Mr Gerard Nixon officially resigned as a director of Livingston Football Club on 14th October 2013. He had been stripped of power in early September but was allowed to tidy up his affairs until he resigned. Mr Nixon then instituted legal proceedings against the Club for the immediate return of directors loans made personally and by four companies he controlled. Three of these companies are no longer trading having run up substantial debts. The Club is vigorously contesting the action, both in relation to the repayment terms and the value of the loan.

To formulate the Club's defence we secured the services of BTG forensic accountants as well as carrying out our own detailed investigations. In the course of the investigations several matters have come to light which give us great cause for concern. We had hoped that these matters would have been resolved during the July court action; however this has now been delayed again by Mr Nixon's side not being ready and will not be heard until March 2015. This leaves us with no option other than to disclose these matters to the relevant authorities.

1 - Included in Mr Nixon's claim of over £300,000 are payments of £20,500 made to players in 2010 and 2011. As far as we can determine these payments were made without deductions of tax or NI. No other directors sanctioned or were aware of the payments. We are at a loss to understand why the future of the Club was put at risk by Mr Nixon for a saving of around 12% unless to establish a 'big shot' status with players. Mr Nixon’s loan account and assertions actually read as if £30,500 has been paid out without deductions.

2 - Mr Nixon's own documents of his loan account show £10,500 cash bonus payments to players. Mr Nixon and/or the Club's former accountants, who are still representing Mr Nixon, have produced vouchers for transactions in 2010 amounting to £7,900. Mr Nixon claims an additional £2,100 was paid in cash to the then manager Mr G Bollan. Mr Bollan denies that any non-taxed payments were ever made to him. The Club’s solicitors have received a verbal explanation of who the recipients were, all of whom deny receipt of such monies.

3 - In March 2011 Mr Nixon borrowed £10,000 from Neil Rankine. The money was received in 2 cash instalments the second £5,000 of which was witnessed by three of the Club's other directors. Although it appears Mr Nixon claims this money was paid to players without statutory deductions the Club directors are doubtful of the veracity of the assertion and had hoped that the proceedings in the Court of Session would have established the truth of the situation.

4 - We understand that during his tenure as CEO at the Club other companies under his control supplied cars and fuel to players and managers at the Club. This and other actions taken without board approval may incur “benefit in kind” disclosures.

5 - We are gathering evidence and believe that many thousands of pounds may have been misappropriated and concealed within the Club funds without proper recording in the Club accounts. The other directors had no knowledge of this and have concerns that tax is liable and this indeed may have been the source of any cash payments to staff or others.

The directors of Livingston Football Club Ltd welcomes an investigation of the actions of Mr Nixon during his tenure as CEO and director as we feel he has not acted in the best interests of Scottish Football or discharged his duties under law to act in the best interests of the company. This is exemplified in the signing of a contract by Mr Nixon, only days before his registered departure from the Club, to pay a football agent 15% of every player transfer fee whether or not the agent takes any active part in the transfer. He then took delivery of the Club's official copy of this contract 6 weeks after his resignation and has still failed to deliver it to the company. The club is contesting this and will be taking legal action against Mr Nixon.

We feel he was only able to sustain his actions because he failed to ensure the necessary level of corporate governance was exercised within the company and the failure of the Club’s accountant, who was also Club’s finance manager, and auditors to use the appropriate level of scrutiny. In addition some board members failed to act by keeping him in power when first alerted in late 2011 to suspicions about his financial stewardship of the company.

In April 2014 the Club’s now former auditors delivered pages of new governance recommendations which have been fully implemented with such basics of 2 persons counting money and signing company cheques etc. four years too late in our opinion.

Robert L Wilson
Vice Chairman
On behalf of the Board of Directors