The SFA’s Judicial Panel Disciplinary Tribunal (JPDT) process itself is now under scrutiny .
Aberdeen FC have asked for change and the Celtic Supporters Association have written to Ian Maxwell SFA CEO expressing concerns about judgements reached concerning recent on field incidents that appear to herald in A Cloggers Charter.
However the whole Judicial Panel Protocol (JPP) on which the JPDT is based (and which was the brainchild of the discredited former SFA Chief Executive Stewart Regan) has shown itself to be a means of perverting justice rather than providing it since it was introduced amidst a loud fanfare at the SFA AGM in June 2011 (the same one that saw Campbell Ogilvie elected SFA President)
To see how the JPP has been misused we need to start with a definition of judicial which according to Websters dictionary is:
of or relating to a judgment, the function of judging, the administration of justice
The latest Judicial Panel Protocol can be found on the SFA Web Site .
One of its Founding Principles is:
2.2 Principle 1 – Economic and expeditious justice. The objective of the Protocol is to secure the Determination of disciplinary proceedings arising in respect of Association Football and that Decisions are made economically and expeditiously in a fair manner. Tribunals appointed from the Judicial Panel may impose reasonable procedural requirements on Parties to ensure that matters are dealt with economically and expeditiously.
The word justice actually appears nine times and injustice three times, so it would appear that whilst economy and speed are the means to the end, that end is justice, but how has that panned out since June 2011?
I am grateful here to Glasnostandtwostrickers for three enlightening articles in Pie and Bovril in which he reviews the protocol a year later in 2012 with suggestions that with the passage of time have been shown to be prescient when made. They can be read at:
Of particular interest is the important view that the process is not independent of the SFA and the following is an extract from Pie and Bovril 3 covering that aspect which explains how the JPP has been used by the SFA to pervert rather than administer justice.
“So to what extent does the JPP system achieve that independence? We think that it does so to a far greater extent than the old system, but not nearly enough. Ensuring that the Tribunals are chaired by respected members of the legal profession was perhaps the single most important reform to make. But there remains a serious lack of independence in the JPP system. This centres on the roles of the SFA’s Compliance Officer (Vincent Lunny) and the SFA Secretary (Stewart Regan) in the process of bringing a case in front of a Tribunal.
The Compliance Officer’s task is to monitor what goes on in Scottish football, assess whether anyone has broken any rules, and – if so – to initiate the disciplinary process. What happens if the Compliance Officer reviews a given event and decides that the conduct of the club, player or official in question doesn’t breach any rules? Well, that is the end of the matter. Neither the SFA executive nor the Judicial Panel can do anything about that decision. And, given that some SFA rules are very vague (e.g. ‘bringing the game into disrepute), the Compliance Officer wields a great deal of power. If the system is to be independent of the SFA, it the Compliance Officer must be independent of it. Yet, as things stand today, Vincent Lunny is an employee of the SFA.
The lack of independence associated with the SFA Secretary’s role is even more flagrant. Firstly, he can veto any decision of the Compliance Officer to mount a disciplinary case. Secondly, even if he allows a case to go ahead, he has the power to select (from the 100-strong Judicial Panel) the 3 individuals who will hear the case. The SFA claims that this takes place on a ‘cab rank’ basis (i.e. the Tribunal is formed of next 3 people in line), but no such rule is to be found in the JPP. On the contrary, it states that:
“Tribunals shall be appointed by the Secretary or his nominee from the Judicial Panel…The Secretary or his nominee may take such steps in respect of the appointment of Tribunals as he considers, in his sole discretion, to be appropriate.” (sections 7.2.1-2)
This applies equally to the Appellate Tribunals as it does to the first-instance Disciplinary Tribunals. So, in theory at least, the SFA Secretary gets two bites of the cherry. He may appoint to a Disciplinary Tribunal the individuals who he thinks are most likely to return the result that he desires. If they don’t, and there is an appeal, he also gets to choose the make-up of the Appellate Tribunal that will hear the appeal. And that’s only if he hasn’t blocked the case from happening in the first place. That is not to impugne Stewart Regan himself, but rather a system that allows him (and his successors) such great power.
The reasons why the JPP is structured in the way that it is are unclear. Despite the fact that it represents a great improvement over the system it replaced, more work must be done if we Scottish football is to have a genuinely independent – and therefore credible – system of footballing ‘justice’.
