Leggat - Daily Record In New Cover-up Over Lawwell Links

[ian1964 10,625]

WHY are Scotlandâ??s newspapers refusing to reveal the identities of the men who are trying to bulldoze through reconstruction on behalf of the seemingly morally corrupt Scotttish Premier League and the Scottish Football Association.

 

After all, one of the first rules of journalism, something I had drummed into me almost half a century ago, was to make any story personal. People are interested in other people, so names, names and more names is the order of the day.

 

However, that no longer seems to apply to the Scottish media whenever one of the names turns out to be Celtic chief executive, Scottish Premier League mover and shaker and Scottish Football Association powerbroker, Peter Lawwell.

 

Lawwell gives me the distinct impression that he likes to do his work in lurking in the shadows and that he also prefers to exercise power, often through others, some on his payroll and some not.

 

And the impression is also created that he achieves his aims and escapes being questioned by newspapers due to the power he exerts on those media outlets, either through Celticâ??s financial arrangements with them, in the case of the Daily Record, or through what many believe to be collusion, in the case of the anti Rangers Scottish Daily Mail.

 

However, the grapevine still buzzes and the jungle drums still beat and I understand Peter Lawwell has taken to making what he believes to be jocular remarks about his supposed power over Scottish football.

 

It is a neat and old tactic, if tactic it is, to joke in a self deprecating manner about claims regarding the power held in the matter of strategy.

 

The fact is that Peter Lawwellâ??s tentacles and the tentacles of those who either owe their financial existence to him, or who are close associates whose past deeds reveal their allegiance to him, reach the very top of the Scottish Premier League - what I call the Neil Doncaster-Peter Lawwell-SPL Axis, as well as the Scottish Football Association, where Lawwell sits alongside SFA chief executive Stewart Regan in the Hampden boardroom.

 

And never has the power and influence of Celticâ??s Peter Lawwell been more obvious than when the Scottish Football Association Professional Game Board met this week with the Scottish Premier League reconstruction working group and the Scottish Football League.

 

Just do not expect to read about the people involved in any newspaper. For they are either financially committed to Celtic or tied to the Parkhead clubâ??s wishes in other ways.

 

But to gain an understanding of the forces at work as the SPL try to bulldoze their plans for reconstruction through, while staying in control, and the SFA increasingly gives the impression of wanting to help to stampede the SFL into an agreement, it is important to know the people involved.

 

Starting with the SPL there is Peter Lawwell, then there is the new Celtic company secretary, Michael Nicholson, a lawyer and former senior partner in the Harper Macleod firm which acts for Celtic and acted for the SPL against Rangers, plus also another Lawwell loyalist, Hibernianâ??s Rod Petrie. As well as SPL chief executive Neil Doncaster, the man who parachuted Peter Lawwell into the talks the SPL had with Sky last summer and thought he had kept that under wraps until the pair were caught bang to rights at Glasgow Airport.

 

Not forgetting SPL Board member, Eric Riley, employed by Peter Lawwell as Celticâ??s £250,000-a-year financial director.

 

Letâ??s now move onto the Pro Game Board of the Scottish Football Association, which also took part in this weekâ??s reconstruction talks, talks about a reconstruction which could bulldoze the Scottish Football League out of existence, leaving the SPL and the SFA to carve things up between them.

 

Peter Lawwell of course sits on the SFA Pro Game Board along with the man who parachuted him into the Hampden boardroom as almost his first act on taking over as SFA chief executive, Stewart Regan. And who is it who chairs the SFAâ??s Pro Game Board? Why, none other than Peter Lawwellâ??s ally from the SPL, Hibernianâ??s Rod Petrie.

 

So, no conflict of interest there, then.

 

Actually, when talking about any Axis, I should describe it as the Stewart Regan-Peter Lawwell-Rod Petrie-SFA-Neil Doncaster-Peter Lawwell-Michael Nicholson-Rod Petrie-SPL-Axis. That would be more inclusive. More descriptive. More accurate. With more names.

 

But just do not expect to see the make-up of this Celtic cabal exposed in any Scottish newspaper. Certainly not the now fiercely anti-Rangers Daily Record, locked as it is, in a financial deal with Celtic which is vital to that ailing paperâ??s continued existence.

