Here's what some people seem to believe:
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
SPL DEMAND THAT RANGERS PAY HARPER MACLEOD AND LORD NIMMO SMITH
THE SCOTTISH PREMIER LEAGUE want Rangers to pay the £500,000 legal costs of the Lord Nimmo Smith Tribunal which cleared them of gaining any unfair sporting advantage by using EBTs.
Yes, you did read that correctly, though I suspect there are many who will want to pore over it again just to make certain they got it right the first time.
Indeed, had such a sentence appeared here on yesterday’s date, many would have been forgiven for believing it was an April Fool’s story.
However, it is a true tale and the only fools in it are the Scottish Premier League, their – and Celtic’s – lawyers, the controversial Harper MacLeod firm and its attack dog lawyer Rod McKenzie.
I can reveal that Harper Macleod partner, McKenzie has written a letter demanding that Rangers stump up the £500,000 of legal fees for Harper MacLeod’s abortive prosecution of Rangers on the SPL’s behalf, and the cost of Lord Nimmo Smith and the two eminent Queen’s Counsel who sat with him on the Independent Tribunal which cleared Rangers of any crime against sporting integrity, to use Peter Lawwell’s favourite phrase.
The letter from Harper MacLeod lawyer, Rod McKenzie, a man who has previously represented Celtic and Neil Lennon, was sent in the wake of Michael Nicholson, another Harper MacLeod lawyer who has represented Celtic, leaving the firm to join Peter Lawwell at Parkhead as Celtic’s company secretary.
And I can further reveal that the letter has infuriated Rangers chief executive Charles Green. To such an extent that there were angry words when he met the SPL chief executive Neil Doncaster at Hampden last week.
There was a very public clash between the two, with Doncaster denying all knowledge of the letter and Green making it clear to Doncaster that there was not a snowball’s chance in Hell of the acquitted Rangers paying for the SPL’s failed attempt to strip the Ibrox club of five titles, a bid which was spearheaded by Celtic’s lawyers, Harper Macleod and the law firm’s attack dog, Rod McKenzie.
I understand that one senior legal figure who has had a sight of the letter described its contents as preposterous. Such a letter from Rod McKenzie could only have been sent on the instructions of Harper MacLeod’s clients, the SPL, which makes it strange that the SPL chief executive Neil Doncaster should have no knowledge of such a letter.
It also presents an image of a financially challenged Scottish Premier League desperately trying to either recoup their costs, or having Rangers pay those costs, directly.
Which begs the questions.
Have Harper and MacLeod been paid their fees yet by the Scottish Premier League?
Have Lord Nimmo Smith and the two eminent QCs who sat with him on the Independent Tribunal been paid by the Scottish Premier League?
Have the researchers who worked for the Lord Nimmo Smith Tribunal been paid by the Scottish Premier League?
Can the increasingly hard up Scottish Premier League afford the £500,000 legal bill?
If they cannot, then is it wise for the Scottish Premier League to run up more legal fees by employing Harper Macleod to try and bulldoze Rangers into meeting the costs?
And if the Independent Tribunal has not been paid by the Scottish Premier League, the people who engaged their services, then will we see the unedifying sight of a High Court Judge and two of Britain’s most eminent QCs taking the SPL to court for the money they are owed?
I’d pay to see that!
And all of this is going on at a time when the Peter Lawwell-Neil Doncaster-SPL Axis is trying to bribe Scottish Football League clubs with money they do not appear to have.