Sevco have delivered a time bomb statement for incoming SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell by issuing a statement claiming ‘that Scottish Football is, once again, being directed by individuals intent on harming the Scottish game, Rangers Football Club and its supporters’.
Supporters of other clubs and observers of the SFA and SPL/SPFL would take the exact opposite point of view with today’s statement sure to fuel the fire of some clubs sickened by the preferential treatment given to the Ibrox clubs.
Last season Hearts missed out on playing in the Europa League with Kilmarnock set to miss out this season to a club that runs up excessive debt that it hopes to recover from playing in UEFA competitions.
Today’s Ibrox statement follows news that a Notice of Complaint has been issued against the new club for the wrongful submission made by the old club to obtain a UEFA licence in 2011.
Despite owing HMRC £2.8M the SFA allowed Rangers (IL) to play in the Champions League qualifiers for season 2011/12. A defeat from Malmo is credited with pushing the club towards liquidation with Craig Whyte withholding national insurance and income tax shortly after the defeat for Ally McCoist’s side.
Responding to retrospective punishment for another club Sevco issued the following statement.
THE Rangers Football Club (“the Club”) was informed today by the Scottish FA (“SFA”) that, after an eight-and-a-half month investigation, the SFA will not be proceeding with a Notice of Complaint in respect of the submission made by the Club to the SFA at the end of March 2011 with regard to the issue of the Club’s UEFA licence for the following Season.
The Club is unsurprised that it has now finally been accepted by the SFA that the accusations made against the Club were groundless. The Club questions whether the time, cost and expense of this investigation was justified and was a good use of the SFA’s limited resources.
Disappointingly, and presumably rather than accept that the investigation was a waste of all parties’ time and resources, the Club has been served with a new revised Notice of Complaint relating to the monitoring period subsequent to the grant of the UEFA licence. This new Notice of Complaint neglects to properly capture the provisions of prior agreements made between the Club and the SFA.
The Club will fiercely resist this reconstructed Notice of Complaint. Unfortunately, monies that should be available to Scottish youth and grassroots football will be diverted into another rehearsal of seven-year-old debates on the rights and wrongs of events that the SFA should have prevented at a time when doing so would have served a useful purpose.
It seems that Scottish Football is, once again, being directed by individuals intent on harming the Scottish game, Rangers Football Club and its supporters by pursuing a course that has no sensible purpose or reasonable prospect of success.
Maxwell takes up his new job on Monday with questions about the 2011 licence and the current debt laden application certain to be at the top of his ‘to-do’ list.