Tag: Rangers

The Scottish Football Association (SFA) decision to deem Dave King “fit and proper” to become a Rangers director has proved widely popular. It is popular with Rangers fans because they believe the South African-based businessman will help fund the club back to what they call its “rightful place.” And it is popular with other fans because they believe he can’t and/or won’t. At face value, the decision is disgraceful. SFA regulations identify specific criteria by which a putative director’s fitness and propriety can be gauged. One is whether “he has been convicted within the last 10 years of…an offence liable to imprisonment of two years or over.” In August 2013, King received the world’s most famous 41 convictions for breaches of South African tax law, all of which were “liable to imprisonment of two years…” Another is whether “he has been a director of a club in membership of any National Association within the five-year period of such club having undergone an insolvency event.” Again, King fits this criteria like a glove, having been a Rangers non-executive director throughout the “five-year period” before it entered administration in February 2012. However, the SFA has “discretion as to whether or not such a person is fit and proper…after due consideration of all the relevant facts…in its possession and knowledge, including the undernoted list which is…illustrative and not exhaustive.” This gives the...