Today Dave King’s second day at court just ended, and the reason you’ve heard nothing is that ordinary working joes aren’t allowed to tweet from the courtroom whereas accredited journalists are. And today the media decided not to bother.
If you followed yesterday’s proceedings, you’ll know that Alastair Lamont of the BBC was in court and tweeting every development. Some of those developments were sensational; as my blog last night made clear they leave the SFA and our media looking wholly ridiculous as King’s deposition pleads poverty and admits that South African exchange controls make it virtually impossible for him to move money out of the country.
In short, Dave King is a busted flush. Even if the court doesn’t find him in contempt and order him to pay up it’s over. His credibility swirled down the tubes like something left in a toilet bowl that’s just been flushed. The game is over for him.
But many of Lamont’s colleagues were on board the Dave King bandwagon when it first rolled into town. They might want us to forget that, but the bloggers won’t let them. They own part of the responsibility for this.
This was unquestionably the main story in Scottish sport today; the chairman of one of the so-called Big Two (aye, right) might just be finished, condemned in a court of law. You tell me what else these people should have been working on? What else has priority?
Something clearly does, as Lamont tweeted earlier to say he’s on “another story.” A bigger story? It’s hard to think of what that might be.
Whilst today’s hearing didn’t have as many fireworks as yesterday, there was one big one, as the headline suggests. The lawyer representing the takeover panel scotched claims that King is some doe-eyed innocent, who simply made a mistake here. The deposition he gave, and which was read out yesterday, was a tissue of lies, contradicted by information in the public domain, such as his claim that he has no authority over NOAM, the “family trust” which bought his initial tranche of shares. Sevco’s own AGM report refers to him as “controlling” NOAM … the man simply cannot tell the truth about a single thing.
Now the waiting game starts. We might face a few weeks until the judges delivers a verdict. Or they might surprise us with speed and efficiency and get it in sooner. But I think it highly unlikely that the second highest court in the land is going to chop the Takeover Panel off at the knees; to do so would render them toothless and useless.
Something has to give on the Sevco board. According to Phil, King has actually turned on one of them over this matter is threatening to go public with an embarrassing detail which might place one of them in the dock next. If that’s true then the whole thing is coming apart at the seams over there, much quicker and more violently than anticipated.
One major quote from Phil’s latest piece stands out, and if it’s accurate, as I’m sure it is, gives you a real insight into how dysfunctional it is over there.
“This place makes the White House look sane,” one director is said to have told another.
And so say all of us.