 

What we have learned from what is in the papers is that Neil Doncaster finally produced the Sky contract at the SPL-SFA-SFL meeting and claimed that it still has four years to run and that it is not dependent on Rangers being in the top tier. Though no paper â?? certainly not the Daily Record â?? wants to do a thorough job of investigative journalism to discover just what this contract is actually worth without Rangers in the top flight.

 

Keith Jackson is too busy desperately trying to undermine Rangers with what amounts to no more than mischief making trivia, while David McCarthy is too busy waiting for a press conference â?? any press conference, anywhere near - to be called, to make life easy for him.

 

We also learned that the SFA have offered themselves as honest and independent brokers. Stewart Regan, Peter Lawwell and Rod Petrieâ??s SFA will conduct due diligence on the financial offers Neil Doncaster, Peter Lawwell , Eric Riley, Michael Nicholson and Rod Petrieâ??s SPL have made to the SFL.

 

Brokers? Mmmmm!

 

Honest? You may think what you like, but I could not possibly comment.

 

Independent? You have got to be joking.

 

My advice to the SFL clubs who have declared they want to swallow the SPL bait of a £350,000-a-year-per-club bribe to quit the SFL and form an SPL2, is to have due diligence carried out by a truly independent and highly competent company, such as word wide auditors, Grant Thornton.

 

Taking the word of the Stewart Regan-Peter Lawwell-Rod Petrie Scottish Football Association that the Neil Doncaster-Peter Lawwell-Eric Riley-Michael Nicholson-Rod Petrie Scottish Premier League is good for the cash it is offering to the SFL as a bribe, is madness.

 

Just donâ??t expect to read that in the Daily Record under Keith Jacksonâ??s by-line. Peter Lawwellâ??s Celtic, who the Record are financially dependent on, would not approve.

[ian1964 10,625]

Friday, 5 April 2013

RECORD MAN JACKSON AND THE LENNON SWEARING VERDICT

 

It was surprising to read Keith Jackson in the pro Celtic and anti Rangers Daily Record predict that Neil Lennon will get off with no more than a slap on the wrist from the Stewart Regan-Peter Lawwell Scottish Football Association.

 

The Celtic manager, you may recall, was cited by the SFA’s lawyer Lunny after his foul mouthed outburst was caught on the audio of the live television coverage of Celtic’s draw in Paisley with St Mirren.

 

Lennon – a serial offender – already has a three match suspended sentence hanging over his head. A ban which should be tagged on to any further suspension punishment which the SFA may see fit to impose on Lennon.

 

That is the way a suspended sentence works.

 

Yet Keith Jackson reckons the SFA will just forget about that three match suspended sentence ban and let the Celtic manager off with a mere slap on the wrist.

 

How does he know? How can he be so sure as to what will happen as to be able to write what he did with such confidence?

 

Did someone inside Stewart Regan and Peter Lawwell’s Scottish Football Association tell him? And if so, how did they know? Unless the Lennon case has been pre-judged. Unless there has been a carve-up.

 

Or did someone inside Parkhead, a Celtic source with high level knowledge of the inner workings of Stewart Regan and Peter Lawwell's Scottish Football Association, whisper what the Lennon verdict would be in the ear of the chief football writer of Celtic’s business partners, the Daily Record?

 

It is all very curious.

 

However, for Celtic’s business partners at the Daily Record and for the fast fading paper’s increasingly desperate efforts to rubbish Rangers and be kind to Celtic and for chief football writer, Keith Jackson it is a no win situation.

 

For should he be proved right, then we will know that Vincent Lunny citing Lennon was just a sham, a piece of window dressing and the case had been pre judged in Lennon’s favour right from the start and that someone, either inside Peter Lawwell’s Celtic or Stewart Regan and Peter Lawwell’s SFA, had tipped Jackson off.

 

That is the danger for Keith Jackson if he is right. But what if he’s wrong? In that case Keith Jackson and the Daily Record will look like mugs.

 

……

AND…..

 

ANOTHER shameful example of the complete dereliction of its duty by the Scottish media was laid bare here this week.

 

It was, of course, when I revealed the existence of a letter from Celtic and the Scottish Premier League’s lawyers, Harper Macleod, demanding that Rangers pay the £500,000 costs incurred by Harper Macleod and the Lord Nimmo Smith Independent Tribunal which found Rangers not guilty of gaining any sporting advantage from the use of EBTs.

