The Lord Nimmo Smith Inquiry Was Never About Sporting Integrity.
The most interesting thing which emerges from these emails is not actually a secret and it never was, but I think it helps to have it on the record and in the proper context nonetheless. It’s important that before we start tearing LNS apart that we recognise what the purpose of the inquiry actually was.
Please take note that no-one is suggesting that we appeal the Lord Nimmo Smith verdict; as I said on the day of the tax case verdict itself, in a lengthy article which you can read here if you haven’t seen it yet, we’re significantly beyond that at this point.
Since it was published, the LNS verdict has been spun outrageously by various people with various agendas. The governing bodies did it to “close the book” on the case. Certain clubs did it in an effort to “move things on”. The media did it because certain PR firms pushed the line that the verdict had somehow exonerated those at Ibrox and Hampden. Sevco fans embraced it because it meant historical titles wouldn’t be taken off Rangers.
Here’s the crux of it though; in terms of what LNS was asked to investigate, he and his commission found Rangers guilty on all counts. Guilty, okay? Of concealing documents. Of lying to investigators. Of deliberate obstruction. The club was fined for that behaviour.
The LSN inquiry was set up to examine only the issue of whether registrations rules were broken.
That is a cast-iron fact.
Sporting integrity was never part of the remit. LNS never said that EBT’s did not confer a “sporting advantage”, although many people still persist in the belief that he did. What he said was that a deliberate failure to properly register players didn’t.
You may or may not think that an absurd suggestion, but that’s not relevant to the point here. The sporting integrity issue was not covered at all.
LNS was deliberately limited to cover only that issue, and the SFA was on hand to provide their own interpretation of what should happen when failure to register players is discovered. That, of course, is a bomb just waiting to go off one day; the Sandy Bryson definition of what constitutes a punishable offence is palpably absurd.
The SPL email exchanges make it abundantly clear that the inquiry itself was not supposed to look into other aspects of this affair. It was set up to do one thing, a very small thing, covering a very narrow issue. And within that framework it reached a verdict.
Major matters, the ones of greatest significance, were excluded; the legality of clubs paying players via tax fraud, the “governance” of the SFA, the registrations procedures, who knew what and when … none of that was ever given a look. LNS was set up to give the appearance that a sweeping inquiry had taken place when no such thing happened.
The validity of the inquiry itself was also fatally compromised when the so-called “appellate body”, the SFA itself, gave evidence in the case and allowed its officials to steer those sitting on it to draw conclusions which defy logic and credibility.
When I say we’re significantly beyond LNS I mean it.
LNS has no bearing on where we go from here.