This is a subject I don’t like getting into.
I don’t like it at all.
It makes my skin crawl to write about this in any form whatsoever. It’s an insult to the victims for a start, people the average Sevconut who obsesses over this issue cares not one bit about. More than that, it just seems a completely inappropriate thing to be writing about on a football blog.
Yet it has to be done, because a certain warped section of the Sevco support is attempting to use this issue in the title stripping argument. Indeed, their scummy shareholders organisation has made threats to “expose” it should other clubs push for a new inquiry.
So let’s do it.
Let’s nail this once and for all.
I’m going to be blunt. That’s the only way to handle this kind of thing, to drive right over it in a tank. There’s no soft-soaping, no stepping lightly, no sugar-coating the issue. Just because I haven’t written about this on a football blog before doesn’t mean I haven’t covered it. In fact, I’ve written about historic abuse cases extensively, over on my politics blog. I’m not afraid of this discussion; I just don’t think it has anything to do with football.
It’s an issue that has happened in football, it’s not about football.
Abuse cases have appeared in every social sphere, from politics to the public services. You can find abusers in the highest echelons of society; in fact, they are more common there than people want to think. Sevco fans who book up on this issue do a hell of a lot of ignoring evidence and fact.
To use but one example, if, as they put it, Celtic “knew” what was going on in the Boys Club cases then it makes it awfully hard for them to argue that their royal idols weren’t aware of what was going on with Saville, Paul Kidd and a host of others.
Want me to get deep on this?
Not here, but they should be careful who they point their grubby fingers at.
This issue is widespread. It has gone on at their own club too, and there are stories in the public domain and swirling around out there in private which demonstrate that all too well.
Some of those matters will end up in the province of the courts.
Which is where they belong.
They are a disgrace for trivialising this.
They have no shame.
To attempt to use it as a football weapon does more than trivialise it. It shames them. It disgraces those who do it. If they cared at all they would be lobbying for changes in the law to see that justice is done in all these cases. Because if there’s one thing I’m in favour of here it’s seeing exactly that, and it would be served well by making it a criminal offence to with-hold evidence of such things or to fail to report them to the proper authorities.
But they have no interest in the law, or in justice.
They don’t even want the investigations they are calling for, as they’ve admitted time and time again. Look at their forums and the explosion of anger on them whenever their own club is mentioned in relation to this; it’s whatabouttery like you’ve never seen in your life. The fury is incredible. They don’t want a searching examination, because of what it might turn up. They want it directed at one club, one place, despite mounting evidence that this is a hell of a lot bigger than people were aware.
This is an anti-Celtic issue to them.
That means it’s not about justice at all.
It’s about point scoring. It’s about feeling superior. It’s about slander and smear.
You can tell that about the individuals they target as well; Jock Stein is a particular favourite, and I understand why; he’s not alive to defend himself. There are others, some still alive, who’s names never come up in their spewing over this … because those people are quite capable of taking the issue through the courts if these gutless wonders were to dare.
On top of that, they attack the institution of Celtic itself. Which to me is perfectly fine, if that helps them to sleep at night. This is no different (although sicker) than their ridiculous campaigns over state aid and corruption … it’s going exactly nowhere.
For the utterly, abysmally, thick amongst them I’ll explain just why that’s the case; taken on a purely legal level they don’t have a leg to stand on.
For openers, this didn’t happen inside Celtic.
The Boys Club is a separate organisation. They might not make the distinction but the law does. That’s just one of many facets of this that these diseased minds don’t seem to want to grasp. Even if everything they said was true, if every single allegation they made could be proved, the impact on Celtic would be precisely nil. People would be shamed and disgraced, but they’d deserve to be. Some might even go to jail, but they’d deserve that too. Celtic wouldn’t be impacted on it either way.
Sevco fans want sporting sanctions for things they allege; are you kidding me or what?
Sporting sanctions?
The very act of asking for it is pissing all over the victims.
That’s how seriously they take the issue at hand.
Besides, precisely what effect has any of this had on football scores?
True or false, cover up or not, exactly where does it fit into the football rulebook? Even if their darkest fantasies, the ones that allow them to believe that Celtic has been a cesspit of evil for generations, had some basis in reality instead of being the demented imaginings of sick individuals that had no impact whatsoever on the outcome of a single match. All it would boil down to is a big bucket of shit for them to throw.
Our campaign against their club(s) is predicated on two things; first is that they paid their players with the proceeds of a tax fraud. In doing so they gained a sporting advantage over other teams. It would have been the same if they’d paid them from the proceeds of a heist. The second is that in order to do this they concealed documents from the governing bodies which rendered the registrations of dozens of players, over a decade, null and void.
These are football matters.
These happened inside football.
These were directly related to results and performances and the securing of major honours.
The list of regulations which were violated is clear-cut.
The crimes against the sport are a simple fact.
Furthermore, many of those issues have been explored in a courtroom and the guilt of the club is not in the slightest doubt. The highest court has judged them guilty. All that remains is for the football authorities to get off their backsides and react to that verdict.
I need a shower having covered this matter. I really do.
The only good thing I can say about it is that I only had to cover it once. That they would even dare raise the issue in the context of this reveals them for the gutter scum that they are, and it betrays the fear of what a concerted campaign by the fans of other clubs might do.
The threat itself, to “expose” this reeks of madness and weakness.
If this is all they’ve got then they’ve got absolutely nothing. Devoid of any defence, they’ve resorted to plumbing the sewer. In my opinion these are evil people, capable of anything, but we should never be afraid to call them out on shit like this.
A shareholders organisation which represents itself in such vile fashion … my God.
And to think some of our hacks want to give these people seats on the board.