Last night, Mark Guidi, on Radio Clyde, confirmed what every Celtic fan – indeed, what every person in Scottish football – is already aware of. That the Barrie McKay story came out of Ibrox, to start a transfer auction so that they could cash in on the player during this window.
This is an interesting revelation, but by no means a surprise.
What it means is interesting though. It means people like Keith Jackson have been actively working on the club’s behalf, in order to make the sale. Is this normal? With the media in Scotland it would not be the first time, but that doesn’t make it right. This isn’t part of their job.
Journalists are supposed to bring the fans news. They aren’t supposed to invent it.
They aren’t supposed to use the back pages to deliver messages for other agencies. Jackson’s bosses are either unaware that he is acting in concert with Sevco in the spread of false information for the purposes of helping their financial position or they are well aware of it and just don’t care. Either way, it’s another brick in the wall of evidence that this guy and his paper aren’t in the news business at all and should no longer be considered that way.
Guidi was discussing the story, and he admitted that everyone knows there was no real interest from Leipzig. Nice of him to say, as the club itself has already confirmed that. He went on to say that it was clearly an attempt to drum interest up, to spark a transfer auction. He also pointed out that anyone who “did any research” would quickly come to the conclusion that McKay would not cost a club £6 million, and that Sevco would have to let him go for much less.
Guidi then said the player isn’t worth that sum anyway.
Of course, this blog and others have only been saying that, repeatedly, for over a week but it is good that someone in the MSM has broken ranks and has stopped trying to push this obviously made up story.
We know that the story was designed to entice bids, but there was a second purpose too, as we’re all equally aware.
If no bids are forthcoming and the window closes with McKay still at Ibrox it will give their PR department – and the Record, although it’s getting harder to separate the two of them – an opportunity to write about how they “fended off interest” and showed ambition by hanging onto him.
They’d already started laying the groundwork for that story yesterday when they folded the McKay lie into a story about how Kilmarnock had held on and got what they were due at the same time as Celtic is holding firm over our top stars.
But they do risk gilding the lily a wee bit here. Because McKay is in a very good position in relation to all this. With only a year until he can start talking to clubs about leaving for free he’s in a place where he can start making demands on a new deal. The more smoke the press blows up his arse the more cash he can ask for; it’s him, and not the club, who’s in a position to play hardball, to hold out for the right offer. The Record and Sevco are playing a dangerous game.
As usual they’ve not thought past getting through the next week.
But bills still have to be paid … and players kept happy.
We continue to live in interesting times.