Campbell Ogilvie was appointed general secretary of Rangers in 1978 before eventually becoming a full board director. He left the club in 2005. For 11 years he was part of the regime that maintained Rangers sectarian signing policy which was eventually ended by new owner, Sir David Murray, in 1989. Ogilvie has made no public comment on this policy, never mind offered regret or contrition.
In other places he would be regarded as an embarrassing relic of a bygone age. In Scotland, he was appointed treasurer of the SFA in 2003. In 2010, we made him president of our national association.
He remains to this day, a beacon of how the game works in this country.
Earlier this year he told the BBC he had administrative duties until 2002, when he became responsible for legislative matters. While at Rangers he had an Employee Benefit Trust.
In March SFA chief executive, Stewart Regan, told Channel 4 that Ogilvie was “heavily conflicted” by his role and SFA president and his previous role at Rangers, while the SPL is conducting an investigation into what he and his fellow directors did. The SFA and SPL share office accommodation at Hampden Park.
Ogilvie refused to step down during the investigation and I understand has not offered the SPL inquiry any assistance.
Prediction: resignation within the week.
You can buy a hard copy of the new issue of CQN Magazine via Magcloud here.
The graphic below is just for a flick through, to read the magazine go here to it’s dedicated site.
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voguepunter on 23 May, 2012 at 12:32
Does reading that not cause a shiver down the spine?
The Celtic support is Celtic and what makes our club great!
HH
Paul its about TIMe he resigned.
As for Michael Johnston he’s just a Ragers groupie. Shameful.
Hail hail
MME
“One of the big giveaways about Craig Whyte was the fact he wasn’t worried about working capital. He didn’t care about it.
“He was much more concerned about the contracts.
“His modus operandi was, ‘How many of them can we get out of, how many of them can we deny paying until at least some of them will drop by the wayside.’”
CRAIGWHYTECSC
Johnston claims Sir David Murray allowed his ego to run riot at Rangers and made a “panicked” decision to sell the club as it teetered on the brink of ruin
Sir David Murray allowed his ego to run riot at Rangers, then made a “panicked” decision to sell the club as it teetered on the brink of ruin.
That’s the explosive verdict of former Ibrox chairman Alastair Johnston on Murray’s Ibrox “dictatorship” given in an exclusive interview with Business7.
In an unprecedented and extraordinarily detailed attack on Murray’s stewardship of the club, Johnston claims the tycoon was warned extensively about the dangers of selling to Craig Whyte.
He says Murray carried on with the deal because of “significant pressure” from the club’s bankers.
And he says a senior boss at the bank told him that Lloyds, who were owed £700million by the rest of Murray’s empire, had “incentivised” Murray to hand Rangers to Whyte.
Johnston, 63, once a close ally of Murray, now no longer speaks to him.
Johnston said: “Chairmen and chief executives are often the subject of fans’ ire for selling players, or allowing guys to leave because of unaffordable wage demands and so on. On the the other hand, you take Sir David Murray.
“He got too immersed in the fans’ perception of himself – as well as his own ego and invincibility, probably.
“In the last few years he lost his business discipline, then panicked when he saw Armageddon coming.”
Murray, who famously boasted in 2000 that Rangers would spend £10 for every £5 spent by Celtic, sold Rangers to Whyte a year ago for £1.
Our sister publication, the Daily Record has told how, before the sale, a private investigator’s report on Whyte’s business record was passed to the Ibrox board.
And Johnston, who was ousted by Whyte soon after his takeover, spoke at length about how closely Murray and his Murray Group of businesses were made aware of what the detective had discovered.
His allegations are highly significant, given Murray’s later insistence that he had been “duped” by Whyte.
The SFA disciplinary panel who slapped a transfer embargo on Rangers criticised Johnston, and other men on the Ibrox board, for not doing enough to stop the sale.
But Johnston said he and his colleagues expressed their concerns about Whyte “very vocally”. And he insisted there was only one man with the power to keep him out – Murray.
Johnston said of the detective’s report: “It was made available to us and I did see it, like I saw a lot of other information and data that was presented to us or leaked.
