Today another Sevco scandal has popped up, this one a relatively minor matter in the grand scheme of things, but one that has worrisome implications for the wider game. It’s the news that Pedro Caixinha and his backroom team haven’t been sorted out for their sacking yet; the club is resisting giving them their legally contracted pay-offs.
Last week, I wrote a piece in which I said that Mark Warburton is still facing a day in court. I was asked privately whether that was true. If someone had presented me with a shred of evidence to the contrary, I would never have written that line.
But the only thing offered in mitigation was an off-hand comment from Dave King … and that, to me, is not evidence.
That, to me, is about as far from being a “reputable source” as one could hope to get.
So the short answer is that I have no reason to believe that Warburton and his team have received money from Sevco since he was fired. The accounts might tell a different story … but those accounts haven’t been released yet, and questions are being asked as to why.
The whole manner in which Sevco conducts its business is shady and shrouded and controversial, and Dave King, to give him his due, was pretty open and honest about that being his intent when he spoke to some media outlets after he took over.
King took over the boardroom promising “openness and transparency.” Indeed, he said that any difficulties with the club’s stock exchange listing were temporary. When the nominated advisor resigned he said it was a minor matter and easily solved. But King had already given a hint that he was leaning in another direction, when he said just after the takeover that there were advantages to being out from under the City’s regulatory scrutiny.
In short, King intended the exact opposite of openness and transparency. He wanted off the stock exchange. He wanted the freedom to print basic accounts which didn’t go into the exhaustive detail demanded by the City. He wanted to conduct club business in private instead of having to make every major announcement through the exchanges.
This is why I always smile when I hear talk of another share issue; that would have to be run through an exchange, and the club would have to sign up for all the things that go with that. This club enjoys doing things in the shadows; it’s where some of those most closely associated with it feel most comfortable, after all.
That’s up to them, but their secretive ways don’t help Scottish football one bit. We’re supposed to be past this, past this shady way of letting directors run the business side of the game. Who the Hell knows what the financial position of Sevco actually is? The club is heavily indebted to its own directors; that’s a stonewall fact we’re all well aware of, but even the accounts won’t tell the full story; there will be vague references to “external funding” but no clear idea of where, or from who, the money actually comes.
And that’s not healthy. Financial doping itself is problematic; look at the scandal swirling around PSG right now, with La Liga’s leaders saying they should be kicked out of the Champions League. When it comes to PSG and the way they’ve tried to dance around FFP rules, we can at least say that the source of their money is open and above board; they have structured it around sponsorship deals which are obviously ludicrous, but it’s all out there, in the open.
This is different, and this needs to be acknowledged. The guy fronting all this is a convicted tax cheat who’s already wound up in court over the small matter of the takeover. More incredible is what his defence team outlined to the judges; that he has no actual money of his own. It’s nonsense, and everyone knows it, but that’s part of the problem … this is a guy who will lie about everything, to anyone, and thereby how can we believe that the club is being funded as he and others say that it is? How can we trust that?
The SFA has no interest in enforcing regulations with any force and effect, and nor do I believe clubs have all that much interest in it either. Their cowardly hiding away from an inquiry is going to haunt our game in years to come, and especially when this Ibrox thing blows up as it seems certain to. The club cannot continue to spend what it doesn’t have and whoever these sources of financing are, they will not sit and wait for their money indefinitely.
Rumours surround even the cash Caixinha spent in the last window; is it possible that it really did come from sources in Qatar? Under normal circumstances you’d say no … but Sevco is not a normal club and anything “could be” over there.
Money makes the world go wrong, or so the song says anyway. It most definitely makes football go round, and whilst some in the press boxes pee themselves over who Sevco might appoint next the signs of financial wreckage are all around, for anyone to see.
So Pedro hasn’t been paid off yet … why am I not surprised? The same papers – some of the same journalists – telling that story today are also telling us the club won’t be scared off pursuing McInnes by the £1.5 million price tag Aberdeen have put on him.
The media here … wow.
How do some of them keep their jobs?