This article however will let the readers decide if they impugn Stewart Regan and shows how he has used the Judicial Protocol not to deliver justice but to prevent such an outcome, which might just clarify the reason why the JPP was structured in the way that it was and why it absolutely must be replaced on the lines of the suggestions in the excellent Pie and Bovril articles.
Perverting the Course of Justice.
The Judicial Panel Disciplinary Tribunal on Craig Whyte – Bringing The Game Into Disrepute.
The First instance can be found in this E Tim’s article where Regan and LNS met in February 2012 to set the terms of reference for the Judicial Panel that charged Craig Whyte with bringing the game into disrepute.( Telegraph Report 21 Feb 2012 )
As the E Tim’s article shows, whilst Whyte was charged with non payment of PAYE and VAT no charges were made with regard to his failure to pay the £2.8m tax liability that CW undertook to pay in his statement to Rangers shareholders of June 2011. This omission prevented scrutiny of what lay behind that liability, what created it and why it was accepted by RFC in March 2011 and how the SFA were able to grant RFC a UEFA licence in April 2011.
Whatever information Regan had from his telephone conversation with Andrew Dickson on 6th December 2011 and subsequent meeting at Hotel Du Vin with Craig Whyte along with Campbell Ogilvie and RFC CEO Ali Russell, appears not to have been passed to Lord Nimmo Smith in February 2012 when Regan and Nimmo Smith were drawing up the JPP Terms of Reference for the Craig Whyte Tribunal.
The Lord Nimmo Smith Commission
The second instance of Regan’s ability to shape outcomes is in respect of the LNS Commission. Here the SFA stood aside on the grounds they were the Court of Appeal should RFC wish to appeal the eventual LNS Decision and let the then SPL take the running in March 2012. This was a convenient argument given that Regan knew by March 2012 that RFC had a £2.8m tax liability that Sherriff Officers had called to collect that prompted a number of enquiries asking how the SFA were able to grant a UEFA licence in March/April of 2011.
That event caused UEFA and the SFA in September 2011 to discuss the submission RFC made in June 2011 under Article 66 of UEFA FFP that described the status of the liability as postponed and awaiting scheduling of payments but more of this SFA/UEFA discussion later in the context of the current JPDT charges of non compliance against Rangers FC.
It is inconceivable that by March 2012 when the investigation into ebts and side letters began that this September 2011 discussion along with his conversations in December 2011 that Regan was unaware that the tax owed was the result of RFC use of unlawful ebts nor the reasons why RFC had accepted liability for the sum owed arising from their use. However by standing aside there was no specific mention in the SPL Lawyers letter of 15 March 2012 that began the investigation of the by then clearly unlawful ebts that caused the £2.8m tax liability, although it did refer to all ebts with side letters from 1998. All rather convenient for Regan under the powers the Judicial Panel Protocol gave him.
The impact of this exclusion in skewing the LNS Terms of Reference and so the LNS Decision is now a matter of Social Media record that can be followed from beginning to end HERE.
The E Tim’s article already mentioned covers how events from February to April 2012 allowed the exclusion from the Craig Whyte JPP and The Reasons given by Lord Nimmo Smith in September 2012 appear in a follow up E Tim’s article where LNS himself justifies the exclusion of the £2.8m tax liability caused by RFC’s use of unlawful ebts in from 1999 to 2003 on what are less than convincing grounds unless he was kept in the dark by Regan.
SFA JPP Charges In Respect of UEFA Licence in 2011
The final instance of the misuse of the JPP begins in September 2017 when after court testimony stating when the £2.8m tax liability was accepted, the SFA, whilst rejecting an investigation into the handling of RFC use of ebts with side letters (and the foregoing on LNS spells out why) Regan accepted that the granting of the UEFA Licence by the SFA in 2011 should be subject to the Judicial Protocol process.
It took until mid-May 2018 for that process to come up with two charges of non compliance of SFA Articles by RFC that were put to TRFC presumably on the basis that they were responsible for the events in 2011, particularly when at least three current TRFC officials/Directors were in place in 2011, charges which TRFC said they would contest and subsequently in July wanted CAS involvement on grounds that the secret 5 Way Agreement requires it but on scope that that have still to be made known as the parties negotiate the terms of reference to CAS.
