Shakespeare’s tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, features a feud between the Montague and Capulet families; a feud that ultimately led to the star-crossed lovers’ demise. It spawned the phrase ‘A Plague on Both of Your Houses‘ which continues to resonate to this day.
There is no feud between the houses of Ibrox and Hampden. The SFA and Rangers have been hand-in-glove for generations. However there is a plague which answers to the name of Andrew Dickson. In the pantheon of the corrupt Dickson wears the laurel-wreath.
In Dickson’s sworn testimony to the FTT he admits drafting the contentious EBT side letters. Side letters that he had previously claimed did not exist. Side letters that were approved by Sir Bribe & Lie in his capacity as the £500,000 per annum (paid via an employment benefit trust) EBT consigliere.
Dickson’s remit included the offer of tax-free remunerations as inducements to join Rangers. Rangers, via systemic tax evasion, were able to sign players that they could not have otherwise afforded.
The preceding words in italics text are not mine. Their author, in sworn testimony at the Craig Whyte Trial, is none other than Sir Bribe & Lie.
David Murray paid Lawrence Marlborough a $1m cash bribe to secure his equity in Rangers. Murray was corrupt from the get-go. Murray attempted to put Celtic out of business by convincing his cronies at The Bank of Scotland to foreclose on CFC’s overdraft. Murray some time later put Airdrie out of business.
Neil Doncaster expounded, to the CSA, that Murray would probably no longer be welcome in Scottish football. He should be banned sine die. However despite Andrew Dickson’s many years of corporate malfeasance, Doncaster and his new SPFL board voted him on to the SFA Congress.
One of the most corrupt men in Scottish football, the successor to arch criminal Campbell Ogilvie, has been given a leg-up on the greasy pole.
Dickson under the tutelage of Ogilvie successfully concealed the true quantum of the contracts that had been signed by the players. His actions, which were almost certainly of a criminal bent, defrauded HMRC and every other Scottish professional football club. Dickson subverted the registration procedures to conceal his malfeasance.
How on God’s green earth can this poacher, with a track record of tax evasion and corporate fraud, be accorded the position of SFA gamekeeper? This SPFL decision is one of slack-jawed stupidity.
Dickson has been given the keys to the SFA Council. You could not make it up!
Dickson is on record as stating that he misled players to secure their signing.
‘Don’t worry about the £1.4m cash bung Mr Mols. Consider it petrol money.’
Dickson’s sworn testimony to the FTT included this nugget:
“The Trust was explained to the player at the time and the Trust — sorry, the player understood the situation regarding the Trust, in terms of we could not give the many guarantees about them being paid the money.”
How disingenuous. The side letters that Dickson drafted gave guarantees that a tax-free cash bung would be paid as part of the player’s remuneration package. Dickson signed up 55 players on this basis. The cheating from 1999 -2011 secured seventeen titles. Seventeen titles that were won by tax cheats who were not eligible to participate in Scottish professional football. Title-stripping does not go far enough. Dickson should be indicted on fraud charges.
Dickson, who continues in the employ of the house of Usher, a.k.a Ibrox, was on the SFA Licensing committee that on April 19, 2011 granted a UEFA licence to Rangers the day after he gave his testimony to the FTT that he knew nothing. Dickson was fully aware of the overdue payable of £2.8m which had crystallised in March. One can safely conclude that one or both of two scenarios were extant at that time:
1. Dickson, in the full knowledge that the social tax overdue payable was a clear breach of FFP regulations, misled his fellow committee members.
2. Dickson was pushing against an open door to Rangers-facing committee members who would have awarded Rangers a licence on the flimsiest of pretexts.
Dickson perpetrated a fraud to the detriment of a PLC, namely Celtic Football Club PLC. CFC should have taken their rightful place in the CL qualifiers once the Rangers application had been vetoed by the SFA Licensing Committee.
Dickson’s fraud cost Celtic millions of pounds. If I were in Peter Lawwell’s shoes I would go much further than engaging in a Judicial Review.
I would petition the Court of Session to disqualify Dickson from holding any executive office and initiate a private prosecution for fraud.