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WHEN the SPFL called in the lawyers last week for the fifth set in their statement tennis with Dave King, it was an indication squeaky bum time had come bouncing down Hampden’s sixth floor.

Even by Scottish football’s bizarre standards, this public slanging match over Murdoch MacLennan’s links with Celtic has been a curious affair and it remains to be seen if there will be a winner. Or, more importantly, a loser.

The very fact solicitors were required to respond to another exocet fired at them from King’s Johannesburg bunker merely added to the whiff of danger that now surrounds this meltdown in relations between the league and one of its biggest clubs. It created a feeling we may be one wrong move from a full-blown crisis. And a potential rolling of heads.

On the same day this newspaper attempted to carry out a straw poll of opinions from top-flight clubs. That not one chose to make a public comment is another sign of the nervousness around the entire MacLennan issue.

They may be happy to sit back and watch the ball fizzing across the net but not one of them feels like getting in its path, which is a great pity as this is an issue that affects every one of them.

It is now surely time for someone to do something more than just fire up the office laptop and press the button on another public rebuke or insinuation.

If King feels strongly enough to fight this out in public – and the Rangers chairman does have a point in terms of proper governance – why has he not formalised his grievance or taken his complaint directly to the SPFL boardroom or chief executive Neil Doncaster?

King may well have a sound, legitimate reason for questioning how MacLennan was able to take a seat as non-executive chairman of a company part owned by Dermot Desmond and Denis O’Brien but he undermines the seriousness of the situation by engaging in grandstanding and playing to the gallery.

Also, by calling for transparency and good corporate governance he might as well have added “yours pot, signed kettle.”

If the SPFL feel their name or that of MacLennan or even Doncaster has been unfairly tarnished by King’s actions and accusations then pull him up for it.

Demand he cease or throw the book at him on a charge of disrepute or whatever else is in your power. Because in terms of perception their lack of action points to a guilty conscience.

That’s not to say MacLennan has been nobbled by Celtic’s biggest shareholder and his long-term business ally.

Nor is it confirmation for the conspiracy theorists convinced Celtic have grabbed the game in this country by the short and curlies.

It also opens the gates to a toxic swamp of whataboutery – especially given the roles Campbell Ogilvie and Gordon Smith once held within the SFA. The truth of the matter is MacLennan’s CV and background in media would most probably have had him on the shortlist for a role at a company like INM whether he was head of the table at the SPFL or not. But that’s not the point either. The point is MacLennan is being paid to act in the best interests of the Scottish game so when he was first invited on to INM’s board the onus was on him to raise a flag inside Hampden and to point out a possible conflict of interests.

Whether there was or wasn’t should then have become a matter for others to determine. It was most certainly not up to him to decide there was none.

It is unimaginable a man of MacLennan’s experience agreed to take on this role without carrying out his own due diligence on the structure of the company and its shareholding.

It would have taken him 30 seconds on Google to discover Desmond – as the company’s second largest shareholder – also has the right to appoint his own nominee to the INM board. That’s all that would have been required for MacLennan to raise the issue internally with Doncaster. If for no other reason than to keep himself right.

If he did not do this MacLennan has a case to answer. But if such a conversation did take place it is Doncaster who is left with his chin exposed for failing to share it with the rest of the class.

King is absolutely adamant no such disclosure was made to Rangers managing director Stewart Robertson who also sits on the SPFL board.

The SPFL had the opportunity to refute this when they called in the lawyers. That they chose not to appears to lend weight to King’s position and makes the league look highly disingenuous for previously insisting Robertson was in possession of all the relevant facts surrounding MacLennan’s appointment as far back as January. It seems obvious he was not.

So Rangers have every right to examine this whole process especially as, according to the company’s accounts, the man MacLennan succeeded as non-executive chairman at INM was taking home a basic salary before bonuses of 165,000 euros a year.

Which presents another huge problem in terms of perception as, if it were ever to come to the crunch, legitimate questions would almost certainly be asked about where his loyalties lie.

This entire issue has been horribly mishandled from the outset. And it will take more than just a bunch of statements to clean up the mess it has left behind.