Now seven plus months is a long time to finally arrive at charges that according to a TRFC statement in May 2018 in this BBC report excluded the very period at end of March 2011 stating accusations were groundless, that caused the SFA to invoke the JPP process, but what is interesting about those charges is the absence (and as Regan left in February he might not have had an influence or was his parting shot), of any charges against the SFA itself of aiding RFC noncompliance at end of March in September 2011. The Compliance Officer himself resigned not long after the charges of non- compliance were made which raises eyebrows higher than Roger Moore level.
Perhaps it was because of possible SFA complicity in September 2011 that the Compliance Officer agreed to exclude this end March period although that exclusion was challenged by Resolution 12 lawyers just before the SFA Judicial Panel Disciplinary Tribunal (JPDT) sat on 25th June. No answers to the evidence backed questions in that letter, copied to Celtic, have so far been provided.
So what are the SFA hiding from or behind the JPP process this time?
Here is a copy of the Good News e mail of 19th September 2011 between Keith Sharp the UEFA FFP man at the SFA and Ken Olverman the Financial chap at RFC. In it Sharp tells Olverman that UEFA have verbally accepted the RFC submission of June 2011 under Article 66. (This admitted that the 2.8m EBT proposed settlement also required to be disclosed but is shown as a status of postponed (awaiting scheduling of payments) but that a further declaration will be needed under Article 67. This can be read here but note the Comments were not part of original exchange.
Note the tone of the advice given about the Article 67 submission but the point is, either Sharp of the SFA told UEFA porkies to get the monitoring submission under Article 66, that itself was false at the time it was made, verbally accepted or told UEFA the truth and as RFC were out of Europe there was an agreement to bury it between SFA and UEFA.
That UEFA involvement if the latter instance, would explain Celtic’s reluctance to take Res12 to UEFA in 2013 especially as we don’t know UEFA’s response to Celtic’s earlier letter of May 2012 to SFA re ebt investigation copied to Infantino at UEFA.
If the former instance i.e. SFA told UEFA porkies it makes SFA complicit in covering up the non compliance they are charging Rangers with!
I mention this in the context of the SFA Judicial Process being totally inappropriate in this case and why there should be a speedy independent investigation because the charges of non-compliance that the JPDT are covering relate to RFC and NOT the SFA which is perhaps why the terms of reference to CAS are taking so long to emerge.
There is clearly a conflict of SFA self interest here.
It would be more than ironic if the organisation bringing charges against Rangers were in fact complicit in the non-compliance by Rangers after it became public HMRC were owed tax in August 2010!
Summary
The point of this long blog is that the Judicial Panel Protocol introduced by Regan in June 2011 with the flaws pointed out a year later in The Pie and Bovril articles has been used by the SFA under Regan not to produce justice but pervert it since 2011.
Only a truly independent investigation will provide the justice that the crimes perpetrated against Scottish Football and its supporters since 2000 by RFC under the dishonest leadership of Sir David Murray requires, an investigation that should recommend changes that make the JPP independent of the SFA..
Justice is there to uphold the rule of law, that applies to football law as much as natural law and without justice there can be no law. That is where Scottish football now exists, in outlaw territory with the bad guys still ruling as they please, not as justice demands.
Until justice is served and seen to be served there is no law in football and no fake Judicial Protocol Panel is ever going to provide it.
The owners and Directors of all SPFL clubs need to revisit the scene of the crime, the 5 Way Agreement has done its job, a form of Rangers drawing big crowds will continue to exist, but on it has to be on more honest grounds, where who knows, they might even earn redemption.
Darkbeforedawn 14th October 2018 at 20:01
Great post DBD .
But I can't understand why you believe the same club myth which the "Vile man" Green helped to create .
In the words of Paul Simon
" A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest "
The Blue knights had promised the fans a dream team of McCoist, walter and souness. You would have had to have had a nice bit of money for that alone.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ClusterOne2/status/995674613140066304?p=v
Scotland v Portugal
Another pathetic performance .
I'm not talking about the football but the post match interview of Alex McLeish .He mumbled and stumbled his way through it , clearly very uncomfortable . For the sake of his health I think he should quit now .
Darkbeforedawn 14th October 2018 at 20:01
'…The mess Murray has made to Rangers and Scottish Football as a whole will never be forgotten or forgiven. There have been a number of crooks and charlatans in the game recent years who have hurt my club, but none as bad as Murray. Everything negative in the last 10 years has stemmed from his ego. '
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Credit to you,Dbd, for that obviously sincere post.
