F is for Fit And Proper Person
One of the most scandalous things about the SFA is their sheer laziness and their utter ineptness when it comes to offering scrutiny to even the most obvious issues. This is never clearer than in their policies on what are called Fit and Proper Persons.
Many folks actually misunderstand this issue; there is not an actual “fit and proper person” test; that would imply that the SFA does some work in this regard and I would certainly never want to accuse them of that. In fact, that’s just the trouble; they don’t do any. In fact, what they rely on is that dishonest people will be honest enough to tell the governing body that they are dishonest. If that sounds absolutely ludicrous it’s because it is.
The SFA’s “fit and proper person” regulations are built around the idea that people who have evil designs on football clubs, or who are unsuitable to be in charge of them, should let the SFA know that in advance. Then the governing body can decide whether or not they should be disqualified.
In effect, the SFA has a self-certification system.
Try that in any other walk of life; see how much chaos it causes.
And of course, it has caused a fair old amount of in football here as well.
David Murray is a peer of the realm but he ran Rangers so dishonestly than the club went bust mired in scandal. Craig Whyte who bought it from him famously had a string of issues in his past including directorship bans. The guy who bought the assets of Rangers, Charles Green, was a fly-by-night chancer every bit as dodgy as Whyte himself. He appointed a convicted criminal to the board, only for that board to be ousted and taken over by another convicted crook who we’ll get to in a short time.
All of them presumably self-certified which, I dunno, suggests that perhaps the rules are in need of some tightening up. Or, in fact, simply being turned into rules instead of a giant Get Out Of Jail Free card for anyone who fancies taking over a Scottish club.
Vladimir Romanov, the former owner of Hearts, had issues of his own, apart from being as mad as a march hare and from time to time other clubs in Scotland dabble with the devil; Ibrox seems to be unique in attracting some many dodgy characters.
You’d think after the first couple that the SFA would have taken steps to make sure others didn’t follow them … but of course, as long as someone is promising to restore the Grand Old Days Of Yore they can breeze through the system, even if, as with the current chairman, the ink was still drying on the plea deal.
What all this means of course is that Scottish football is probably the widest open in all of Europe to organised crime syndicates and other assorted dodgy folk who want to use clubs as conduits for dirty money and all manner of other schemes and scams, and there are plenty of them if you know what you’re doing, everything from robbing the tax man to bleeding out the clubs themselves.
The SFA regulations are an open invitation to roll up and take the cash.
