Suite R0193 35 Victoria Road Darlington County Durham United Kingdom DL1 5SF email - [email protected] tel - 07936 113887 UEFA Route de Genève 46 Case postale CH-1260 Nyon Switzerland Dears sirs, At the beginning of February I sent you a letter giving details of a petition that had been started to give voice to the many football fans who have serious concerns about the level of integrity within the Scottish game. The call was to have the current administrators at the Scottish Football Association and the Scottish Football Professional league resign and allow a board to be put in place that has no connection with the questionable events that have occurred over the past five years. The petition has now reached 2000 signatures and I felt it right to contact you again to give a more detailed explanation of the reasons for our concern. Firstly let me put in context the magnitude of the signature count. We are a small country and the figure equates to 11% of the average weekly attendance over all major leagues in our country and 22% of our top division. I would say that, because of the limited coverage we have been able to give to the petition, the support is far larger than the number of signatures would suggest. Even ignoring this it is not a small percentage and, in a market where attendances are dropping, further disillusionment would have a devastating affect on the sport in our country. Whenever an issue like this is raised by a member of the public normally the first reaction is to reject it as an action involving inter-club rivalry. I believe that this may be the reason that numerous previous communications on the subject during M. Platini's tenure at UEFA have not even elicited an acknowledgement. There is one club in particular mentioned in this report, Glasgow Rangers FC, and in that context the main rivalry would be with the fans of Celtic FC. It is a rivalry that has a history of extreme animosity and vindictiveness, so let me assure you that I have no connection with either of these clubs and I am not driven by club rivalry. I have supported one of the smaller teams in our leagues, Hibernian FC, for over fifty years but for the last thirty years I have never attended a professional football match. I state this to try to remove any thoughts from your mind that I am motivated to write this through football club fanaticism. My reason is completely based on the immorality and possible criminality of the events. Despite this the complaint is not the feelings of just one individual but, as the petition shows, it is a widely supported view spread over the support of many different clubs. At present we are experiencing great changes in our game where impropriety and corruption are being investigated in the upper echelons of football. The implications of this on the work load of UEFA and FIFA is great but I do not believe that means that more localised issues should be ignored. Afterall, a successful conclusion to these investigations relies heavily on co-operation of the member associations so the personnel there must be above reproach. Because of the recent case regarding Galatasary of Turkey and the case of CF Malaga of Spain in 2012 a copy of this document will be sent to the football authorities in Turkey and Spain. Copies are also being sent to our country's league sponsor Ladbrokes plc, all major 1 media outlets in the United Kingdom, Spain and Turkey and the government politicians responsible for sport in our country. There is so much out on the internet that points to much more serious allegations compared to what I detail here. These include emails between our football authorities and the club that implicate the authorities in attempts to circumvent UEFA's rules to ensure that one club gains financially at the expense of others. The contents of a secret agreement reached between the authorities and the same club have also been revealed. I do not include these in my claims here because of the difficulties in substantiating the origin of the documents and because I believe there is enough in the way of facts to warrant an investigation without them. No doubt someone will act on this other evidence in the future and it would be better for UEFA to pre- empt that by undertaking an investigation in advance. Yours faithfully A. Reiver 2 In the accompanying report I shall layout in detail the reasons for the current unrest. It includes. Breaking UEFA rules with regard to qualifying for a club's UEFA license by withholding details of Overdue Payables known to the officers of organising bodies. Giving approval to become a member of a club's board of directors to an individual with a criminal record for multiple incidences of tax fraud and current contempt of court violations. Giving approval to two individuals to sit on a club's board despite these two having been on the board of a club that went into liquidation within the five year period stipulated in the leagues' own rules. It had in their case been three years. Allowing an officer of the sport's national bodies to continue in office during investigation into irregular tax methods of a club. The officer is known to have benefited from these tax issues to a value of about €120,000 whilst serving as a director of the club under investigation and being involved in the adoption of the scheme. Manipulated the same investigation by excluding the review of proven tax offences, where €3.6 million was unpaid, from the investigation purview. Failing to act with regard to breach of their own rules when a club was found, after a police raid, to have undeclared side contracts for players at the club. Involved in secret negotiations with a liquidated club and the purchasers of its assets in an attempt to fast track the new club into the upper reaches of the league structure to the disadvantage of other member clubs. Behaved in such a way that has resulted in the Scottish Football Association being taken to court. Cases that will take place over the coming months. In addition to these items we are hearing unsubstantiated reports of decisions being made in hotels and restaurants where members of the football authorities are making decisions in partnership with club officials that would appear to be to the detriment of other clubs. It may be of no matter but in the current climate of mistrust from the fans it just adds to our concerns. 3 Improper allocation of UEFA license In 2012, the year prior to Rangers FC going into liquidation, the Scottish Football Association(SFA) would appear to have been compliant in the club falsely claiming that they met the UEFA criteria to be awarded a license to enter their competitions. Between 1999 and 2011 the club employed two methods of side payments to players that drew the attention of the Governments Tax authorities. One, Employee Benefit Trusts(EBT), has been challenged by the tax authorities as being not legitimate but, at the time and at present, is under appeal. The other, the Discount Option Scheme(DOS), has also been challenged and proven NOT to be legitimate. The club accepted this latter finding and was issued with a tax bill of around €3.6 million which was included in the club's unaudited accounts for the year ending June 2011. This had been agreed sometime between March and May 2011. In June 2011 the tax authorities imposed a fine on top of the bill when the bill became overdue and issued a demand for payment which was served on the club by officers of the Scottish courts. The implication here is that the tax payables, as defined by Article 50 of UEFA's Financial Fair Play regulations, became due somewhere during the months March to May 2011. The fine and the demand for payment made at the beginning of June shows that the payment was overdue at this time. Despite this UEFA were not informed of the issue as they are required to be under by Article 66 of UEFA's Financial Fair Play regulations. The Scottish Football Association(SFA) may or may not have been informed by the club but the information was much publicised and yet the SFA clearly did not look to clarify the matter. Later when questioned about the issue a representative of the SFA put forward reasons that varied with time and none of which can be substantiated. Thus the SFA put forward the club for inclusion in UEFA organised competitions vouching for their qualification under the FFP criteria when clearly they had to be aware at two out of the three check points, 30th June and 30th of September, that it was probable that the club had overdue tax payables. Abuse of Fit and Proper Person Approval The owner of the club during the UEFA license issue and subsequently when it went into liquidation was banned, rightly, from ever being involved with football in Scotland after it was found that he did not declare a past offence under stock exchange rules. Now, though, we have a person, Mr David King, who has 41 convictions for tax evasion which resulted in fines to a value of around €52 million being confirmed as "Fit and Proper" by the football administrators . His agreement with the courts to plead guilty to these charges after a prolonged legal battle saw other charges of money laundering, racketeering and fraud being dropped.