“But all that information was shared with the Murray Group, because there wasn’t much we could do about it other than jump up and down and scream and shout, which is what we did.
“In terms of something to do about it – that is, not consummate the transaction for these reasons – then David Murray really looks like the only person who could actually have done something.”
Johnston added: “There were a lot of inconsistencies in Whyte’s personal profile – where he lived, who he was registered with, anonymous addresses and so on.
“Liberty Capital, the ultimate guarantor of his so-called arrangement with Rangers, was formed out of a warehouse in industrial Miami where nobody had ever heard of him or the company.
“So we had a lot of due diligence and checked up on him, but that information was fed to the Murray group.”
Johnston, a Glasgow-born expert in sports accountancy, joined the Ibrox board in 2004 and became chairman in 2009.
By then, the credit crunch had hit and the fallout was still having a massive effect.
And he says Murray was under “significant pressure” from the bank, who wanted a more independent board, to get out of his day-to-day running of the club.
He said: “The bank, rightly or wrongly, thought David’s presence was so omnipotent. They thought there was really just one man, and the ruling by dictatorship had not worked.”
By this time, Rangers’ bankers were Lloyds, who took over the club’s previous bank, Bank of Scotland, at the height of the financial crisis.
Johnston said Murray had enjoyed a “very good relationship” with Bank of Scotland.
But he added that it was “probably too good”, and the bank had loaned miillions to Rangers “too easily” without proper checks and balances.
He went on: “When Lloyds came, I think they knew to some extent there was a lot of toxic debt. But I don’t think they quite realised the extent of it.
“They realised the governance and operations needed tidying up.”
When Johnston took over as chairman, he was “shocked” to find that all discussions involving the bank were dealt with personally by Murray and the Edinburgh team who helped run the rest of his empire.
He said: “Nobody at Rangers Football Club knew the bank. The bank didn’t deal with Rangers.
“It was totally incongruous in my experience that a bank that loaned a company £40million had no history in dealing with the chief executive or finance director of that company.”
In 2009, two new men were appointed to the Rangers board.
One was Murray’s right-hand man, Mike McGill. The other, financial strategist Donald Muir, was the eyes and ears of Lloyds.
Muir’s arrival was seen as a sign that Murray’s hold over the club was weakening.
Johnston said it was a condition of the bank’s renewal of the club’s credit facility.
He added: “Within two years of my chairmanship with an independent board, we reduced the debt from about £35million to £18million.
“The bank, believe it or not, at that time were very happy with us. Our arguments with them were more about reducing the debt by another £2 million to £16 million, in order for them to be totally satisfied it was a sustainable working debt.”
Then, early last year, the bank’s position appeared to change – for reasons yet to become clear.
Johnston said: “They originally didn’t believe in Craig Whyte. That’s the irony. They were as wary as we were about the fact he was one of the ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ types that didn’t have the money.
“The first time they were invited to meet with Whyte in London, he didn’t show up.
“It wasn’t until a couple of months before the transaction concluded that the bank actually started to believe the deal might be for real.
“David Murray and Craig Whyte got involved around October 2010. It wasn’t until around March 2011 when the bank turned on us very badly.
“They started talking much more seriously about Whyte. This was within four or five weeks of the transaction being concluded.
“They basically saw a chance to get all £18million back in one fell swoop.”
It was at this time, Johnston claims, that a senior bank executive told him Murray had been “incentivised” to seal the Whyte deal.
He said: “I pointed out to the banker that I felt David Murray may not want to sell.
“The reply, and this is a very key statement, was, ‘Alastair, David Murray is heavily incentivised to get rid of Rangers Football Club. Let me leave it at that.’
“I understood that to mean that certain things would then be triggered in his £700million relationship between Murray Group and the bank.”
Johnston said Murray first mentioned Whyte’s name to him in November 2010.
He recalled: “David Murray rang me on my mobile and said, ‘I think we’ve got someone and this is a really good one. Unlike any others before, he’s spent a lot up front.
