There’s an interesting point in The Evening Times online article on Sevco being charged over Rangers’ European license in 2011-12. It hasn’t been picked up on by other outlets and seems to have just been left there as an afterthought, but it’s not.
It reads thus; “The SFA instructed their compliance officer Tony McGlennan to investigate the circumstances surrounding Rangers UEFA licence application in 2011 and its own decision to grant the club permission to play in Europe last year.”
I want to be sure that I am understanding that correctly; the SFA asked its own compliance officer to investigate whether or not it or Sevco had broken the rules in the granting of the club’s European license for last season?
If that’s true then there’s the proof, if you needed it, that everyone in Scottish football has been denying; that we’ve learned nothing, that we’ve moved forward not one inch, that the game here is still rigged and still corrupt. This site and others were screaming from the rooftops last season that Sevco did not qualify. We’re saying the same this year.
Publicly, the SFA was telling the press we were wrong. Or someone was. But privately they had doubts and those doubts have crystalised this year. It is scandalous that this issue remains current, that something hasn’t been put in place to firm up these rules and regulations once and for all. The SFA has been asleep at the wheel. The clubs are as well.
As this site has pointed out, Ann Budge – whose own club stands to be deprived of European football in the next campaign if the rules are bent to allow Sevco into the Europa League – doesn’t even understand the rules as they are written. That is a shameful dereliction of duty from someone in a senior positon at a Scottish club … but it’s by no means unusual.
Sevco’s current European license application is as bent as they come. It may be, in its own way, even shakier than the one Rangers got in 2011. And everyone knows this. The SFA itself has sent the initial paperwork to UEFA with a covering letter pointing out the areas where it’s not up to par, this in an effort to pass the buck. They are always trying to pass the buck.
Celtic are known to be furious about the governing body’s attempts to pass off what happened in 2011 as something where only Rangers was guilty; Celtic has always believed the SFA knew that license should not have been granted. I doubt they will accept any verdict in this case which seeks to absolve the governing body from guilt.
And if tonight’s Evening Times report is accurate then there are even more questions to answer, and they are current questions, from the last licensing window and the one we’re in right now. The issues are not going away.
Our demands for an inquiry have been given fresh impetus tonight.
When we next ask for it, I suspect they are going to have to give it to us.
The game here is rotten to the core.
It’s high time some light was shone into its dark corners.