I have to fault it in two respects, though, or I myself would not be sincere:
first , your use of " ..By the time we were back [ my italics]in the top league"
and secondly, your omission of the culpability of the SFA in either being complicit in, or wholly negligent in their duties in allowing, SDM's master plan of deceit to get as far as it did, and in being the creator and propagator-in-chief of the Big Lie.
The SFA had the means and authority and the duty to keep Scottish Football clean by dealing with SDM's /CW's Rangers in the same way they dealt with every other club that has gone bust: namely, publicly recognised it was bust, endingof 140 years of history and causing the cessation of any ability to participate in Scottish Football and add to its treasury of titles and honours.
If the SFA had done what they ought to have done, TRFC Ltd would now be a six-year-old club with a respected, undeniably earned, place in the top part of the SPFL.
(The problems associated with King and Co would be more or less 'internal' and not really of much more ,or less, interest to the general run of Scottish football supporters than the internal problems of any other club.)
Sadly,the SFA Board did not have people of Integrity enough to put the Integrity of Sport above their personal hysteria and panic and God knows what else emotional state.
There is still time for the SFA and the SPFL to do the right thing, the proper thing: announce that TRFC Ltd is NOT to be recognised by the public or Press as being the old Rangers, or as having a sporting history older than 6 years, and ensure that the record books reflect that position.
All would then be sweetness and light and forgiveness, as Truth would be is restored, and we would have meaningful sporting competition back again.
Darkbeforedawn 14th October 2018 at 20:34
I think the squad that was left was more than capable of working up the leagues under the right manager (ie not checkbook mccoist)
………………..
There lies the problem straight away, as from what we found out at the craig whyte trial Ally had a golden contract and if you wanted to get rid that bit of money would have been in the negative before the show got off the ground.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-40110475
Paradisebhoy 14th October 2018 at 20:57
1 0 Rate This
Scotland v Portugal
Another pathetic performance .
……………….
We had Warburton for England, how long before steven Gerrard for scotland?
I’ll try and answer as many points as I can without getting into OC/NC. I don’t believe it was Charles Green who first came up with the idea of continuation. There had been talk of White trying to agree a Phoenix club, the Blue Knights had the same backup plan as Green if the cva was disagreed and then there was Bill Millars ‘incubator’. Whilst I’m not condoning anything that went on, and none of the events of 2012 sit well with me, it was at the time completely unprecedented events. You had the Scottish government leader actually coming out and asking HMRC to go easy on Rangers and a fan base of more than 50k which made any previous comparisons to other liquidated clubs hard to compare. At that time the ‘Fiorentina’ model was mentioned a lot on blogs and forums and I guess that’s why I wasn’t as overly worried at the time as others. I knew a CVA would never be accepted and a Phoenix club was the only alternative and I guess I accepted that. I read a lot about Fiorentina and felt a bit more reassured that a Rangers would continue.
What I and im sure everyone on here has issues with, is the SFA making up rules as they went along. From the farce that was the transfer embargo (and the fact Rangers fans couldn’t see that was actually in hindsight a favour and the worst thing for us was when they delayed it and let the borrowing to buy players commence again!). It seemed every Friday there was another ‘meeting’ and rushed decision, only for a backtrack within days later. They could have done themselves a favour by stating “we won’t make any instant decisions and will take our time to weigh up the next step”. Instead they tried to shoe-horn us back into the SPL and later the first decision. Again as I had accepted we needed to take our medicine and follow the Fiorentina model, neither of those options were acceptable to me and the third division was the only way I wanted it to play out.
I think under another owner, the outcome (failed CVA, Phoenix club third division, still carrying on the name “Rangers” and the history) would have been the same; the only difference is I would have hoped a bit less hubris, a bit more humility and acceptance that what had happened was all OUR doing, and that by accepting a Rangers into the leagues was a favour by all the other member clubs and the SFA. I guess that’s why I never use the term ‘demoted’ as other Rangers fans regularly do. In my mind we went bust pushing a David Murray vanity project, we restarted from the bottom division as a Phoenix and were kindly allowed to continue the footballing history.
