As Resolution 12 founders are Lawwell and the PLC Fit for Celtic?

In the event that, three months from now, we are faced with a case that is dead in the water with no meaningful answers, we should not miss our targets

Repeating yourself too often is rarely a good thing. “You can say that again”, I hear you cry, but I'll resist.

Only yesterday, I was expressing my belief that the efforts to have a UEFA investigation opened into possible misconduct by the SFA in allowing Rangers to be entered into the 2011 Champions League, (having failed to meet the Financial Fair Play criteria set out by European football's umbrella body) were almost certainly doomed to failure.

I need not reiterate my concerns as you can read them, if you wish.

However, tonight's hasty announcement from “Brogan, Rogan, Trevino & Hogan” (not a firm of solicitors but an individual Celtic fan) must surely have been greeted with the thunder of jaws dropping and heads slapping across the Celtic community.

(I will state now that this is not an attack on BRTH, Auldheid, Canalamar or any of the other people genuinely trying to pursue justice on this matter. I don't know their backgrounds but neither do I doubt their goods intentions – you may have to jump to the end of this piece for that to become clear.)

This was an urgent request for any shareholders willing to be named by the solicitors claiming to represent them to sign a mandate authorising their names to be used.

It is not often I agree with Stewart Regan but it is quite proper for an organisation to decline to answer questions from anonymous sources. Anonymity is for bloggers and social media users (though the owner of one site attempted to use this blogger's preference for using a pseudonym in an attempt to silence criticism).

Refuting Regan's argument, BRTH stated: “This is not so, as the organisation Regan heads up has been written to by a large commercial firm of solicitors who have clearly advised that they act on behalf of a distinct class of people, namely shareholders in Celtic PLC who signed up to and supported Res 12 at the 2013 AGM.”

There are a number of problems with that statement.

Firstly, the size of the legal firm is irrelevant. Any legal firm registered with the Law Society of Scotland is as competent to act as any other, large or small, and can be expected to operate to the same professional and ethical standards.

“We've got a big firm behind us” may be useful in terms of their resources and expertise but it means nothing in terms of legitimacy.

Secondly, the relevance of “a distinct class of people” is obscure. Perhaps the Resolutioners are trying to imply that some sort of class action is taking place. That would be inaccurate – they are requesting information that the SFA does not appear to be compelled to give and, indeed, may argue that they are compelled to withhold on the grounds of confidentiality.

For this, they would need only cite the Procedural Rules Governing the UEFA Club Financial Control Body:

“Article 10  – Confidentiality
Members of the CFCB  ensure complete confidentiality of all facts that come to their attention in the course of  their duties and, in  particular, refrain from divulging the contents of deliberations.”

That alone would likely be sufficient justification for the SFA to decline to divulge any information that may relate to a potential investigation that the Resolutioners are currently seeking to initiate.

Really, would ANY organisation divulge potentially confidential information that may lead to a damages action and even criminal proceedings, to an unnamed group of people? Logically, it would only take a similar group of shareholders of any club (including Celtic) to request that the SFA refuse to engage with them, whether that would mean a hearing before a sheriff or simply a meeting of the SFA Board (of which Peter Lawwell is a member).

Given that the member clubs are competent to submit complaints, it is not at all clear that an unnamed “class of people” has any greater legitimacy than “a bunch of guys”.

This, of course, gives the SFA any number of additional get-outs, the most obvious being avoidance or prevarication, with any UEFA investigation being time-barred by the end of June this year – roughly 12 weeks.

The implications of this are profound. Any lawyers would surely advise the SFA not to answer any questions that could leave them open to civil or criminal action, never mind liable to UEFA or FIFA sanctions.

In the circumstances, the SFA would seem to have every reason to keep schtum. However, there is another very clear available tactic.

For any normal legal request, it is usually considered reasonable to allow for ten working days for a reply. If we presume that the Resolutioners must wait two weeks for all the mandates to be received – April 1st – it would be likely that any reply would not be received before April 15th.

This would be unlikely to contain any meaningful answers. Rather, it would most probably be a legal opinion that the SFA did not have to respond to the Resolutioners, according to their rules, and even that SFA rules either did not allow – or actually prohibited – the Association from dealing with the inquiry (something that would be virtually impossible, were Celtic or any member club to make similar representations).

Alternatively, if it was deemed that the SFA should respond, the lawyers would most likely ask for clarification on a number of points, requiring the Resolutioners' lawyers to respond with due diligence – meaning that they could not simply reply over a coffee break but take reasonable time to ensure that they were meeting all of their professional duties.

The timeline is now at Friday, 29th April before the SFA have received their first response telling them why they should address the points made. Another round of letters would take us to Friday 13th May.

Do you see where this is going?

With the added complication of an unlikely UEFA investigation being requested at the same time, the SFA can kill this through legal letters and delays until the UEFA Statute of Limitations has passed.

And all this calls even further into question the Celtic board's request that the shareholders take action first. You could believe that these millionaires with their years of corporate experience and high-powered lawyers haven't spotted the obvious flaws that an independent blogger has identified.

In that case, you could also consider replacing the buttons up your back with Velcro.

Of course, there may be something I am missing. I've been wrong before and told I was wrong even more often – notably when I was saying that Peter Lawwell and the Celtic board were overseeing managed decline of the club.

I'm only basing my judgement on my personal experience and appreciation of the facts.

I referred yesterday to a sense of “betrayal”. The Resolutioners have put their faith in the Chief Executive and the Celtic PLC board. They have been strongly encouraged in that and that trust should neither be seen as a character flaw nor a reflection on their individual abilities.

They have largely been (rightly) lauded for their efforts, even if refusing to consider that the people they have been urged to trust – who have, no doubt, convincingly assured them of their own good intentions – appears to have been a miscalculation.

But the most burning question remains: did the Celtic board, in any of their regular “supportive” meetings, point out the potential flaws that it has now taken this blogger approximately 40 minutes to write?

If not, and as seems almost inevitable, their years of collective efforts come to nought, will the Resolutioners then re-evaluate their faith in the people they have been defending? Will they and other Celtic fans stand by and watch their endeavours ridiculed?

We should all hope that this article is the most complete waste of less than an hour of a blogger's time that has ever been expended; that the SFA will offer full transparency – that they will offer a convincing response disclaiming wrongdoing or that UEFA sanctions will be brought to bear.

And that would be my preferred option – justice, integrity and a game I can believe in.

In the event that, three months from now, we are faced with a case that is dead in the water with no meaningful answers, we should not miss our targets. The SFA may not be fit for purpose – but are the PLC board and Chief Executive fit for Celtic?