SFA MUST FIND THE LEAK

ONE thing we have learned from the Dougie McDonald investigation is that in matters relating to Celtic the Scottish Football Association appears to be as watertight as the Titanic.

And that is the something which new and already beleaguered chief executive Stewart Regan must now address.

Regan must ask some hard questions following the leaking of referee observer Jim McBurney's report on Dougie McDonald's handling of the Dundee United-Celtic game in general, and the penalty U-turn incident in particular.

It is believed the report McBurney delivered to the SFA first leaked into the public domain through a website which many journalists believe has impeccable sources within Parkhead.

No harm to the website. Finding things out is its job. And increasingly it is on the web, as opposed to the traditional form of the old inky business, where information is to be found.

And no harm either to the newspapers and television stations who pounced on the revelations and passed them on to their readers. Or to the reporters who won't highlight the fact that somewhere there is a whistleblower. That would be a bit like cutting off their nose to spite their face.

But there is another pertinent question to be asked. It is, why was there no such leak regarding the indentity of the retired referee, ex player and former manager who recently sat on judgement on Allan McGregor?

The answer must surely lie in the indentity and motives of the whistleblower. Any study of people who leak, and there have been many within politics and the civil service, shows they blow the whistle on things with which they do not argree.

Now, regular readers who know  I have called for greater transparency in the way the SFA goes about its business, may claim my views show a lack of consistency. They would be wrong.

My complaint about the way the McGregor affair was handled was the fact that those who sat on judgement on McGregor were cloaked in secrecy.

Against that, those who debated and decided on the issue involving McDonald and his change of mind at Tannadice, were named.

But, while justice must be seen to be done, there must also be a degree of confidentiality in  day-to-day dealings within the SFA.

Referees, on seeing McBurney's report splashed all over the place, will now be more careful what they say to an observer. Indeed they may not wish to enter into any discussion with an observer in the immediate aftermath of a game.

And observers themselves will now worry if anything contained in their report finds its way onto a website and then into the press, should it suit the agenda of a whistleblower.

This will make life harder for referees and their assistants, for the observers, and for the head of the refereeing department, Hugh Dallas. It will also make it more difficult to get at the truth.

New SFA chief executive Regan therefore has a job on his hands to restore confidence in the system within an organisation which many now believe seems to have never heard of the old saying about sauce for the goose being sauce for the gander.

He went some way towards that by stating clearly  there is no institutional bias against Celtic within the Scottish Football Association, and the fact he had to make such a statement is itself a sad indictment of where we are.

Regan also made it clear  there will be no SFA probe into Celtic's latest complaint - the one involving the penalty Willie Collum awarded to Rangers at Parkhead.

One thing though which has been lost in the hysteria which has surrounded this sad, sorry, and a times sordid, little tale, is that when McDonald initially claimed he overturned his decision on the advice of assistant, Steven Craven, he was doing so for the best of motives.

Regan made it clear that McDonald knew that if he changed his mind over the penalty award, he would be marked down by the observer, and he had no wish for Craven to suffer a similar fate. In that he showed loyalty to a colleague, and in doing so put himself in the firing line.

There was also the pointed remark from Regan about other matters being involved in Craven's resignation, and that the SFA are looking at those other matters in an internal discussion.

Regan must be hoping that whenever those talks take place, whatever is said in confidence, behind closed, doors, does not become the latest leak to hole the SFA below the waterline.