SFA goes into full Sepp Blatter mode

Recent court cases and hearings made new information available on matters leading up to the liquidation of Rangers in 2012. In their letter to Celtic, dated 4 September this year, the Scottish FA accepted that in light of information available due to these court cases, it was appropriate to review events at the club during Craig Whyte’s tenure, specifically the awarding of a licence for the club to participate in European football in 2011 (the Res 12 issue).

The letter went on to confirmed that despite the same court cases providing new information on Rangers activities while recent SFA president Campbell Ogilvie was a director of the club, and when SFA Regulatory Advisory Group member, Andrew Dickson, was authoring side-contracts at Rangers, these events would not be reviewed.

It is the latter matter that the Scottish Professional Football League requested the SFA review. The SFA made no representation that the new information they declined to review was irrelevant, without merit, not sufficiently important or previously accounted for. They just preferred not to agree to the League’s request.

Peter Lawwell’s response, dated 7 September, used both barrels: “The fact that the Scottish FA is now reviewing [Rangers European licence in 2011] on the basis of new information is only proper. What we fine incomprehensible is why you refuse to apply the same principle to all the other new information which has emerged within the same period”.

Peter suggests this is “a failure in transparency, accountability and leadership”. It is all of that and more. An organisation’s recent president and a current senior apparatchik must not be protected from scrutiny. You could take issue with Peter Lawwell’s “failure in transparency” suggestion; this is a transparent attempt to protect cronies within the SFA.

Those who made the decision to go after Craig Whyte, while at the same time suggesting looking at their past president’s tenure was inappropriately “raking over old coals” have worked with Ogilvie and Dickson for many years.

It is their responsibility to go beyond the call of duty to ensure no whiff of corruption exists within the running of football in Scotland. By denying the call from our professional clubs for this review, the SFA board have truly failed their duty to the good of the game. All to protect their buddies.

It looks corrupt.

The SFA appear oblivious to the lessons of Sepp Blatter, who with near-absolute control, presided over corruption at Fifa for decades. There were enough within the game with “no appetite” for corruption who persisted until justice was served.

Can authorities within the game still refuse to review the actions of their office-holders?  That’s what the SFA are hoping.

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CQN went behind the scenes with BT Sport at Hamilton on Friday evening and this is all covered in the new CQN Podcast which is out today and includes an interview with Chris Sutton…