SFA Face Key King Decision

So Dave King finally makes his move, and goes to call the Sevco Rangers EGM.

I think it’s too little too late, but it raises a couple of questions for the SFA.

First, King is nominating himself as chairman, and he is nominating Paul Murray to join him. Neither man is eligible to serve on the board of a Scottish football club for the next two years, as a consequence of their having been part of the one that consigned Rangers Football Club to the grave.

King is, furthermore, ineligible for the next nine years, because of his criminal conviction on multiple counts of fraud, money laundering, tax evasion and corruption in South Africa. He is the very textbook definition of someone who fails the “fit and proper person” criteria.

It is not the fault of Scottish football that these men are Sevco Rangers’ only hope of being rescued from the fate of imprisonment at the hands of Mike Ashley and Sports Direct. To bend the rules for these guys would be astonishing, and unacceptable.

The SFA has never commented on King, although he has been hovering on the fringes of football in Scotland for the last three years. Their rationale has been that it was not their business because he was not yet looking to assume boardroom responsibilities anywhere.

Well, now he is. Murray is too. If the EGM ends in success for King and his people then he becomes chairman automatically. The time is now for convening a hearing and telling this guy to get on his bike, because the rules are clear.

The Sevco Rangers fans will complain, bitterly, and the media will react with fury … but it will be impotent fury and the feelings of the fans can’t be a consideration.

It is not a complicated issue. It is clear cut and simple, and there are no circumstances under which Scottish football supporters should accept anything less than the SFA showing strict adherence to the rules.

Sevco Rangers is in no immediate danger if these men are denied places on the board. They can install their mates, they can run things from afar, or the whole consortium can spit their dummies out of the pram and walk away, and still, as long as Ashley is willing to write cheques, the club will limp on, without suffering an administration event.

One of the people who will sit in judgement will be Peter Lawwell. Sevco fans will not like it, but they will have to live with it. There is no reason why he should recuse himself from proceedings, which ought to be a formality.

I repeat; all the SFA has to do is follow the rules as written down.

This is bigger than one club. This goes to the heart of football governance in Scotland.

The SFA has a big decision to make … and the clock has started ticking.