Two years on from his shameful performance in the ‘summer of social unrest’ Stewart Regan is finally being called to account for his actions.
Only a supporter led rebellion prevented Regan and his counterparts, Neil Doncaster, Rod Petrie, Campbelll Ogilvie and David Longmuir, from parachuting Charles Green’s new club into the top tier of Scottish football as Rangers went into liquidation.
While Turnbull Hutton and others briefly gave hope that a new era of openess was about to begin the reality is that the same old faces and agendas remain the driving force behind the Scottish game.
Rule changes to accommodate one club followed on from the whitewash that was the Lord Nimmo Smith enquiry where SFA jobsworth Sandy Bryson put forward the bizarre viewpoint that the signing of players didn’t automatically give clubs a sporting advantage.
For over a decade Rangers (IL) fielded players paid through contracts/side letters that were kept quiet from the football authorities and HMRC.
Prior to the introduction of the EBT scheme the esteemed Ogilvie introduced the Discounted Option Scheme that saw players like Tore Andre Flo and Ronald de Boer take massive salary cuts to join Rangers safe in the knowledge that the shortfall would be made up elsewhere at the expense of the tax payer.
While other clubs played the game, and supporters and sponsors pumped millions into the ‘sport’, and the exchequer, the SFA were happy to sit back and applaud the successes of Dave Murray knowing full well that dozens of players were being paid through ‘loans’ not declared in their football contracts or to HMRC.
The Scottish Football Monitor website has continued to an exert the ground breaking work of the Rangers Tax Case website, providing a platform for disaffected supporters sickened by the inactivity of the SFA at clear breaches of their own rules.
While Spartans and East Stirling are hammered for genuine administrative errors the industrial scale doping of the game from Ibrox has been overlooked in the hope that everyone can move on ‘for the good of Scottish football’.
Challenging that viewpoint Eddiegoldtop, who claims to be a long term sponsor of Scottish football contacted Regan about his concerns that the SFA were more concerned with commercial matters- getting a club from Ibrox in the top flight- rather than having all clubs playing by the same rules to ensure some level of fairness.
The non disclosure of the infamous five way agreement that gave Sevco SFA membership is at the core of the discontent.
After being politely brushed aside due to being a third party Eddiegoldtop took the issues to the club he sponsors and was given an enthusiastic response from the club chairman.
“Yesterday I met with the owners of the club to discuss my issues,” he posted on Saturday. “To ask a top flight team to ask serious questions of their governing body is a difficult thing. I had my doubts if truth be told , but to be fair the response I had was brilliant!
“If they have refused to answer your questions then they will damn well answer mines , you are without doubt entitled to have your questions answered given the amount of money you have Invested in Scottish Football !
“I was delighted with that response and my feeling is that this was a genuine response to my questions . I have now given my list of questions to the club I sponsor and trust that they will deal with the questions directly with the SFA .
“Given the feeling of the meeting with my club, I am absolutely certain that they will follow this through and I will be in close contact with them at every stage .
“What pleases me is that now we have two Premiership teams (Celtic being the other through a proposal raised by shareholders for the AGM) putting pressure on the SFA and that will not go down well with them at all . Too bad I say as this is all their own doing.
Speculating about the future Eddiegoldtop added: “I have a feeling that Ogilvie and Regan are preparing their escape from Scottish football before justice catches up with them . English cricket is very welcome to have Mr Regan back . The more worrying thing is that Ogilvie via the SFA is looking for a post within UEFA and this fills me with dread.
“My point is that Ogilvie got himself into a position with the SFA which helped him to conceal the facts from everyone , and my fear is that he will do the same once appointed to UEFA . He will be in a position once again to work from the inside to help his own case should something come out of res 12 or my own drive for justice.
“I may be wrong but it’s just a thought.”
Ogilvie, a former director of Rangers (IL) and Hearts is believed to be lobbying for a job in UEFA where he has powerful supporters in Hugh Dallas, David Taylor and Andy Roxburgh.
After apparently arriving in Scottish football as the signal of a new era Regan has fallen into line continuing with the thinking favoured by the late Jim Farry and Gordon Smith.
Since the summer of 2012 Scottish football has failed to attract a single significant sponsor with pawn brokers Ramsdens withdrawing their sponsorship of the lower division knock-out trophy.