Cut & Paste from Auldheid via CQN.
Here are the arguments put to the Celtic Board at the AGM for taking Resolution 12 away from the failed SFA Judicial Panel Protocol (which houses the disciplinary process) but Celtic voted down and were content to leave judgement with the SFA on questionable grounds the matter is between the SFA and another member club.
It isn’t , it is about the SFA . A professional accountants report being delivered by disrespected shareholders to Celtic spells this out and leaves Celtic with little piss to rip and no fizzy drink to serve back.
1. Was just an opening attempt at a joke at BRTH’s loquacious expense.
2. First of all, can I congratulate the board and the club as a whole in winning a record treble treble, for securing continued European Football in the new year and for delivering a set of business results which many businesses, let alone football clubs, would envy.
3. Regrettably, however, I stand before the board and my fellow shareholders with the unenviable task of reminding everyone within this room of a real and present danger to the value of this club in footballing and commercial terms.
4. As a Scottish Football Club, Celtic can only play football, market its footballing brand, its famous shirt, this iconic stadium and the whole club’s unique, unbroken and remarkable history – if it abides by the rules and regulations of the Scottish Football Association – a body which is a Governing body, a mandatory trade association, a legislative authority, a licensing authority, and which, when necessary oversees and administers a judicial function.
5. Without membership of a properly functioning SFA this club cannot -simply cannot – play or trade.
6. In 2013, shareholders came before the board and requested that certain matters be referred by the board to UEFA – of which Celtic is a valued and key member – and which body entrusted the granting of licences and the enforcement of their rules in Scotland to the SFA.
7. Our position was that the SFA had failed in its licensing and administrative function, had failed to properly oversee the licensing process, and was so compromised that the situation demanded a referral to another body – we recommended UEFA – and still do.
8. In response, the board said that our resolution was not necessary but expressed sympathy with the matters raised and advised that it shared our concerns. We were also told that the board were in correspondence with the SFA about these same issues and concerns.
9. After various meetings, it was agreed to adjourn the resolution to allow matters to be properly pursued with the SFA rather than with UEFA leading to jibes on social media that the resolution had been kicked into the long grass
10. Long grass could perhaps be better described as a jungle – and I can assure everyone here that the modern SFA would not enjoy any length of time in what was Celtic’s Jungle.
11. Six years on, after maintaining that there was nothing to see, that nothing had been done wrong, that there was nothing to report to UEFA, that even if there had been something wrong they could do nothing about it because of time bar, and for all sorts of other reasons that have since proven to be either inaccurate, misconceived or to be just plain rubbish, we now find that we are in a truly remarkable situation whereby;
(a) The SFA ignored and rejected this board’s call for a full independent legal inquiry into what occurred over a number of years within Scottish Football – which call was also made by SPFL CEO Neil Doncaster. Neither the SPFL nor Celtic seem to carry sufficient weight with the SFA in this regard.
(b) Instead the SFA wrote to all clubs in 2017 and advised that they would carry out their own internal inquiry into the UEFA licensing process followed in 2011/2012.
(c) As a result of that inquiry the SFA determined that they had uncovered sufficient evidence to bring disciplinary charges alleging breaches of both SFA and UEFA rules – this many years after we had claimed that there had been such breaches and after many years of telling us and Celtic that there was nothing to investigate.
(d) In June 2018, a formal judicial panel appointed by the SFA to consider the evidence and determine the charges, formally reported that – THE SFA WERE NOT THE COMPETENT LEGAL BODY TO CONDUCT ANY HEARINGS OR MAKE ANY RULINGS ON THE CHARGES CONCERNED OR THEIR SUBJECT MATTER – WHICH IS PRECISELY WHAT WE AS SHAREHOLDERS ASKED THIS BOARD TO RECOGNISE SOME SIX YEARS AGO!
(e) Unbelievably, it would appear that, according to the judicial panel, in relation to this matter and for the only time in its entire history, or in the history of UEFA, The SFA has by way of a secret written contract agreed that it cannot legally conduct hearings or enforce the implementation of its own rules or the rules of UEFA within its own jurisdiction thereby creating a fissure in its own judicial
(f) Not only that, the three corporate officers who implemented this process, Messrs Reagan, MacKInlay and McGlennan, must all have known that the SFA had entered into this contract which plainly says they cannot conduct the disciplinary process which they implemented.
(g) All three officers have now left the building, bolted out the door, leaving behind an administrative and judicial mess of farcical proportions.
(h) However, that was fully 18 months ago. In the interim period SFA officers told this board that that there was no reason not to implement the judicial panel ruling which said that the charges should go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. THEY TOLD YOU THAT SO THAT YOU WOULD TELL US AND SO WE WOULD WAIT AND WAIT AND WAIT FOR ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS EVENTUALY POSED AT LAST AGM AND STILL NOT ANSWERED.
(i) The current position is that Iain Maxwell SFA CEO made a public statement in mid-June saying that the SFA would not let the issue go on for ever, that it would come back to the SFA board in the not-too-distant future and that going to CAS was still under consideration.
(j) The latter is completely different to what they said would happen last AGM and how far into a not too distant future is 5 months?
(k) We are not at all sure what signal this sends out to everyone involved in Scottish Football , what degree of confidence they can have in a Judicial process cracked by a clause in the no longer secret 5 Way Agreement.
(l) As the board know, we have instructed solicitors and indeed have consulted counsel about this farcical administration and all correspondence from our lawyers to the SFA over an 18 month period costing around £11K have met with no response, continued obfuscation and deliberate and calculated delay in giving any sensible or coherent explanation.
And yet this board maintains that the matter should be left in the hands of this wholly dysfunctional corporate body who have no idea what they are doing or what they are legally entitled to do.
SO I have to ask The Board – are you crazy?