And again getting back to the reason I blame the SFA for a lot of this is the fact it is now on record that they knew about the perilous state of the club for a long long time before it came out in the mainstream. Even before the season started White was discussing the idea of an insolvency event and a Phoenix yet they sat back as White continued to spend £3m+ on individual players and buried their head in their hands. Did they also know the extent of the problems under Murray and also sit back and let it happen? And if so how can I ever trust they are not currently in discussions with King over another insolvency event?
upthehoops
14th October 2018 at 19:09
Allyjambo 14th October 2018 at 17:10
I think what UTH is alluding to is, if they'd managed a CVA or found a buyer, they would have, at a later date, had to face the EBT tax bill which didn't 'crystalize' until after the Supreme Court ruling.
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That is what I meant, or if they had managed to get to the CL group stages they might have struggled on. However the tax bill would have hit at some point.
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Surely at a CVA the debt owed to a creditor is the debt at that time.
They put a claim in and the administrator accepts or rejects it. If the CVA is agreed and the appropriate payments are made by the administrator then that is a clean slate. That is the whole point of trying to save the company and getting it back operating again. That was certainly the intent of the Enterprise Act as I understand it. To save companies and jobs.
The idea that someone could come back in and claim a huge debt, relating to the pre CVA period seems counter intuitive to the intent of Parliament.
I am more than happy to be told I am wrong on this, it is really not my area. Every day is a school day for those willing to learn.
Darkbeforedawn 14th October 2018 at 21:35
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Do you think the SFA were of the same view as many fans, many in the media, that Rangers were simply too big to fail, that someone would step in and it just wouldn't be allowed to happen?
Darkbeforedawn 14th October 2018 at 21:35
I blame the SFA for a lot of this is the fact it is now on record that they knew about the perilous state of the club for a long long time before it came out in the mainstream. Even before the season started White was discussing the idea of an insolvency event and a Phoenix yet they sat back as White continued to spend £3m+ on individual players and buried their head in their hands. Did they also know the extent of the problems under Murray and also sit back and let it happen?
………………..
Which takes us back to why the ibrox fan base hates the SFA so much.Maybe we have all got it wrong all along, and the only reason the ibrox fan base hate the SFA is that they know the SFA knew how perilous a state the club was in all along and they sat back and said nothing and the SFA were of the same view as many fans, many in the media, that Rangers were simply too big to fail, that someone would step in and it just wouldn’t be allowed to happen?
Thanks to UTH who i borrowed that last part from.
I think there was definitely an element of that but with the SFA with what went before and came after I think it’s more a fact they burry their heads in the sand and put of dealing with anything until they absolutely have to. They are a shambles of an organisation from top down. Even with the continuation had they been upfront and said they were using the Italian model where at least four of their clubs had went bankrupt and started again with history attached, there might not be this same outrage now. But they didn’t – they just hoped by saying nothing everyone would just forget about it and move on.
That said, I don’t think we can look to blame the SFA for what has happened to Rangers. Sadly I have to admit the only person to blame for what happened to Rangers is Rangers.
Couldn't be @rsed watching the game but saw the goals: the third (?) Portugal goal was great – and Naismith's goal was well worked.
But saw a bit of the McLeish interview: very unimpressive.
And if he believes that a Finals qualification "is not what they said" then just what are his own KPI's.
On completion of HMRC payments…?
To repeat: it's not his fault. He accepted the first job he was offered after 2 long years in the football wilderness.
The failure is with the SFA – to state the bleedin' obvious, again.
If I – unwittingly – met the SFA President or CEO in a bar I guess they would be the type of people who have a high regard for themselves and believed they know better than anyone else…we've all met them.
Not bad people, but you quickly assess they are thick as shit and have no idea about what is happening globally, in the general sense.
But you are a polite Bampot, smile and nod…and after you finished your drink, it's a sharp exit!
And footy is/was the working man's game…? Inclusive before we learned about being 'PC'.
Rant over.
There is a podcast up on E Tims at
http://etims.net/?p=13509
that discusses where matters stand on the JPDT investigation into the granting and retention of the UEFA licence to Rangers in 2011.
I read some welcome comments regarding the culpability of SDM on this blog and the SFA having dumped all the blame on Craig Whyte are still at it in the JPDT. You do wonder what hold Murray has over Scottish football.
The following is from the comments section on E Tims to help understand the discussion.
