Fall-outs plagued Livi FC board duo

Aug 20 2009 by Alistair Watson, West Lothian Courier

A FRAUD trial heard this week of fall-outs between two leading businessmen at Livingston FC during the club’s rise – on the field – and financial fall.

Dominic Keane and Glasgow businessman William Haughey had previously been together on the board of Celtic.

They took Livingston from the Second Division to the Scottish Premier League and talked of the club as their “vision” the High Court in Edinburgh heard.

But off the field, the ambition of promotion to the SPL meant spending some £2 million on bringing the ground up to the minimum standard of a 10,000 seat stadium.

Eventually Livingston went into administration in 2004 with debts of £3.5m and squabbles over major policy – such as training young players – and minor issues, such as wasted pies when bad weather caused a match to be cancelled.

Keane, 54, of Aitkenhead Road, Glasgow, now stands accused of using the name and business address of Mr Haughey to further a £2.3m fraud scheme dating back to October 1999 – a charge he denies.

An indictment which took 10 minutes to read to the jury of 12 men and three women detailed how Keane is said to have gone to a firm of accountants asking them to prepare paperwork to be presented to the Royal Bank of Scotland to support an application for an overdraft and debt guarantees.

Richard Gilliland, 51, senior partner in the firm of St Vincent Street, Glasgow, said he was told that the purpose of the approach to the bank was to raise funds for Livingston Football Club to build a new stand.

He also said that at no time during the preparation of the “bank funding report” did he get any information from Mr Haughey or John McGuinness, another Livingston backer.

The charge against Keane alleges that he pretended there was a partnership between himself, Mr Haughey and Mr McGuiness when Mr Haughey knew nothing of the arrangement and Mr McGuinness’s involvement had been secured by false pretences.

It is claimed that Keane persuaded Mr Haughey to sign papers without reading them and that Mr McGuinness was persuaded to sign up because he trusted Mr Haughey’s business judgement.

Mr McGuinness was also persuaded to put up £1.75m from life assurance policies in security and lost all his assets when the Royal Bank of Scotland later came after their loan of £2,336,039.

Keane is also accused of stealing a share certificate from Mr Haughey’s firm – City Refrigeration Holdings UK Ltd – and conning the Royal Bank into accepting it as security.

The trial heard that another member of Livingston Football Club’s board was Dr Tony Kinder, a senior lecturer in business studies at Edinburgh University, who took up a non-executive and non-paid seat because he was a councillor in West Lothian and the local authority wanted some links with the expanding football club which had risen from the ashes of Meadowbank Thistle.

Dr Kinder, 60, said during his time as a director he heard of the partnership of Keane, Haughey and McGuinness investing in the football club.

He also said Mr Haughey spoke of himself as a part owner – even though advocate depute Alastair Brown, prosecuting, pointed out that Mr Haughey had never owned any shares, according to records lodged with Companies House.

“Very responsible people heard Willie indicate that he, personally, was injecting money into the football club, the purpose of which was to build two stands,” said Dr Kinder.

He said it didn’t matter to him where the money was coming from, “as long as it was legal.”

He said he felt he had all the financial information he needed about the club, although sometimes there were “hiccups” in obtaining it.

When asked about Mr McGuinness’s involvement, he said: “I would say John had a great interest in football and a great trust in Dominic and Willie and therefore really took the lead from them and their partnership together in terms of business decision-taking.

“John wasn’t a businessman. He had some money he wanted to invest in football and sometimes you had to struggle to get his attention on the business side of the football club.”

The trial heard that Mr Haughey’s involvement with Livingston began to tail off.

Dr Kinder was asked if the “tailing off” coincided with disagreements between Keane and Mr Haughey.

He replied that there were a number of fall-outs, some over minor matters and others more serious.

“There was a serious strategic difference over building or not building a youth academy, but they patched it up and we moved on from that,” he said.

Dr Kinder continued: “There were disagreements and eventually these disagreements built up and William Haughey withdrew from the business side of the club, although not completely.”

He also agreed with solicitor advocate Maurice Smyth, defending Keane, that Keane worked 24/7 for the good of Livingston.

“Dominic could not have worked harder,” Dr Kinder told the trial.

He said Keane and Mr Haughey spoke of “the vision” and “the Celtic standard”.

“They wanted things to be as they were at Celtic,” he said.