Out of touch de Boer’s Scottish football fantasy

Ronald de Boer has been explaining that no one in Holland is talking about Celtic- in an interview about the Scottish champions.

De Boer quit Barcelona for Ibrox in September 2000 with no questions asked at the SFA when his contract for £15,000 a week was registered with the football authorities.

Celtic’s 6-2 win over Dick Advocaat’s all-stars proved to be the biggest turning point in Scottish football history with Dave Murray forced into illegal tax schemes to get a team capable of competing with the hoops.

Despite a summer signing spree, funded by a ballooning overdraft approved by Gavin Masterton and friends at the Bank of Scotland that brought in Fernando Ricksen, Bert Konterman, Kenny Miller, Peter Lovenkrands and Allan Johnston to join Lorenzo Amoruso, Jorg Albertz, Giovanni van Bronkhorst and Stefan Klos, Murray was panicked by the crushing defeat to O’Neill’s men.

De Boer signed up as John Hartson failed a Daniel Prodan medical with Tore Andre Flo signing two months later from Chelsea for £12m.

Flo and de Boer were both paid under the Discount Option Scheme which resulted in a £6m bill from HMRC after evidence came to light during a police raid on Ibrox in July 2007. Despite not disclosing the player payments to the SFA no action was taken to reverse a single result while other clubs have been expelled from the Scottish Cup for genuine registration mistakes.

Murray dropped the asking price for the cherished institution to £1 after Craig Whyte’s due diligence uncovered the £6m demand from HMRC. When Rangers went into liquidation in 2012 that £6m bill for players from a decade earlier remained unpaid.

Having been a pioneer of tax avoidance and architect on the road to liquidation de Boer believes that he can solve the problems of Scottish football where Aberdeen, Hearts, Inverness Caley Thistle and St Johnstone are enjoying successful periods thanks to the demise of a club that played to different rules.

Speaking to preview Celtic’s visit to Ajax, managed by his brother Frank, Ron said: “In Holland, they don’t show highlights of the Celtic games any more and why? It’s because Rangers aren’t there.

“People here don’t only talk about Rangers coming back, they talk about the Old Firm. They talk about both teams together and that’s what they’re interested in. People here are not interested in Celtic because they already know the end result and that is not good for the Scottish league.”

Whether people in Holland are talking about Scottish football is of no interest whatsoever, I’ve not overheard anyone on my morning train discussing how Ajax and PSV Eindhoven are getting on.

It seems like it may take another Ibrox cash crisis for the hard of thinking to discover that clubs can only spend what they bring in.

If you want to run a state-of-the-art training complex like Murray Park and an academy structure employing coaches throughout Scotland you need more than season ticket money from 32,000 fans to fund the various vanity projects.

Strong commercial and retail deals are essential as is competing in European football and transferring players for profit.

With only the season ticket money coming in to fund the new venture the cash is likely to run out at some time in November with Mike Ashley unlikely to provide further crisis loans.

Only one reason brought de Boer from Barcelona to darkest Clydeside and it wasn’t the thought of playing alongside Barry Ferguson and Maurice Ross or the Scottish weather.

Once a sustainable club emerges out of Ibrox others may be inclined to listen to sermons delivered from the ghosts of the past.