Barry Ferguson’s version of Boozegate was nonsense

The Boozegate scandal cash a long shadow.

I’m tempted to send Barry Ferguson a fax to wish him all the best on being put in temporary charge of Blackpool.

That, of course, was the “disgusting” method of communication he claimed I used to inform him of his Scotland ban almost five years ago.

For those of you who might have forgotten ‘Boozegate’, the SFA applied the sanction against Ferguson and Allan McGregor for their behaviour while on international duty.

The pair, then playing for Rangers, took part in an early-hours drinking session following the country’s loss in a World Cup qualifier against Holland.

They were dropped to the substitutes’ bench for the game against Iceland, from where they compounded their offence by flicking V-signs at photographers.

The SFA Board, a dozen men which included me as the Chief Executive, decided both players should be banned for their actions.

It was after this point that Ferguson told a newspaper of his ‘disgust’ at being told the news in a fax from me.

I didn’t respond at the time. I will now. It was total bunkum! If anyone should have been disgusted it was me, so far from the truth was Ferguson’s version of events.

In my role as Chief Executive, I asked the head of our legal department what the procedure was for informing the players of the Board’s decision to ban them.

They said: ‘The club has to tell them of any ban’.

So I phoned Martin Bain, Rangers’ Chief Executive at the time, to explain what was happening. From that point on, it was Martin’s responsibility to inform the players.

He said he’d do that, but asked if I would mind sending him the full details, so he wouldn’t have to try to recollect specific bits of our conversation when he met with Ferguson and McGregor.

I did as Martin requested, and clearly the fax was passed on because Ferguson says he saw it. But for the player, who had captained Scotland for years, to say I faxed HIM was nonsense. A nonsense that, for me, shows the type of person Barry Ferguson is.

We did not have a relationship as such prior to the release of his version of events back in March, 2009. Certainly, I would have no time for him now. In my view, his anger at being banned led to him making the comments he did.

I would suggest he might have been better using the time to consider the actions that got him to the point he was banned. It was bad enough to take advantage of the latitude shown by George Burley to let his players have a beer to wind down by indulging in a protracted drinking session.

To then follow it up by making obscene gestures was, indeed, as Ferguson has himself admitted, an “error.” Does that kind of behaviour mark a person out as management material? That is not for me to say. It is for Blackpool FC to decide.