Today, Dave King has made another demand for an inquiry into a so-called “conflict of interest” at the SPFL. The issue has been dealt with already but their board, but he appears to want to make as much noise about it as he can. It is pathetic how small-minded that man is.
As I said in my article late last night, there is now little doubt that Phil had it spot it on when he christened what’s happening at Ibrox just now “The Dave King Show.” What’s happening at Ibrox right now is solely down to him. He’s running it. Everyone else at Ibrox is simply a puppet on a string. He picked the manger. He is running the PR side. He is making the announcements. He would have drove the ticket decision last weekend.
King is a disreputable crook who will do and say anything he believes will win him a narrow advantage. There has probably never been a less “fit and proper” person in the history of Scottish football. It is worth remembering that he never was. It is worth remembering that a lot of our hacks campaigned for him and wanted the governing bodies to ignore his gross unsuitability for the role because he talked big above giving the club money.
It’s also worth remembering that it was the bloggers who said the reputation of Scottish football was worth more than the success or failure of one club. It was the bloggers who confidently predicted that the big spending would never come to pass.
There are people who bear a lot of the responsibility for what has already come to pass and for what King has done to the general level of discourse in our game. His board has behaved appallingly over the course of his tenure. Their PR pit-bulls are vicious but incompetent. The club’s reputation is in the toilet because of the conduct of those inside the walls.
But some of those people have never once fought for the club in public. They have allowed its reputation to be dragged through the gutter by the actions of King and people like Traynor. They have never once spoken up to offer an alternative viewpoint. If they believe protestations in private are going to cut it they are wrong.
King is not just playing the with the club’s reputation, he’s playing with theirs. Those of them who sit through this fiasco are allowing their own standing to be irreparably harmed. They risk, even now, the famous Cold Shoulder. It is not enough for them to say, later, that they raised their concerns in private or felt themselves unable to act … it’s the excuse King himself and others used whilst sitting on the Rangers boards of Murray and Whyte.
If these people don’t speak up they are as culpable as King is. The things he does, the things he says, are said and done in the club’s name and that means their name.
The Parks are proper business people, or they were until they got in tow with this joker. They are seen as sane and rational and completely untainted by the narrow sectarianism that so much of what happens at Ibrox is characterized by. Or they were.
But sitting in silence whilst the club releases incendiary statements, whilst it makes ludicrous demands, whilst it contradicts itself and acts in the most hypocritical fashion … that reflects on all of them. They were elected to that board, they sign off on its decisions … if they are content for the club to run like a mafia family then that should be remembered far into the future.
When the Takeover Panel issues formal sanctions against King it will be impossible for him to remain Sevco chairman, and then there will be a lot of hand-wringing and people trying to absolve themselves of any responsibility for his ever being there in the first place. They ought not to be allowed to get away with that.
To sit on his board and do nothing as he drives a tank across the landscape of the game is to be complicit in that action. That should never be forgotten. Those who did nothing and let this happen should be kept as far from the levers of power as possible.
They are unfit to hold any office but that which they currently do.