It seems that Mike Ashley and his lieutenants weren’t as silly as they appeared yesterday when they dropped their court case against Sevco and the SFA.
In fact, in a statement released earlier today Ashley and his people claimed total victory, announcing that the documentation they’d asked for – all the answers to their questions, basically – had been provided to them by the SFA and Sevco at the last minute.
There was, therefore, no need to put the matter in front of a judge.
Today Ashley and his people, having reviewed that information, have demanded that the SFA disclose every single word of it “in the public interest”, echoing what this site and On Fields of Green said yesterday, reminding the SFA that it is not a private members club which can pull down the shutters and ignore us all, but a civic organisation with legal responsibilities and from which we can demand genuine answers inside of those we presently get.
“We are delighted that the wall of secrecy surrounding the SFA’s decision to declare Dave King a ‘fit and proper person’ is finally crumbling,” the statement said. “As a result of legal action concluded today, the SFA has been forced to divulge documents in private to us that reveal the true reasons behind this controversial decision.
“This represents a significant victory for MASH and we believe there is a strong public interest in this information now also being made available by the SFA to all football fans. We therefore urge the SFA to come clean with the public about all its dealings in relation to Dave King.”
Interesting words. The statement then goes on to make a point about Sevco’s corporate structure, and appears to be mocking the central tenant of the Survival Myth, which is that the club and the company are two different things.
“”MASH notes that the SFA did not approve Dave King to be a director of the football club (The Rangers Football Club Limited, the body which has membership of the SFA), but instead only approved him as a director of the club’s holding company (Rangers International Football Club plc).
“We find it astonishing that Mr King talks and acts as if he runs Rangers, whilst at the same time his lawyers claim he is not a de facto director of The Rangers Football Club Limited.”
This, too, is an interesting statement.
Mockery aside, it also suggests that the SFA’s decision to grant him “fit and proper person” status wasn’t as clear cut as many have suggested. In fact, Ashley and his people have suggested that King never applied to be a member of the football board, and that his lawyer used that in their defence case!
This is the consequence of this “club and company” seperation bollocks, that patently ludicrous things like this are allowed to go on. The need for SFA reform has never been more clear-cut. This is beyond parody now, more absurd by the day.
Ashley is right to say that the “wall of secrecy” is coming down and he’s right to demand that the SFA publish these findings, if only so the rest of us can get a look at the legal gymnastics that results in such a bizarre situation.
Those documents are in the hands of Ashley and his people now, and he knows there are ways and means of getting that information out there, some involving the courts and others … well, I’m sure he knows one or two “interested parties” both north and south of the border.
It’ll be interesting to see what his next move is.
He’ll certainly have one, especially as the SFA, with typical class, called him” delusional” this morning.
They are delusional if they think this is going away.