As the SFA finally got around to dealing with the multiple rule breaches involved in the UEFA licence issued to Rangers (IL) in 2011 there was one significant area of comfort.
Time barred.
The briefing that accompanied the Notice of Complaint claimed that there was a five year time limit during which UEFA can investigate.
Wrong.
A quick look at UEFA Disciplinary Regulations would confirm:
There is a statute of limitations on prosecution, which is time-barred after: a. one year for offences committed on the field of play or in its immediate vicinity; b. ten years for doping offences; c. five years for all other offences. 2 Match-fixing, bribery and corruption are not subject to a statute of limitations. 3 The statute of limitations set out above is interrupted by all procedural acts, starting afresh with each interruption.
Dave King, Andrew Dickson and Alastair Johnston were all in the act of fraud.
The £2.8m owed to Her Majesty was concealed throughout, it had been known since November 2010 according to the witnesses at last summer’s Craig Whyte trial.
SFA officials took it on face value, they didn’t question the Wee Tax Case that was in the news as Whyte drove the price down to £1.
Fortunately for the SFA Malmo weren’t disadvantaged by the incompetence of the SFA audit team- every club in Scotland was.
Had the SFA applied the rules Her Majesty would have got the £2.8m owed or Celtic would have had a crack at earning £20m plus from the Champions League with £300,000 payments heading to every club in the SPL.
Will any club dare to speak out about this loss due to at best SFA incompetence?