LEAGUE bosses have dismissed Dave King’s ludicrous demands for a top QC to lead a probe into SPFL chairman Murdoch MacLennan’s links with Celtic.
They also revealed the Ibrox club have known about the situation for more than FOUR months!
The league will support MacLennan after it emerged he had accepted a senior boardroom position by a company part-owned by Hoops supremo Dermot Desmond and fellow-Parkhead shareholder Denis O’Brien.
King called for the SPFL chief to be suspended immediately pending an independent investigation into what he described as possible “conflict of interest” and an “alleged non-disclosure”.
But the league hit back by confirming the Govan outfit were fully informed in January of MacLennan’s decision to join Irish media giants INM as a non-executive chairman.
The information was passed directly to the club’s managing director Stewart Robertson who it’s understood raised no objection to MacLennan’s appointment with the Dublin-based company.
King claimed: “The club notes with concern the latest disclosure through the media regarding a business relationship which the chairman of the SPFL has with leading shareholders of a fellow SPFL club.
“This has given rise to allegations of non-disclosure and it is now imperative that we discover exactly the nature of the information supplied to the SPFL regarding this relationship.
“It is equally important that any conflicts of interest, or even the perception of such, whereby positions within the Scottish football authorities could be undermined, or abused, must be aggressively rooted out of our game.
“The SPFL, therefore, must immediately suspend its chairman pending an independent investigation by a senior QC into the allegations and into the extent that other parties within the SPFL may have cooperated in this alleged non-disclosure.”
The league bosses insisted Robertson – along with the rest of the SPFL board – was initially notified of MacLennan’s intentions two months before he took on his role at INM in March.
A spokesman for the SPFL said: “It’s not surprising Murdoch, having stepped down as deputy chairman of Telegraph Media Group, should be approached by other businesses in that sector.
“The members of the SPFL board were each informed of Murdoch’s appointment on January 19 2018, the same day it was publicly announced in a press release from Independent News & Media PLC. That release was also circulated to the entire SPFL board that day.”
He added: “No director raised this issue subsequently and it was not the subject of any board discussions.
“A non-executive position on a PLC does not constitute a business relationship between that individual and a minority shareholder in the company and, therefore, no investigation is warranted.”
