When details of the Sydney Super Cup were announced round about this time last year both league leaders Celtic and the then current Champions theRangers were both challenging to win the Scottish Premiership title.

And had the latest Ibrox club prevailed to win what would have been their second title since the club was formed by Charles Green in 2012, then the Ibrox Board would have apparently been happy to fulfil their contractual obligations to play in Sydney which would have earned them £3m and would have featured a Glasgow Derby match against Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic side.

However as you know Ange Postecoglou’s side, after that 3-0 win over theRangers on 2 February 2022, hit the top of the table for the first time and never relinquished that position going on to win at Ibrox in April and eventually wrapping up the title up at Tannadice against Dundee Utd with a 1-1 draw.

How the events on the park in the cinch Premiership in the few months after the organisers of the Sydney Super Cup signed up both Glasgow giants to play in the tournament, which was held in November last year with Everton taking the place of theRangers, has been made clear by a major investor in the Ibrox club.

Far East-based businessman Stuart Gibson is the third-largest shareholder in the pheonix football club – injecting around £5million into the club back in October 2020. (No longer any need for the company that owns the club chat is there?).

Players stand in a line before the start of the Sydney Super Cup match between Everton and Celtic FC at Stadium Australia in Sydney on November 20, 2022. (Photo by DAVID GRAY/AFP via Getty Images)

And speaking on the This is Ibrox podcast Gibson has backed James Bisgrove on his handling of the Sydney Super Cup fiasco claiming that theRangers Commercial Director actually played a blinder. The comments though may be of great interest to the lawyers of the promoters back in Australia as they seem to suggest bad faith on the part of the Ibrox club which seemingly only really planned on going to Australia to see through the deal if they won the league.

If that was the case then perhaps that should have been made clear ahead of signing the contract? Was the agreement ‘we’ll play if we win the league’ in which case Celtic winning the title is indeed valid reason to withdraw. If however it was not…

After the initial Sydney Super Cup announcement Bisgrove came under heavy scrutiny and criticism from theRangers fans who feared that the match would become a home game for Celtic as part of Ange Postecoglou’s huge popularity back in his homeland.

However many supporters of theRangers in Australia had purchased tickets to see their team in action but where thereafter denied the chance to watch them playing in a couple of matches apparently because Celtic won the league. Seeing Celtic play in Australia was a tremendous occasion for The Celtic fans Down Under and surely that would also have been the case for theRangers fans based at the other end of the World?

Speaking on the This is Ibrox podcast Gibson makes the revelation about the destination of last season’s cinch Premiership being the deciding factor in the Ibrox club withdrawing for the tournament, saying this:

“If we won the league, if we didn’t relinquish the league, I would have been happy to go to Sydney and be happy to take £3m for the pleasure of going out there.

“We never went because other people were in breach of their contractual conditions. The way I see it was, James (Bisgrove) played a blinder. He got a free option to look and see what happens with the league. It gives you the time to get the right information to make the right commercial decision.

“That’s all James did and the flack he was getting, especially from Club 1872, was just absolute nonsense. I think we have senior management at the club who are very much undervalued and under appreciated.”

Whether this is as significant intervention in terms of any legal action the Sydney Super Cup organisers may be taking remains to be seen. However what it does establish is that Celtic picked up AT LEAST £3m for going to Australia while Ange Postecoglou winning the league meat that theRangers missed out on picking up a similar sum themselves.

And why would the destination of the cinch Premiership title in a previous season, which ended six months previously have much to do with a lucrative friendly match being played over 10,000 miles away remains a mystery. A costly won too, at £3m in lost earnings and the possibility of a legal action progressing for breach of contract, something that both parties seem to be alleging.

One final point, had theRangers won the league last season Celtic certainly would not have used that disappointment as an excuse not to play in the Sydney Super Cup six months later.