SFA chief: responsibility for owner test lay with Rangers

SCOTTISH Football Association chief executive Stewart Regan says Craig Whyte lied to the governing body in order to formally appoint himself Rangers chairman and insists it was the Ibrox club’s responsibility to ensure he was “fit and proper” to hold the position.

Speaking the morning after a special board meeting of the SFA declared Whyte unfit to run Rangers after receiving the findings of Lord Nimmo Smith’s Independent Inquiry into affairs at the club, Regan hit back at criticism of his organisation for failing to uncover Whyte’s unsuitability at an earlier stage.

Regan insists the SFA cannot reasonably be expected to devote time and money to assessing the background of every new director or owner to emerge at a club. He believes the fault for Whyte’s success in taking charge of Rangers lies with those at the club involved in undertaking due diligence during the takeover process.

During a breakfast briefing with daily newspaper correspondents, it also emerged that Rangers director Dave King will not be permitted by the SFA to be an official at the Ibrox club post-administration as he was still serving on the board when they entered their current insolvency event under Whyte.

Having clearly been stung by suggestions that the SFA effectively sat on their hands to allow Whyte to take what has proved to be damaging control of Rangers last May, Regan sought to clarify the extent of their powers in such matters.

“We need to understand this idea of a ‘fit and proper person test’,” said Regan. “It’s a myth. There is no test. People don’t have to come in and pass an exam. What happens is that any change of director, any change of ownership or team manager, etcetera, etcetera, has to be notified to us on an official return. In doing that, there is a very clear statement, which is set out in our articles.

“It says that ‘each member club will procure that the relevant office bearer, secretary, director or member of the board of management will personally confirm to the Scottish FA, using the form prescribed by the board, that he has been furnished with a copy of the articles and having read, in particular, Article 10 and Article 13, the information supplied by him using the prescribed form is complete, true and accurate; and he is a fit and proper person to hold such position within Association Football’.

“Now, what that says is that we rely on our members, bearing in mind we are a members’ organisation, to say they have gone through all the contents of Article 10. For example, it talks about being bankrupt, being of unsound mind and treated under the Mental Health Act, pending suspension and so on.

“The alternative to that is that we, as a Scottish FA, would have to employ a cast of thousands to research every potential takeover, every potential change of director, across the entire game. Bear in mind we don’t just govern the professional game, we govern the entire game of football in Scotland.

“We don’t have the resources or time to do that. We are not going to use Scottish football’s money to do that. We rely heavily on the clubs themselves.

“In the case of a plc like Rangers, you have a board of directors who are selling a club to an individual. That board of directors would undergo due diligence and, because they are a plc, would have to go through a fairly stringent process of testing out who they are selling the club to.

“When you get confirmation that the person they have sold the club to has satisfied these criteria, then you have to take a certain amount of credence from what those directors are saying. That is what the Scottish FA have done.

“When the individual has then told lies and hasn’t disclosed the disqualification that he was holding, then comes back and tries to argue that wording in Article 10 is misleading and he believes it was the point of disqualification that had to be disclosed, not the fact he was still disqualified, and uses smoke and mirrors to try and buy time, then it becomes very difficult to deal with the matter quickly.

“That’s why from October to February we were in dialogue with [Rangers secretary] Gary Withey from Collyer Bristow trying to get to the bottom of Whyte’s disqualification. In the meantime, there were clearly lots of other issues coming out under the table.

“To put the fit and proper issue to bed for a second, we have to say we rely heavily on a plc managing their own due diligence and the directors of that plc managing the transfer of ownership in the best interests of the club.

“It is my understanding that for the four years or so the club was up for sale, the talk of acting in the best interests of Rangers was top of the agenda. I think that has to be taken into account.

“It’s easy after the event to try and find a scapegoat, to say we should have done a fit and proper person test and that we should have prevented the takeover. I can’t see how we could have done that without having gone through a long, bureaucratic process on every single director.”

Regan admits that the SFA would be powerless to prevent Whyte retaining ownership of Rangers post-administration, in the same manner that Vladimir Romanov controls Hearts without being a formally named official of the club.

“There are blocks to prevent him being involved as a director on the official return,” said Regan. “But if Whyte is still involved in the club, still puts money in the club, then it could be as a shadow director, he could still have a share in the club. It could be another Romanov situation and you have to understand we’re not the government, we’re not the law, we run football. We cannot run a plc. We would be legally challenged for restrictions and restraint of trade and all sort of things if we tried to get involved in running business. We have to focus only on the football side which is our jurisdiction.”

The SFA’s independent inquiry did not speak to Whyte during their 16 days of investigation but he could yet be called before the organisation’s judicial panel when they consider the various disrepute charges which have been instigated against Rangers.

“We didn’t speak to Whyte personally,” added Regan, who sat on the four-man inquiry panel. “In face of the evidence we got, it was compelling enough to allow us to arrive at the conclusions we did.

“However, when it goes to the judicial panel, it will consider the evidence and may choose to call witnesses. They may call Whyte himself, depending on whether they believe they already have sufficient evidence or whether they feel they need to speak to him.

“We passed it to the compliance officer on Thursday. It’s not player-related, so won’t go through our fast track system. It would normally take two or three weeks to reach a judgement but the timescale may be longer on this occasion as there are a series of citations.

“It’s clear from the evidence of the Nimmo Smith Inquiry that Whyte has been economical with the truth in terms of the sharing of information.

“It’s difficult to say whether people feel duped or not.We have a guy who has been allowed to buy a club without putting any money in. He would appear to have used the money from Ticketus to buy the club and that’s effectively the club’s own money.

“That’s clearly a matter I know is being investigated by Strathclyde Police at the moment and whether there is any unlawful activity remains to be seen.”