Shameless liar to Fit & Proper

Rangers director Dave King’s remarkable statement today read like a manifesto for taking over a football club.  I’ll leave aside most of his allegations, speculation and threats for now and discuss the central point to be considered by the Scottish Football Association.

King has asked the SFA if he would be deemed a Fit and Proper Person to run a football business.  He has been a director of Rangers for the last 12 years, starting pretty much in tandem with the Employee Benefit Trust scheme which has precipitated so much trouble for the club.  One of the key responsibilities of a non-executive director, defined by Wikipedia, are to:

“Satisfy themselves that financial information is accurate and that financial controls and systems of risk management are robust and defensible”

It was his responsibility to ensure that Rangers’ tax submissions were accurate and defensible.  He was employed (and presumably paid) to carry out this duty on behalf of the thousands of ordinary shareholders.  This particular duty has been subject to gross underperformance.  Being a bad director is not a suitable defence.

Last year the Daily Record reported that a South African court judgement said: “In our assessment [King] is a glib and shameless liar”.

Adding he, “has no respect for the truth and does not hesitate to lie … if he thinks it will be to his advantage”, before ruling his company was liable for a £250m bill served by the South African tax authorities.  The very mention of the phrase “tax authorities” should send alarm bells ringing at Hampden.

Even Craig Whyte has never been called a shameless liar by a court.

King served as Rangers director with SFA president and board member, Campbell Ogilvie, for five years.  The SFA have yet to respond to his Fit and Proper Person enquiry.
You are beginning to see why the SFA president’s position is simply untenable.  We have been plunged headlong into the biggest scandal in the history of Scottish football and he sat around the table with most of the people involved when many decisions were agreed.

SFA chief exec, Stewart Regan, might be tempted to issue another “Campbell is clearly conflicted with this…” comment but would be much better served by:

Making it clear that works like “glib and shameless liar” from a court do not make you Fit and Proper for Scottish football.

Calling an emergency board meeting and instigate an immediate and wide-ranging inquiry into Rangers – with an initial response before the end of this month.

Advising the president that he should immediately offer information to the SPL inquiry and do the same with the SFA inquiry once convened, and step aside until all related matters have concluded.

More on King’s self-serving claim that trophies Rangers ‘won’ during and around their EBT period are secure soon.

I would like to be the first to congratulate St Mirren on their League Cup win in 2010.

Issue six of CQN Magazine, the Fit and Proper edition, is set to become a landmark collectors item. You can browse the magazine online here but you can buy your own hard copy by clicking on the link below.  Read with 20-20 vision…..

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