Douglas Park has been accused of making a serious threat to Neil Doncaster.
For almost a month there has been a campaign of mud slinging at the SPFL led by Park’s call for the suspension of Doncaster and Rod McKenzie.
On Friday April 10 at 5pm the SPFL expected to have all of the votes in place for the motion to end the season based on average points per game.
Just before 6pm the SPFL announced that three voting slips were still awaited with all eyes on The Championship where it was established that Dundee held the casting vote.
SPFL accuse Rangers chairman Douglas Park of threat and defamatory allegation against Neil Doncasterhttps://t.co/tHq7CovABn pic.twitter.com/ehSRiuJGj5
— Scottish Sun Sport (@scotsunsport) May 8, 2020
In a five-page letter sent out today the SPFL state:
In a phone call on the evening of 10 April, Rangers chairman Douglas Park made a very serious allegation and threat to act in a particular way to the SPFL Chief Executive. This allegation has been entirely unsupported by any evidence, either then or since.
The allegation was so serious and defamatory that the League’s Legal Counsel, Rod McKenzie immediately sought a commitment from the Rangers Company Secretary that it would not be repeated.
This was a wholly appropriate and proportionate legal response to an entirely unfounded and damaging allegation. That was the only respect in which Rangers was called upon not to repeat what had been alleged and what had been threatened.
On no conceivable basis could this be considered as ‘bullying Rangers into silence’. It is noteworthy that there is not a shred of evidence in the so-called dossier to support the allegation made or to justify the threat.
The day after the threatening phone call was made to Doncaster Inverness Caley Thistle chief executive Scot Gardiner appeared on Radio Scotland’s Sportsound show.
Soon after the show ended Park made his statement calling for the suspensions of Doncaster and McKenzie. From that stage SPFL chairman Murdoch MacLennan appeared to take control calling on Park to produce the evidence to justify the suspensions.
On Tuesday the SPFL will host an EGM to hear the case for an independent investigation into the Ibrox claims relating to the vote on April 10.
