Five Newcastle players were sent across the frontier to help Mike Ashley’s ‘other’ club win promotion from the Scottish Championship to the Scottish Premiership.
Gael Bigirimana, Shane Ferguson, Haris Vuckic, Kevin Mbabu and Remie Streete were dispatched from Tyneside to Glasgow like a Sports Direct consignment of workers not good enough for the English Premier League but capable of improving a team in Scotland.
Only two English Premier League clubs declined to sign a player in the January transfer window now closed: Liverpool and Newcastle United, who were lambasted by the partner of Davide Santon following his loan move to Inter Milan.
In a tweet, Chloe Sanderson alleged: "Disgusted with how Davide has been treated, fully fit for a while now with no chance to play – a club whose only intentions are to make £££."
In a recent Radio 5 interview, the former Newcastle chairman Freddy Shepherd suggested that John Carver would be made manager at least until the end of the season because he would not demand money from Ashley to make new signings.
In other words, Carver, an honourable sort who knows the club well, would be so grateful to land the chance to prove himself that he would not challenge the Newcastle model of bargain-hunting-with-high-sales.
Shepherd also theorised that Ashley was now lending money to Rangers to become their owner by other means: by positioning himself as the club’s "banker", a tactic that would prevent him running into difficulty with Uefa’s ban on owning two clubs in the same competition.
None of this is illegal, but it creates a stink at both ends.
This group of nearly-men and players in development won't be out of place in Scotland, the worst league in world football.
For 30 years it was a "Two Team League" ... but now Celtic go it alone. The betting was closed in July. Celtic were guaranteed to win the league this season, and so the turmoil rumbles on.
Ashley knows the rules and he knows how to make them work to his advantage.
Five players set off from Newcastle, for an assignment that will not improve them.
They are nearly men who never made it.
And if the Scottish second tier is their level, amongst Dumbarton, Alloa and Cowdenbeath ... it says it all.
Rangers were desperate and Ashley thinks he is going to win over the Rangers supporters by handing them gifts.
Five players took off their Wonga shirts and crossed the border, bearing loans.