Larry Cafiero: And the third: How could Lawwell claim at the AGM that as Celtic CEO, he had never seen the hugely important change to the rule book that is the 5 Way Agreement. Did he mislead the AGM or is he negligent in his duties to shareholders in not having made sure he had seen this document and had a say in what it said before it become part and parcel of the Scottish game?
Auldheid: Again, that is for Peter Lawwell to explain. It is simply not credible and would be bordering on total negligence not to have been involved, but the 5 Way Agreement final draft was attached to an email from Neil Doncaster dated 26 July 2012 to then SPL Board members including Celtic Director Eric Riley and to Peter Lawwell. No reply or challenge by next day would be taken as agreement, so even if at that late stage the contents of the attachment were not known, simply by not opening it Celtic gave the SPL their approval to its contents.
Larry Cafiero: We in the U.S. are not strangers to controversy in our sports governing bodies and some of our teams. Our list is long: Incidents like the USC student scholarship scandal and the National Football League’s slow response to both drug abuse and spouse abuse among its players (to say nothing of Major League Baseball’s mishandling of the steroids epidemic) come immediately to mind.
So far be it from me, an American, to throw stones at glass houses, so to speak. But we like to think that elsewhere – particularly Scotland – sports governing bodies would be held to a higher level of scrutiny by the public, by the media, and most of all by the member clubs and the bodies themselves. Ideally we like to think that these governing bodies, particularly the SFA, live up to the task of honesty and doing what’s best for football. So how, in your opinion, does this all play out for the best outcome?
What is your ideal endgame?
Auldheid: Truth followed by reconciliation. The commercial pressures put on the SPL/SFA as a result of Rangers FC dishonesty over ten years from 2000 as result of unlawful use of EBTs and reckless bank borrowing is understandable, but fear of Rangers disappearing off the football landscape and consequent loss of income to the industry gave those wishing to take the place of Rangers a strong negotiating hand, which led to concessions that have all but destroyed the integrity of the sport and the credibility of the SFA as fit and proper to run Scottish football.
Additionally had the degree of dishonesty been known in 2012 then it is doubtful if any form of Rangers could have been allowed to continue in Scottish football at all, so the charges made had to be of lesser seriousness than blatant dishonesty. For example.
The charges against Craig Whyte of bringing the game into disrepute omitted reference to the unpaid wee tax bill of £2.8 million that he undertook to repay.
The LNS Commission was premature, and in pursuing registration failures found Rangers guilty of a lesser breach than acting in bad faith to fellow member clubs over ten years by paying players by a means other clubs could not lawfully adopt. The registration failures attracted a fine of £250,000. What would the sanction for ten years of bad faith to fellow members been?
The UEFA licence issue that caused Resolution 12 and has dragged on since 2013 that has uncovered not just dishonesty in 2011, but ongoing dishonesty in terms of covering up the true seriousness of Rangers and The SFA’s behavior over the EBT years.
Enough time has passed, a form of Rangers with 50,000 customers is still in the game although it is foolish to ignore the risk of repeating the 2012 insolvency posed by their dependency on unsustainable debt currently standing at £10 million with high litigation costs to come. So before that happens causing a collapse from which Scottish football might never recover I believe is time to face the truth and look at reforming the SFA. These ideas from 2011 stand the test of time. https://celticunderground.net/sfa-reform-one-down-three-to-go/
This eighties classic sums it all up in the title of the song…
Interview by Larry Cafiero, Celtic’s American Blogger on ’67 in the heat of Felton, a view of Celtic FC from the Central Californian coast – visit https://larrycafiero.com
