Just under a year ago I sat in the Nehru Stadium watching with pride as the Commonwealth Games flag was handed over to Glasgow as new hosts in 2014.
I’d also listened with friends at the crowds repeated cheers for everyone except the Delhi OC Chair Suresh Kalmadi, who is now lodged in Tihar Prison on corruption charges. Surely our Games Organising Committee wouldn’t endure the same loss of reputation I thought.
Yet now across the world’s press, from the Washington Post to the Australian Sun Herald, stories are printed about the sudden resignation of John Scott, Chief Executive of Glasgow 2014.
Last week I met with David Grevemberg the new acting CEO of Glasgow 2014 and urged him to be more open about the events surrounding this resignation. My concern was simple, 80% of the costs of the games come from public funds and the public deserved to know why the reputation of our city and our games are being undermined by Glasgow 2014s failure to come clean on what has happened.
Glasgow 2014 have sought to hide behind legal advice which they insist prevents them commenting about the company at the heart of the alleged gift or about the circumstances of the resignation of a former employee.
In the absence of official comment the public have been left to read in the Herald (01/07/11)
“A spokeswoman declined to comment yesterday on claims that its board acted after receiving a tip-off about Mr Scott’s tax advice from global accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
It was later reported that Mr Scott had been offered up to £6000 of financial advice from PwC. The firm is refusing to confirm or deny it was the firm at the centre of the affair.”
And the failure of Glasgow 2014 to comment further to its original statement has only led to further confusion on events.
Glasgow 2014 had originally said the company concerned was a potential bidder in a tender process and so could not be named. However once Pricewaterhouse Coopers were named the Glasgow 2014 spokesperson clarified that:
“There’s quite a lot of misunderstanding around this, or deliberate misunderstanding. You can be a past supplier, an existing supplier, and a potential supplier. The three are not mutually exclusive.”
Those well versed in Trinitarian doctrine will find this completely plausible the rest of us might just view it as a crude attempt to spin the original error.
We are also told that the sudden resignation was accepted by the board – but how was this done when the board consists of people who self evidently were not in the UK let alone Glasgow on the day in question.
There are too many unanswered questions remaining and the danger is that by failing to be open, Glasgow 2014 risk this story continuing to run and continuing to undermine its reputation.
Commonwealth Games Federation Chief Executive Mike Hooper has said “The CGF supports the disclosure of the circumstances that led to resignation,”.
I hope that Glasgow 2014 will now heed the advice from Councillors, MSPs and the Commonwealth Games Federation and come clean on what happened. Any other course risks losing the support of the city.
