Despite having the resources to send a reporter to the Court of Session it took BBC Scotland until 11pm to report on the Dave King case.
Alasdair Lamont provided an enthralling twitter service as King’s team caved in under questioning but the state broadcaster seemed reluctant to publish it’s account of the day’s proceedings. Reporting Scotland at 6.30pm made no mention of the case.
In the end BBC Scotland decided to lead with ‘Dave King does not have funds required to make share offer’ when there were far more obvious football related headlines for a report on their sports pages.
For over three years King has been promising war chests and investment ranging from £30-50m and given the backing of the SFA following his March 2015 take-over of the troubled club.
While the fact that the South African based criminal is skint is certainly newsworthy in sporting terms yesterday’s revelations very clearly puts the SFA back in the spotlight- like Dave Murray and Craig Whyte have they been duped again by another Ibrox saviour?
In May 2015 the SFA revealed: “The scale of this due diligence is unprecedented but befitting the complexities of the consideration placed before the Board. During this exercise both Mr King and the club were fully co-operative and responded to all questions put to them by the Scottish FA.
On the basis of this advice presented to it, and having considered all submissions received from Mr King and the club in respect of this matter, the Scottish FA Board granted an approval, conditional upon further submissions from Mr King in respect of documented agreements with the appropriate authorities in South Africa.
The Scottish FA can confirm it has now received this supplementary documentation in full and the Board is satisfied Mr King is Fit and Proper in terms of Article 10.2.
Since being contacted by the Takeover Panel about his actions King has used various excuses to avoid making an offer of 20p per share to the remaining shareholders.
After emails shot down his claim that he was acting with the three bears (George Letham, George Taylor and Douglas Park) King claimed that the questions should be answered by New Oasis Asset Limited (NOAL) which was undone by the club website.
Running out of excuses yesterday King’s legal team claimed that there was no interest in selling shares at 20p before they admitted that the man described as a glib and shameless liar by a South African judge doesn’t have enough money to make an offer to other shareholders.