Aaah Sevco.
You’ve got to hand it to them, they can make your day at times.
This morning, the official Sevco website has sent its best wishes and a happy birthday to the 32 year old Filip Sebo, a player who never actually made an appearance for their club but who they’ve chosen to embrace as part of their continuation of the Survival Myth charade.
This one is a peach because it contains all the elements of irony and their official newsroom published it apparently without giving any thought to it.
Filip Sebo was one of the worst signings in the history of Scottish football; indeed whenever a striker misses an easy chance in a match here it’s not uncommon to hear the chant of “Seeeebo … Seeeebo …” from the opposing supporters. He is widely derided and mocked and so is the era to which he belongs; Rangers’ flirtation with managerial guru Paul LeGuen, who’s signings were an extraordinary mix of the mad, the bad and the truly stinking.
Graham Spiers wrote the definitive book about the Frenchman’s time at Ibrox, and in it he devoted an entire chapter to Austria Vienna, the team to which LeGuen returned to make three signings. In that book he charts how, having sold two players to the club, the Austrians realised that Rangers would literally buy anyone who’d been hyped enough.
Which is where our friends in the Scottish press came in.
Austria Vienna got their first offer for the player, from Glasgow, in late July. When they twigged that this was a club with more money than sense they rejected the first bid, although club insiders knew even that was grossly over value, giving them a 50% return on the player who had only scored 5 goals in 32 matches for them.
Yet Markus Kraetschmer, their financial controller, briefed the Scottish press that Sebo was a goal-scorer par excellence … and they duly reported that.
Rangers made a second bid, taking their offer to over £1 million.
Kraetschmer refused it shortly thereafter. That was crazy money for Sebo and when he was called to a board meeting to account for knocking it back the financial controller told his fellow club officials “we can get them to pay more.”
None believed him until Rangers offered £1.5 million.
At that point Austria Vienna’s board took a calculated risk and slapped the club down with a “hands off” warning and said the player wasn’t for sale. They knew this was blue sky money and had been ready to accept it, but Kraetschmer convinced them to take one more shot.
He asked for £2 million, and told the Scottish press the player was worth it.
This led to The Daily Record and other newspapers writing the most absurd garbage about this virtual unknown and how Glasgow would be his next home, because “David Murray always gets his man.” Which was music to Austrian ears.
The clubs eventually split the difference and settled on a fee of £1.8 million.
For over a year the media in Scotland talked up Sebo’s skills and waited for him to pop. It never happened.
Spiers said in his book that Kraetschmer had done such a great number on Rangers that he ended up getting “slapped on the back in every bar in Vienna.”
Nothing more clearly illustrates the reasons that club went to the wall than this bizarre story.
Sevco’s birthday message to the player includes the information that, at 32, when some players are still in their prime, that one of Scotland’s most overhyped signings and ultimately biggest flops is plying his trade right now at a club back in his home country of Slovakia.
They’re right, of course. FC Petržalka Akademia play in Bratislava, in what’s known as 5. Liga.
Yes, that’s the fifth tier of Slovakian football ….
Which begs the question; is the continuation of the Survival Myth really worth parodying yourself and your club like this?
Because when I saw that headline today I really did take a minute to try and remember if they’d had another player called Sebo …
But of course not.
There can be only one.
I think I can speak for all Celtic fans when I extend to the player our own good wishes.
Happy Birthday Filip.
And best regards to Markus Kraetschmer too, wherever he is.