Campbell Ogilvie was interviewed in today’s Scotland on Sunday but he singularly failed to deflect the central criticism of him continuing as president of the SFA despite being a director of Rangers during the period they introduced the controversial EBTs and, allegedly, illegally registered players with the SFA, which Ogilvie was also a director of.
Interviewer, Andrew Smith, asked “Can you see there being an issue with you being SFA president at a time when there is an ongoing SPL investigation into non-disclosure of payments at Rangers that you are directly linked to? You were a director and the secretary who signed off the accounts in November 2001. At that time the EBT scheme was in operation and players were receiving payments that weren’t in their contracts.”
Ogilvie’s response laid bare how inappropriate the situation is: “I was secretary up until 2002. That’s correct. I was a director, that’s correct.”
All he could do in response to the question of how inappropriate his job as SFA president is when Rangers are under investigation for non-disclosure of payments he was “directly linked to” is confirm he was a secretary and director. He didn’t even offer a counter argument.
It was as though he’d been coached, badly, about what to do when you are asked a question you don’t want to answer. Simply not answering the question and making an irrelevant statement treats Scottish football fans like fools.
The truth is he did not and cannot answer the question. If Campbell Ogilvie cannot argue why there is not an issue for him continuing to be SFA president, why is he still SFA president?
Ogilvie confirmed that in March he told Andrew Smith that there were no side contracts and insisted this was “the case to the best of my knowledge”, despite Smith referring him to the recent BBC documentary, the assertions of which have not been challenged.
Readers would have been confused by this ‘knowledge’, that there were no side contracts as Ogilvie immediately denied involvement with player contracts.
This duel position, bearing witness that there were no side contracts, while denying knowledge of player contracts, is wholly inconsistent and, in itself, reasons enough to for his dismissal.
One of the most intriguing comments from Ogilvie was “I might have signed some documents from time to time. I certainly didn’t do the player negotiations, I didn’t do the contracts.”
He “might have signed some documents from time to time”. Oh dear.
If he signed some documents active in this scandal “from time to time”, for pity sake, just go. Pack your bags, apologise profusely and get out of Scottish football.
We await to hear who conducted the inquiry into Ogilvie which allowed Stewart Regan to clear Ogivlie, but if this shoddy testimony informed their decision, the scandal at the heart of the SFA has taken on a new dimension.
Rumours that the SFA did not conduct an inquiry into Campbell Ogilvie and that chief exec, Stewart Regan, spoke inappropriately in order to save the skin of his pal, remain unfounded.
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Ogilvie received 3 x payments from Rangers FC (In Administration) totalling £ 95,000…..he claimed the last one was a bonus he was due on leaving the club yet all payments via EBT’s are merels LOANS !
As anyone who has ever had a lon before will know, there is due dates when they have to be paid back. Can Ogilvie confirm how much he has re-paid and when the balance is due or that he has been told he doesn’t need to repay the “loan”
Just clear your desk and go and take a few others with you…I don’t think he would enjoy being grilled by a real journalist.
Good Morning,
As we approach the by now much anticipated and possibly infamous creditors meeting on Thursday it is very easy to find yourself distracted by all this ballyhoo about player signings, litigation from Dave King, the maybes aye maybes naw share sale agreement between Whyte and green…. and so on.
I am not an insolvency practitioner but I have liaised with enough of them over the years on behalf of both creditiors and debtors to know that all this smoke and mirrors stuff hides what is a basic principle that is governed by common sense.
Further, as soon as I have finished this post, thrown my kids into the school, and carried out a few menial tasks of my own, I will be making a few calls to HMRC on behalf of folk who owe them a few quid either personally or through their companies.
HMRC also tend to operate on the same basic and pragmatic principles in my experience.
For a start– a very basic start– if you have a large bill and you are claiming that you cannot pay it at all or that you can only pay a fraction of it, which you are offering in full and final settlement, then there is an automatic set of questions and responses from the Revenue or indeed from any Insolvency practitioner.
“What are your assets?”
“What are your liabilities?”
” Do you have Valuations?”
” Do you have sums owing to you and are they recoverable?”
It is not rocket science and it is not quantum physics– it is common sense.
I know that there are people who are entitled to attend the Creditors meeting who are employed by large companies. People whose job it is to extend or recall credit to the tune of 100′s of thousands of pounds. Forget for the moment that they have received nothing at all from Duff & Phelps, these people also look at debt recovery through these vary basic principles.
