Former SPL chief puts Green in his place

Former SPL chief executive Roger Mitchell has voiced his amazement at the claims of Charles Green while his successor ducks for cover.

Since being granted SFA membership the Sevco mouthpiece has been firing off daily soundbites to the delight of his ever growing band of season ticket holders.

On Monday the Yorkshireman announced that Sevco wouldn’t attend an SPL sitting into alleged dual contracts operated by Rangers over an 11 year period.

Playing to the gallery Green claimed that the SPL had no right to pass any retrospective punishment and that he had purchased the history of the old club in his £5.5m deal with Duff and Phelps.

With most media organisations happy to repeat Green’s claims without questioning them the silence from the SPL and SFA speaks volumes for the character of Neil Doncaster and Stewart Regan.

Mitchell was hardly a leader of men during his time at the SPL but contacted the Herald to demolish the myths pedalled by the Sevco chief.

“For someone who claimed the Scottish Premier League was a really bad idea a few weeks ago,” Mitchell observed. “I found myself surprised that I felt the strong urge to defend my former organisation in the face of the bombast from Charles Green.

“I truly hope by the time that this is read, someone officially representing the SPL will have done likewise. I ask myself, does Green actually buy this stuff? Let’s take a look:

“Claim 1: Rangers ceased to be subject to the SPL’s rules when they were ejected from their league. Fact- Rangers oldco was not ejected from the SPL. The fact that Rangers went into liquidation automatically expelled them from the league. The SPL shareholders then decided not to make an exception and let them back in. Two very different things.

“Claim 2: The outcome of the SPL’s process will have no legal effect. Fact- What the SPL are deciding upon is whether their tournament and their trophy was assigned to the correct club in the years in question.

“The SPL have every right to examine whether participants in their competition behaved within the rules. And if they find they haven’t, they can apply their rule book as recourse. More Green nonsense.

“Mitchell added: “The SPL are examining the conduct of the participants in their competition well before Rangers went into liquidation, in particular the conduct of the club then owned by Sir David Murray, with the club secretary role (in charge of those player registrations) held by Campbell Ogilvie (whatever happened to him?). Charles Green and Sevco have nothing to do with this.

“Claim 3: The new owners purchased all the business and assets of Rangers, including titles and trophies. Fact- Green said on June 2012 that if his CVA proposal was to fail (which it did) and Rangers were to be liquidated (which they are), “the history, the tradition, everything that’s great about this club is swept aside”.

“Therefore he admits he has not purchased titles and trophies. Sevco has no titles and trophies.

“By the way, Charles, I would not provoke commentators like me to dig this up, because what you said is not what the Rangers fans want to hear now, as you now correctly realise. Let it lie, Charlie, let it lie.”

Hoping to prompt some reality from the fans of Sevco Mitchell added: ”So, even one with a leaning towards Govan would argue that, under the most superficial scrutiny, Green’s attack is less than robust. But sometimes you have to chuck a dog a bone. So, to be fair, Charlie is right with his complaint on the SPL’s lack of consistencY.

“Mitchell concluded:  ”For Celtic fans I’d argue the victory is in the fact that their greatest rival died.

“The 125-year long struggle ended with the collapse of the adversary. The war was won. Achilles vanquished Hector.”