The UEFA licence was only granted because of false proof offered to the UEFA Licensing Committee at end March 2011 by Grant Thornton, RFC auditors.
By then the liability had become a payable as RFC asked the bank for permission to pay following accepting the liability on 21st March..
The payable did not meet the 4 criteria that would prevented it being overdue so was an overdue payable.
During May 2011 from 5th to the 20th, three3 HMRC letters that confirmed it was a payable and not a potential liability was not provided to SFA as required by the rules.
That allowed SFA to inform UEFA of clubs granted a licence on 26th May.
The false narrative that failed to describe the liability as a payable at end of March continued in the June and September monitoring points.
SDM regime started the falsehood. CW regime continued it.
The behaviour meets the description of fraud. In particular the proof offered at end of March.
This is the dilemma that Celtic, the SFA and UEFA now face and why the can has been kicked down the road from the day Sherriff Officers turned up at Ibrox.
As events have shown football karma did what the SFA didn’t and took away the UEFA income Rangers had relied in since 2008 when they spent money owed to taxpayers on players that then won 3 titles. Had Karma not intervened in the shape of McCoist in 2011 no one would have been any the wiser.
HMRC would have been paid the £2.8m. Rangers would have paid the PAYE and VAT they stopped paying in Sept 2011 that eventually caused insolvency, all from CL participation.
The desperation to keep a version of Rangers in the game has manifested itself since 2012, so why would Rangers not risk fraud in 2011 and how desperate would the SFA be to deny them the chance of survival?
Chancers one and all.
The only questions are:
Where does blame start?
Where does it end?
How many Scottish journalists wages depend on not investigating and reporting what took place?
<
p style=”margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px”>How do we know it will not happen again with a club who hold the rules in contempt and an SFA who allow them to?
Whilst IMHO it seems pointless looking back, (cheating aside),
If I suddenly realized that my own team I had supported for years was a sham…
And I had conveniently forgotten the social aberrations of this team for the preceding 100+ years…
I would be embarrassed.
I would be angry.
I would feel stoopid!
I would wise up.
I would have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with said team in future.
I wouldn't waste my time on social media trying to justify being a supporter of – never mind being associated with – such a deviant club.
Pre-internet, I was probably happy in my ignorance of Scottish football politics.
In 2018 everybody who supports a Scottish senior football club is informed. If not, then they don't want to be informed.
So, my point is;
RFC effectively died in 2012.
No favours should have been made for its b@stard, Frankenstein offspring.
Scottish suffered before 2012.
It has suffered since 2012.
All because of one dishonest, perennially cheating team from Ibrox. The PC Brigade seem to have avoided anything connected to the social cesspit of Ibrox.
I would personally prefer a financially poorer, less TV attractive, less sponsor appealing football league…but one which was transparently honest.
The idiots at Hampden have to be wheeled away first though…
Extracted from the DR, but assuming it is an accurate, direct quote from McLeish;
"…We had one or two sniffs around the goals without being tremendously dangerous. There was a lot for me to take out of the game. After that horrible result [losing 2-1 to Israel/sic] it was a wee bit of a lift. [losing 1-3 at home to Portugal/sic]
But McLeish’s record in his second term in office has now suffered another black mark. It now reads played eight, lost six, won two…"
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McLeish might be a crap manager, but he has been dealing with the sports media as player and manager for 30+ years.
That quote above reflects – IMO – his inability to deal with the media today.
It is worrying for him, and worrying for any player who wants to play for Scotland… but who has serious reservations about McLeish's competency.
For example: Robertson being managed daily by Klopp, played in the Champions League Final in May…then having to play for McLeish?
Auldheid 15th October 2018 at 00:46
I imagine in that case CAS would be the last place King wants this to go. My money was originally on the SFA going for the 'we've taken the advice of senior Counsel and blah blah blah'…we know the rest. They would be 100% backed by the media were they to do that. However if that is an option why have they not done so already? Has senior Counsel already informed them otherwise? Have Celtic informed them that if they do, then they will publish the damning evidence the Res 12 people worked so hard to establish on the club website? Celtic must still answer Res 12 via an AGM in any case.