In the Rangers case– where are the recent and independent valuations of Ibrox , Murray Park and any other assets?
Where is the analysis of the specialist nature of the business and the value placed on the brand and the naming of the stadium similar to the kind of figure that Charles Green has been able to conjure up in jig time?
Where is the analysis of all possible business strategies — including the sale of the club by Duff & Phelps to a new co that is owned by the fans ( basically a share issue ) as has been promoted by both Green and indeed Paul Murray in the past— and sort of tacitly accepted by Duff & Phelps when dealing with these people?
I hear and read lots of volume and bull about the consequences of going down the proposed CVA route and the sale to Green Route— I see and hear absolutely nothing about even a cursory look at other potential routes for engathering money for the benefit of Creditors.
Even the most basic, custom printed, and standard asset and liability form for the Revenue would reveal– and force you to reveal— current estimated asset values in the event of a business not being able to be sold as a going concern. This is because– as has already been pointed out— sometimes the sale of the assets nets you more than the sale of the business.
Where is the information and so called expertise that you are meant to receive from so called experts who are appointed by the court and “Licensed” to carry out that sort of work.
Don’t get me wrong, the court appointment and the licence are meant to denote a degree of expertise in the field– but that standing is also meant to denote a practitioners status in terms of integrity and professionalism, with the guarantee and indeed sanction, that the party so appointed has the authority of, and is answerable to, that same Court– and so will do the job properly and professionally.
This is not rocket science, it is a tried and tested judicial process carried out by people with supposed business and finance expertise. When carried out properly, the right way forward for creditor and debtor is very often clear and straightforward… whether it is palatable or not.
The very fact that there is such a mess and a lack of clarity facing the creditors of Rangers PLC suggests to me that the court appointed process — the basic fundamental principles–have not been exercised and carried through properly.
I suspect that is because the Administrators immediately went off on the wrong foot at the very outset– by failing to stress at the first press conference that their overiding obligation was to secure the best possible return for the creditors of Rangers PLC– whether that be from a sale of the business or its assets.
Those creditors should remember that this week– and view the entire position from the basis of the fundamental standard procedures.
“What are your assets, what are they worth and do you have any independent valuations that we can take a reference from?”
It is simply the best way to proceed!
BRTH
Another great post, recalling Administrator’s first principles, which have not been applied. Time for Hector and BDO.
Three sleeps till Christmas, bhoys and ghirls, three sleeps till Christmas!
RFC(ia): Time to Pay the Wages of Sin
In this long attritional process I expect Thursday’s meeting to be yet another damp squib.
BRTH- BennyLynch #44 in ‘Boxing News’ top 100 boxers of all time [#1 is Sugar Ray Robinson,#2 is Ali]. The list is interesting in that it gives due prominence to a lot of boxers from before the TV age.
As pointed out above and as everybody who has ever been involved in business structures already knows, the Secretary is possibly THE key figure in making the business run smoothly.
S/he effectively controls the business. This is not something which is thrust upon them, this is the power they themselves seek.
For any secretary in such a position of power to claim that s/he was somehow usurped by someone higher up the tree is a smokescreen. There is absolutely no way that s/he would have tolerated any such thing. People like this don’t get to where they are without being driven by power and no-one, but no-one gets to take that power away without a major fight.
Few people who have been watching these events unfold will believe what CO says. Most will be suspect that CO was not only in full knowledge of events but was a central figure in making them happen. Especially when he himself is a beneficiary of the scheme.
What is the SFA investigation into Celtic some earlier posts about the BBC site were referring to?
JJ
Where on the BBC site is it?
JJ
Good morning Ghuys,
Well it’s no that good, Hamiltontim above me in predictor.
SHOOOORLLYSHUMMISTAKE C.S,C
“Ogilivie admits having signed some documents.”
In other news……
Thatcher admits to irritating the miners.
DBBIA
where did yiu source the top 100 boxers?
I will have a look as there will be some interesting characters and stories in there.
Dempsey, Henry Armstrong etc etc
….Scots admit to not quite getting behind England in Euros.
JJ- can’t see anything. Hunguffery from Outer Space.
BRST- it’s in a new magazine, I was browsing through it in the ole station bookstall before gettin’ the ole iron horse back to Shangri La.
BRST =BRTH!
new article posted.
i can’t wait for the HMRC to get BOD out of retirement and start selling of rangurs piece by piece, a fitting end to have a 70’s cartoon character sell off the stolen silverware, can’t wait for the theme music as he walks into the room.