RST Demands Special Treatment From SPFL

The Sevco Supporters Trust has demanded, and been given, a meeting with the SPFL to discuss why their club is being picked on.

Awww diddums …

The poor downtrodden supporters organisation, which frequently embarrasses the NewCo, has scaled the heights of self-important twattery before, but this is a different scenario entirely, as this time the SPFL has kowtowed to them and granted them a hearing.

This is part of the continuing blowback from the club’s ridiculous decision to pander to the lowest common denominator amongst its support by banning the BBC’s Chris McLaughlin from the ground, which has led to the BBC itself boycotting the stadium in support of their employee.

(But that Jim Spence had been given the same support we might not be here, but that’s another story and for another time.)

All of this stems from McLaughlin tweeting a story about the match observer noting sectarian singing at the Sevco – Hibs Petrofac Cup match at the end of last month … a story that was factual in every sense, and which has not been contradicted one iota by those who are squealing like pigs about it.

In a typically fevered RST statement they claim to want assurances that their fans, and their club, will be treated “like every other” in the land.

I have some advice for them; be careful what you wish for.

In the last three years, the Ibrox operation has been allowed to skip “due process” in being granted membership of the league; it has received advances in TV money and prize money it hadn’t yet earned so it could keep the lights on; it has been allowed to appoint former criminals to its board of directors (on at least two occasions); it has not had to give undertakings on financial disclosure; it was given a moratorium on signing players and “registered” eight of them; it has been allowed to claim the history of a dead club and much more besides.

If the denizens of Ibrox had been treated “like every other club” they would have been consigned to non-existence before the OldCo had even filed for its bankruptcy paperwork.

What this wailing and bitching is really about, of course, is that it serves as a convenient smokescreen to deflect attention from a section of its support that is, to quote Ian Archer, “a permanent embarrassment and an occasional disgrace.”

Instead of criticising and helping remove this element, the RST wails about shoddy journalism and an official who spoke to one of the hacks.

The SPFL admits that there is no specific guideline against its people doing this, and we all know it’s not the first time it has happened.

What the Sevco Trust really wants, whatever it might say to the contrary, is the very thing it claims to abhor.

It wants special treatment.

It wants favouritism.

It wants the governing bodies and the press to look the other way as its supporters (and let’s not kid ourselves, its directors too) act like the worst sort of gutter rats.

It needs these things because the club is becoming increasingly irrelevant outside Scottish football, outside the top flight, scrabbling for its very survival.

And the SPFL has tonight granted them exactly that.

For the record;

Did some of their fans engage in sectarian singing?

Hell yes, they did.

Were some even arrested for it?

Yes, as is a documented fact.

Were the specifics of McLaughlin’s texts correct and factual?

They most certainly were.

Was what he had to say particularly newsworthy?

What, that a club that thinks of itself as the second biggest in the land has followers who are absolute muppets, who broke the law, who engaged in sectarian behaviour inside a stadium, who shame this game every time they open their ugly mugs? Was that news?

Of course it is.

Are the RST and Sevco’s board condemning this behaviour?

Of course not.

Instead, it is “shoot the messenger.”

And they think this makes them look strong, and tough.

They are pathetically weak, seeking special treatment lest their actions have consequences.

The SPFL is just as weak for not telling them to get stuffed.