Darkbeforedawn 14th October 2018 at 20:01
…The other group that were in for the club (Paul Murray and his partner) I believe would have lived within their means and done what I and other fans wanted – build a foundation out of youth prospects, coming through the leagues with a bit of humility accepting what we had done, apologising for the mess and making some friends along the 'journey'. By the time we were back in the top league we could have built up a nice bit of money in the bank and without the huge chip on our shoulder and 'everyone is out to get us' mindset I'm sure there would not be the same hatred towards us now, and certainly not the financial basket case we are! So yes, that's why I hate Green and hold him second only to Murray for the problems of recent years…
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A very good post, DBD, but this part is very much something that didn't happen, and it didn't happen because the people involved did not come up with enough money to satisfy the CVA (they were a long, long way off) and, as far as we know, did not offer anything in the event the CVA failed. They only wanted the real Rangers football club, and, as men (in your opinion) were not steeped in the same level of spivery as Charles Green, and so did not have the crass dishonesty to come up with fanciful claims of continuation.
It was Bill Miller, the American, who first came up with the 'incubator' idea, but, from memory, his idea was to buy the 'club' before the CVA was refused. Even his idea was fanciful and was built on his own experiences of the American Football franchise system. It was, of course, the support that you suggest would have (eventually) accepted an impoverished club that chased him away.
As things stand, there is no evidence that anyone other than Charles Green was going to buy the club's assets in the event of no CVA, and with the media and everyone surrounding Rangers accepting that no CVA meant no Rangers, it took a liar of the highest degree to push the media to change their minds without explanation.
Charles Green came up with the £5.5m for the club's assets, no one else came close to that figure, nor did they offer their cash upfront – even for the club as a going concern. So the idea that someone else would have been able to cobble it all together, convince those they had to convince that it was the same club, then keep enough supporters onside to finance a team and the upkeep of that crumbling stadium can only be wishful speculation.
Whether or not we accept the idea that Charles Green 'saved' Rangers, he was the only man who came up with enough money, at the most critical moment, to buy the assets and to continue with a club playing out of Ibrox. Had he not done that in the manner it was done, then a process of buying the assets (advertised as the assets of RFC(IL) would have taken place and, if dealt with properly, it could have taken months, or even years, to complete, and there would now be no club playing out of Ibrox claiming to be the continuation of your beloved club.
By the way, the name Brian Kennedy has hung around as a potential buyer almost from the off, and continues to be named from time to time as an incoming Blue Knight, but has never put hard cash on the table, and even if he had, there is no evidence to suggest he would have done a great job, just ask the Stockport County fans, who see him only as an asset stripping publicity seeker!
In short, Charles Green was the only man in a position to continue (almost seamlessly) with a football team at Ibrox, and for anyone who believes that Rangers still play there, it must surely be considered that he did 'save' the club.
Auldheid 15th October 2018 at 00:46
'…Had Karma not intervened …. no one would have been any the wiser'
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Karma's intervention certainly frustrated the overall aim of those people which was to pay their debts with monies to which they were not entitled and which they obtained (it is alleged) by deceit and conspiracy to defraud.
Given that there is a strong prima facie case against both the SFA Licensing Committee and RFC 2012 plc( formerly known as Rangers Football Club plc) (IL), I suggest that Celtic plc now has a duty to its shareholders ,and indeed to the public at large, to ask the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service to institute a criminal investigation.
It may be no common law or statutory crime to cheat at 'games': it certainly is a crime to swipe some millions of pounds by dishonesty.
If, as should surely happen, the Res 12 issue is on the agenda for the Celtic plc AGM next month (is it?), and debated, I expect that the overwhelming majority of those attending will , after debate (which, I submit, the Chair will have to allow) call for a report to the COPFS to be made.
And I further submit that the 'big' holders of vote-carrying shares better not think of dodging the column and voting against such reference to the COPFS. The seriously founded allegation that Celtic plc has been the victim of crime MUST be investigated, and it would not be for the majority shareholders to shrug their shoulders and say that they do not wish to get involved.
Their failure to engage first time round in 2013 solved nothing: the sport stinks, its governance stinks, and the longer term future of every club will be affected if action to return to integrity is not taken.
I see the name Brian Kennedy being mentioned again. If I recall correctly he is a Hibs fan who was attempting to help because his wife's family is steeped in Rangers. He also seems to be far removed from the type of characters who have come and gone at Ibrox. He didn't make his fortune by throwing good money after bad, and I am certain he would have demanded Rangers live within their means. In short, he is not what the average Ibrox patron seems to want.