Mike Ashley showed his contempt for the SFA by sending a job lot of five Newcastle United players on to Ibrox last night.
In the space of 24 hours Gael Bigirimana, Shane Ferguson, Kevin Mbabu, Remie Streeyte and Haris Vuckic have been transformed from deadwood into starlets with Kenny McDowall left out of the loop.
Ashley has a hearing with the SFA on March 2 about ‘exerting influence’ at the Championship play-off hopefuls with the evidence piling up- how the SFA react to that is the $64m question.
Within a week of last Tuesday’s conference call to arrange further hearings the Sports Direct supremo has provided Sevco with a £5m emergency loan and sent five players north to boost the club’s play-off ambitions.
Ashley’s growing boardroom influence first came to light on October 8 when he called for an EGM to remove Graham Wallace, who used to work for Manchester City, and fellow director Philip Nash, who used to work for Liverpool and Arsenal.
Without the expense of an EGM both men were removed.
Since then Mr Ashley has provided a £2m loan which was increased by £1m to meet the December payroll followed last week by a £5m loan to meet the January payroll and pay off the two previous loans!
Under the highly secretive Five Way Agreement that provided Sevco with a place in the Scottish Football League in 2012 the SFA caved in to allow Mr Ashley to have a 10% stake in the club provided he didn’t exert an influence in the boardroom.
Now as well as controlling the purse strings the English billionaire has control of the dressing room and managers office via his five loan ‘starlets’.
Any sanctions that the SFA attempt to apply seem certain to be challenged with the weaknesses of Stewart Regan and Neil Doncaster hitting Hibs, Queen of the South and Falkirk on the pitch and turning the Scottish Championship into a WWF style farce.