“‘He’s hired some high-powered lawyers and spent some money on them, and he’s hired a high-powered PR team. He’s spent a lot of money on it so he must be serious.’”
But the sale turned out to be, as Murray now calls it, a “huge mistake”.
Johnston said: “One of the big giveaways about Craig Whyte was the fact he wasn’t worried about working capital. He didn’t care about it.
“He was much more concerned about the contracts.
“His modus operandi was, ‘How many of them can we get out of, how many of them can we deny paying until at least some of them will drop by the wayside.’”
In another withering criticism of Murray, Johnston added: “Whyte didn’t put a cent into the club, as we all know.
“That’s why I was jumping up and down and telling anyone who would listen. But there were only some people who would listen.”
Murray last night declined to respond to Johnston’s attacks. He said: “I will keep my counsel on this for a future date.”
Lloyds refused to explain why they were so keen to see Rangers sold, or to respond to the allegation that Murray was “incentivised” to do the deal.
They said: “The deal was a matter between Craig Whyte and Sir David Murray.
“The bank’s involvement was in relation to the debt owed by Rangers FC, which was repaid in full, in accordance with all required regulatory checks.”
All institutions are prone to corruption and to the vices of their members.
Corruption is nature’s way of restoring our faith in democracy.
Corruption never has been compulsory.
I have always been fascinated by the corruption of power.
If, as is natural, you focus on the corruption and on those threatened institutions that are trying to prevent change – even though they don’t really know what they’re trying to prevent – then you can get pessimistic.
In a state where corruption abounds, laws must be very numerous.
Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life.
Look, we know we screwed up when we were in the majority. We fell in love with power. We spent way too much money. There was too much corruption when we ran this place. We were guilty. And that’s why we have lost.
If a country is to be corruption free and become a nation of beautiful minds, I strongly feel there are three key societal members who can make a difference. They are the father, the mother and the teacher.
St Martin’s Bhoy on 23 May, 2012 at 12:06 said:
Re The West Highland Way, and arriving at Paradise on the 1st day of the new season – excellent idea… I’ve just completed the walk with a group of folk for Cancer Research (South to North) – best bit of advice I can give is to allow decent time – we did it in 6 days and it was a bit of a push – a lot of painkillers required for the feet. Allow plenty of time for the stretch along Loch Lomond – a few wonderful stop off points on the way that are worth the time taken to enjoy
Good luck with it :-)
New article Bhoys
starry plough on 23 May, 2012 at 11:59 said:
>>>
Ghost Dog!
Jah Rules!
; ))
Question?
If you accept my premise that the foundation of the sporting world is based on honesty and integrity, how many huns fans do you think will vow never to follow their team again (in whatever shape or form that team is) should they go ‘relatively’ unpunished?
I did say “question”, but it was rhetorical really. We know what they really stand for, and dignity couldn’t be further from the truth.
Dignity is their cry. For most people, dignity is synonomous with ethics, and with morality. Their cry of dignity is as false as their accounts records. They not only cheat their way in the sporting world, but have the gall to demand favour from those responsible for administering justice, and even more pathetic, threaten to further affect financially some of the smaller clubs whom they have already stolen from.
No remorse, no apology.
If Regan and Doncaster, aided and abetted by the chairmen of SPL clubs allow a team responsible for the greatest scandal in the history of sport to pass with punishment of the ‘slap on the wrist’ variety, then they should be considered to have been complicit.
I read recently that the 1983 boxing match between Resto and Collins was arguably the greatest ‘sport cheat’ of all time. (resto’s gloves were loaded with plaster of paris). Maradona’s ‘hand of god’ was also quoted as a possible’winner’.
As bad as these events were, (although I confess I enjoyed the Diego moment) and with the boxing example being a particularly despicable act, can it really be as bad as a team who have cheated for over a decade? Not ONE person from the club speaking out over what was a prolonged scam?
That is why I genuinely believe it should be considered as the greatest sporting crime of them all. Pre meditated, and carried out over an extended period covering multiple tournaments in countries all over Europe.
Given this, I ask again, will ONE hun decide to demonstrate ‘dignity’ and walk away?