Stewart Milne today delivered a shocking blow to Scottish football and the principle of sporting integrity.
In doing so, he’s hung a big target around his own club’s neck.
He is in favour of the game “moving on.” Aberdeen is not going to back Celtic’s campaign for justice.
So there you have it. One of the clubs we had a reasonable belief would be on our side now isn’t. If Lawwell is trying to build a coalition then he’s failing so far, because I would have put money on the Pittodrie club being fully prepared to go the mile with us.
This is spineless from Aberdeen, and a ghastly public posture from them.
Lawwell better get a grip and up his game. If he’s not coalition building (and if he is, dreadful start) then he’s moving to the SFA board in an effort to cover his own backside … and there will be dire consequences if Celtic is manoeuvring so as to do nothing.
Aberdeen clearly has no sense at all of self preservation. Milne wants these matters put in the rear view mirror; he says he doesn’t want this to dominate the next five years or more in the Scottish game. Well he just guaranteed that it will.
Which part of this are people not understanding? Which part of it are they failing to grasp?
There’s no “moving on” until these issues are settled.
There is no “getting past it” until the matters at hand are dealt with and the clubs take some responsibility.
None of that will happen unless justice is done.
Milne is pissing in the face of his own fans.
Aberdeen supporters are furious about this stuff, it’s now up to them to decide how they want to push their club in the right direction. Milne clearly believes they won’t be a problem; he has their money for another season, after all.
Chairmen are betting that the feel-good factor of another campaign about to start is all it will take.
I’ve said it before on this page, but it clearly needs repeating; this is how the entire season will be defined. The whole of the 2017-18 campaign will be about this issue. Fans will raise it time and time and time and time again. They will not let up.
Milne’s comments are a disgrace, and they are suicidaly dangerous for Aberdeen.
Even if his fans don’t take serious umbrage at them he’s rolled over. He’s accepted cheating as something we can just move past without those guilty paying the consequences. And I don’t have to tell Aberdeen fans or those of any other club what that means, and who benefits, and what the likely outcome will be. The most unscrupulous people in the history of Scottish football are running the club at Ibrox right now. To “catch Celtic” they have to overhaul Milne’s club first.
They will stop at nothing.
And he will let them do whatever they please.
This matter was never just about title stripping.
It’s about how we got here, how the game here is run and who runs it.
It was about making sure that everyone was playing on a level field. If we’re not then the most ruthless, those prepared to do anything, will win and win big.
That’s not professional sport. The rules exist to explicitly prevent that, because otherwise this is nothing but theatre.
It’s “professional” wrestling with a round ball, a spectacle to be admired but don’t take it too seriously.
In wanting to “move on” Aberdeen’s chairman is saying he wants none of the responsibility for dealing with any of it. He is allowing corruption and the poisoning of our national game to go unchallenged, and thus giving it the seeds to grow.
He wants clubs to “get together” and concentrate on the future.
But that’s impossible to do when you are ignoring the sins of the past. They will always be there, haunting every step forward. The anger over this won’t last five years. It’ll last fifty. It’ll go on and on and on until these issues are faced, dealt with and resolved.
“Lessons have been learned,” he says.
Really?
When Sevco is run by a criminal who didn’t meet fit and proper person criteria, when the SFA is too gutless to challenge them on even pitch invasions and racist abuse? When they are spending money they’ve not got and pissing all over UEFA regulations? When ten years of cheating and fraud at the tax payer and football’s expense is now being celebrated over there because they listen to garbage like this and don’t see anyone with the balls to challenge it?
Looks a lot like how it was before to me.
Pray tell, what “lessons” have been learned?
I’ll make a prediction; whatever the shambles over at Ibrox, before too long Sevco will be second in Scotland with Aberdeen’s current manager at the helm and where their club goes from there, with fans who will understand quite well that the seeds of that were sown with this craven surrender … well, that’s something Milne will have to answer to. Like our political class, these people are so far removed from the mood in the stands that it’s breath-taking.
So yeah, if this is the prevailing view then Milne can get the clubs “together” and move in whatever direction he likes.
Hell mend any supporter who goes along with it.
The game here is rigged.
Aberdeen’s chairman just said so, and he’s happy to live with it.
If it stays that way, how happy are you paying to watch it?