SFA lawyers examine illegal registration responses

BBC today revealed that the SFA’s legal team are examining responses from the Associations 93 clubs to a letter dated 9 March, which reminded clubs of their responsibility to record financial records with the SFA and asking them to declare they have complied over the last 10 years.

The inquiry was established after reports that Rangers had illegally registered players for over a decade, excluding payments which were not taxed.  We can presume that as the legal team are investigating, there was at least one response which returned a noncompliance.

The SFA issued a deadline for responses of 6 April and under Article 86.1 any club not responding in a timely manner would be in breach, so it’s unclear why it has taken over two months to get to this stage, so why the legal team are only “examining responses”.

We look forward to hearing an early comment on this crucial matter from the executive.  It is enormously unfortunate that the SFA were unable to inform their AGM of the findings on Wednesday. BBC report that the Association legal team have yet to report to the Compliance Officer, which is the next step.