fills me with dread.
Can we really trust the people of Glasgow City Council to spend that money wisely and fairly?
Many years ago one of my friends predicted that, upon the 2014 games being awarded, Celtic Park would end up looking something akin to Dubai, and while a small few took him seriously (including myself), many others ignored that prediction and did nothing about stopping it happen.
Some may still mock, but I challenge anyone who has not been to the East End of Glasgow for some time to have a look.
What they will find, is that Celtic park itself is transformed, with the grand sounding "Celtic Way" constructed where a listed building was knocked down at Celtic's behest, a multi-million pound Sports Arena on its doorstep, and an M74 Extension and infrastructure changes all approved on the back of the Commonwealth Games, surrounding a Stadium that is only used for the Opening Ceremony.
The current cost of the Games themselves are approximately £563M of taxpayer's money.
http://www.independent.co.uk/games-2014-costs-continue-to-rise
The current estimated cost of the M74 Extension is £692M
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news13931242
Note that upon the extension opening, Glasgow City Council leader (and Celtic supporter) Gordon Matheson stated: "Its completion will bring opportunities for thousands of individuals and businesses, support east end regeneration, and help us deliver the best possible Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games"
Not counting the other East End regeneration, that's £1.25Bn pounds of taxpayer money spent on infrastructure and regeneration of the immediate surrounds of Celtic Park on the back of a Commonwealth Games where most of the events are NOT in the East End of Glasgow.
Are you starting to see the picture?
While I am largely speaking after the event, with much of the infrastructure completed or nearing completion, there are still a number of elements that need to be pursued, in order to redress any imbalance for the football clubs.
If State Aid to Celtic FC is proven then they should be punished accordingly.
In EU Law, that alone would most likely to refer only to the suspect land deals and not the infrastructure, however, Celtic could be billed to pay various public bodies in the region of £30-£40M pounds.
http://footballtaxhavens.-assembling-the-case-for-the-eu/
What we, the public, should be ensuring, is that Celtic are not allowed to profit from land they have "bought" from public bodies on the cheap, whether it be from hotels, museums, or being a landlord on any commercial or domestic property.
For me it is the future profit generation that these land deals enable that is vitally important to address, and it's this that could give Celtic an advantage for years to come, with guaranteed commercial revenue that will.
More importantly, the punishment for State aid for engineering an unfair and illegal commercial and footballing advantage from both UEFA, the SFA and the SPFL has to be significant.
While the SFA's Vincent Lunny is no longer around to investigate, following his mysterious exit from the SFA, one can only hope that his replacement will not be hand-picked by Peter Lawwell or the Rod McKenzie/Rod Petrie family.
Unless Scotland's media suddenly start taking an interest in the "coincidences" and happenings within Holyrood, Hampden, Glasgow City Chambers and Celtic Park, it will again be up to right thinking Rangers supporters to highlight issues that affect all of us.