Last year, when Celtic announced their intention to press for an inquiry into the way the SFA had handled events prior to and including the 2012 liquidation of Rangers and the emergence of Sevco, the governing body tried to buy us off.
But as with your typical con-job they tried, in effect, to do it with our own money.
See, I know Celtic has looked into certain incidents and affairs at the SFA, quietly, discreetly, but in none of them were we quite so advanced in our research or quite so in possession of huge amounts of deadly information, than we are in the case of Resolution 12.
It’s fair to say that between what Celtic uncovered and what their shareholders handed to them from their own diligence on that matter that we had them by the balls and were getting ready to squeeze. Simply put, they were bang to rights and they knew it. So they tried to placate us by saying they believed we had made a good case there.
They said they had passed the matter over to their disciplinary team – the compliance officer – to see if there were grounds for opening the issue up.
And that was the last we heard about this.
To fully appreciate how bad that is what you need to understand is that when I say the club and the Resolution 12 guys have this one locked up I mean it. They have the evidence that proves conclusively that Rangers should not have gotten that licence. The only real question is whether the club itself lied to the SFA or if the SFA bent a little to accommodate them knowing their position. But the facts are irrefutable; this one is a done deal.
The SFA has a mountain of evidence on this case, not that they need it.
They have long had each and every thing they needed in their own possession to have opened this case.
The raft of excuses and bullshit they tried to fob Celtic off with demonstrates amply how afraid they were of this. Only when confronted by what we knew did they decide to confront it. Celtic gave them no option. The weight of our evidence was so enormous.
What I’m saying is that the SFA could have wrapped this case up in a big bow and presented it to a gawping press and a satisfied Celtic on the first day they opened it. We handed them info, the Requisitioners handed them info, they had their own pile of documents which I am 100% sure spelled all this out perhaps in even greater detail.
Nobody who has looked into this has the slightest doubt that the decision to award Rangers an SFA licence in 2011 was, at best, plainly wrong and at worst was absolutely corrupt. Whether the governing body itself was directly involved in the scandal and thus as culpable as the club for a bent decision that cost us around £15 million or whether Rangers basically told them lies and they did nothing to chase those lies up matters not one bit.
The SFA never wanted this can of worms opened because of their own part in it; either complicity or wilful ignorance, a policy of “look the other way” and “don’t ask too many questions.” I do believe they announced the investigation in the hope that it would move things on … but I do not believe they called it with the remotest intention of it leading anywhere.
But sadly for them that is not an option.
There is so much anger over this, and so many people waiting on the answers, and I include the people who run Celtic, that there’s no hope of this blowing over or going away. This is going the full road. Unlike other matters, where what we believe can only be stood up in circumstantial evidence, this one is conclusive.
This one is a done deal.
And the longer the SFA delays, the more everyone should wonder just what they are trying to hide; I’ll give you the short answer. A lot.
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