 

How the nation’s newspapers, along with its television and radio stations, accounting for hundreds of journalists, all managed to miss this story is a mystery to me. After all, there were around three dozen people who knew about the row at Hampden between a furious Charles Green and Peter Lawwell’s puppet of an SPL chief executive, Neil Doncaster.

 

Do reporters not have proper contacts any more? Do they simply rely on the spinning of agents, those lurking in the shadows, working on behalf of Celtic and others with an anti Rangers agenda to provide them with stuff – I hesitate to call them stories - to fill the pages of their papers?

 

Or are they all – as David McCarthy of the dreadful Daily Record admitted in print - dependent on the easy meat of hand outs from stage managed press conferences?

 

Or – and here we delve into the murky waters of something much more sinister – were there reporters, some particularly well connected with Scottish Football League clubs – who were well aware of what was going on, but who did not write the story?

 

I must confess, even given the terrible state of the news business, in particular within the now fiercely anti Rangers and pro Celtic Daily Record, I find it hard to believe not one reporter had a sniff of the story which I broke on Tuesday and which every paper was forced to follow-up on Wednesday after the Scottish Premier League had issued a woolly statement confirming my exclusive, followed by a Rangers statement roundly condemning the Harper Macleod letter.

 

After all, almost a week had elapsed from the day of the flare up between Charles Green and Neil Doncaster until I broke the story about the Harper Macleod letter. The delay was because, as an old retired hack and a one man band with no resources other than his old fashioned training, it took time for me to confirm, reconfirm and then confirm again, from three separate sources, that the original tip off was sound.

 

But any staff reporter, speaking on a daily basis to a wide range of contacts and with the vast resources of a national newspaper at his fingertips, should surely have been able to blow the gaff on the Harper Macleod letter which Celtic and the SPL’s lawyers, as well as the SPL, would have preferred to remain secret.

 

Which leads me to wonder....were any calls were made by any reporter about the Harper Macleod letter?

 

And if so, to whom?

 

Neil Doncaster?

 

Peter Lawwell?

 

Or anyone lurking in the shadows working and spinning on behalf of Peter Lawwell?

 

And if any reporter made any such call to any of the above, asking about the Harper Macleod letter, were they lied to?

 

Or were they blackmailed in some way?

 

You know the sort of thing? Print anything about the Harper Macleod letter and we will never co-operate with you or your paper again? Or worse? We will not only cut you out of the loop, but actively engage with your rivals to ensure they get exclusive stories which you do not?

 

You think things don’t work that way? They do!

 

Of course there is still room for newspapers to manoeuvre themselves out of the darkness and into the light of disclosure – which is where papers should always be – on this important story.

 

For the tale still has legs.

 

For instance, instead of being satisfied with the SPL’s woolly statement and moving on to the next piece of spin from an agent, the next hand out at a press conference, some enterprising reporter could start posing probing questions.

 

Have the Scottish Premier League paid Harper Macleod for the failed prosecution of Rangers by Celtic’s lawyers? Have the SPL paid Lord Nimmo Smith and the two eminent QCs who sat with him on the Independent Tribunal which cleared Rangers of any wrong doing as far as gaining a sporting advantage was concerned? And is the SPL now looking for recompense from Rangers for the £500,000 they poured down the drain in a seemingly Celtic driven witch hunt of Rangers?

 

Or have the SPL not paid Celtic’s lawyers Harper Macleod? And do Harper Macleod and the firm’s attack dog Rod McKenzie, now want their fees to be paid, not by their clients, the SPL, but by those who were acquitted of wrongdoing as far as sporting integrity was concerned, Rangers?

 

And have High Court Judge, Lord Nimmo Smith and two of Great Britain’s most eminent QCs also not been paid by the people who employed them, the SPL?

 

Do SPL chief executive and his SPL cronies, Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell, Celtic finance director Eric Riley and former Harper Macleod senior partner, now Celtic company secretary, Michael Nicholson, want the club accused by the SPL and prosecuted by Celtic’s lawyers, but cleared of any sporting impropriety by Lord Nimmo Smith’s Independent Tribunal, to directly pay the Learned Law Lord and his two learned friends?

 

Should any reporter want to ask these questions, they need only to get in touch and I will tell them who has the answers.