W is for Whitewash
There are a number of major events in our sport where instead of disclosure and fairness the governing bodies slapped on the whitewash. Foremost amongst them is Lord Nimmo Smith which we now know was a sham from the off. It was a disgraceful set-up.
The SFA, which was supposed to the body of appeal, was allowed to give evidence; all that evidence did was clear Rangers of the central charge and steer them clear of serious punishment. Campbell Ogilvie was never called to account.
The scope of the inquiry itself was shrunk so that it did not include the Wee Tax Case, which a court had already found was illegal. Smith was not encouraged to draw a distinction between the two separate schemes.
Everything about it was slanted, and bent, and on top of that what we later learned was that it was all underpinned by a segment of the Five Way Agreement which gave the new Ibrox club a guarantee that it would not lose historic titles or trophies. The whole LNS inquiry was a fraud.
It was not the only time whitewash was liberally applied to matters at Hampden.
Remember, when evidence emerged that Craig Whyte had been working with Charles Green the SFA refused to investigate the affair. They instead turned the whole thing over to Sevco itself, and they chose what parts of it to look into and what parts not to; the result was the Pinsent Mason report which, of course, found no evidence to support the claim, although both Whyte and Green had admitted to knowing one another and meeting to discuss their plans.
When Dave King was approved to join the Ibrox board, as chairman, the SFA refused to clarify the means by which that decision was reached. Mike Ashley won a court case seeking a judicial review of the matter; he demanded that the SFA publish the details of that finding in public, but they never have and probably never will.
Who knows what grubby deal was done to allow him to play the fool at the top of the Marble Staircase?
The SFA is very good at covering its own back.
There’s always enough whitewash to go round.
