RALPH Topping, the outgoing SPFL chairman, last night called on the SFA to cooperate fully with an independent review into how Scottish football’s authorities dealt with the Rangers crisis.
The SPFL yesterday announced they had no legal power to punish the Ibrox club further for their use of Employee Benefit Trusts despite the Supreme Court ruling in favour of HMRC in the Big Tax Case earlier this month.
The governing body released a lengthy document outlining the advice they had received from Gerry Moynihan QC and called for a review into how Scottish football handled the issues arising out of the affair.
Topping believes the SFA must follow the SPFL’s lead and embrace a wide-reaching investigation into how they acted and the rules and regulations that are in place.
“If we are going to have a successful review we need our SFA colleagues to aid that process,” he said. “I would be very surprised if there was not a demand for that from the press, public and football clubs.
“If they don’t that’s their decision. I think they would find it hard to have Aunt Harriet approach and sweep it under the carpet or stonewall it. We don’t want Aunt Harriet to have her way.”
Topping added: “Who now sits on the review body? There is a lot of work to be done in that area. We need to work with the SFA on that. That is an absolute imperative.
“There are a lot of good people along at the SFA. There is not one single person in Scottish football who set out to bring about an outcome that suited them.
“We all need to go through that process of scrutiny. I am happy to go through it. The board of the SPFL are happy to go through it. I think everybody in Scottish football should have their opportunity to have their say and the review body report on it.
“I am satisfied that we have gone through the legal process and we have done the responsible thing in terms of getting wiser minds than I’ve got to look at it from a legal perspective. We have taken that advice and we have acted on it.
“People can be critical all they want, but we haven’t set out in anything other than in a sincere fashion to try and do the right thing. If I haven’t or the body hasn’t then it’s a fair criticism.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel