Barmy Sevco Fan Site Says Clubs Would Rather Lose Money Than Sell Them Players.

Oh man oh man.

Do you think there is a more delusional support anywhere in British football – strike that; world football – than the crazies over at the Ibrox NewCo?

Their supporters really are something.

Yesterday Ibrox Noise, our favourite website, rambling home of the truly deranged, issued a fresh allegation, this one directed at just about every club in the land.

Broken down, what they are saying is simple; other clubs hate them more than they care about their own wellbeing.

They hate Sevco so much that they are willing to screw that club every which way it can.

Even if that means taking a financial loss.

There is no logic to this nonsense, but I am convinced that they do in fact believe it, as any psychopath believes that his or her own suffering is all that counts in the world. They are suffering at the moment, that much is clear.

Their argument is based around their failure to sign certain players during the last two windows.

They’ve made some rather spurious claims here, so I think in its in our interests to look at exactly what they are saying and whether or not it is true.

It’s also time to ask some questions about the overall conduct and mentality of their support these last few years.

Because it really takes your breath away at times.

What Happened To “No-One Likes Us, We Don’t Care”?

Do you remember when the Ibrox support was so full of itself that they didn’t used to care what the rest of the world thought about them? Do you remember when they sang loudly and proudly about how hated they were? They used to revel in it.

Now they moan about it. Constantly. Endlessly. And at the same time as they do, they label those of us they are moaning about as obsessed because we tell them to shut it and join the real world instead of wrapping themselves in fantasy and delusion.

See, they believe that Celtic fans pioneered conspiracy theories.

But we didn’t have theories, we alleged rule breaking and cheating when it became obvious that rule breaking and cheating had actually taken place. When Rangers was spending money under guys like Advocaat we were well aware of our own failings and acknowledged them.

Dunfermline might have decided to not to show for the last day of that notorious campaign, and Hibs might not have ventured up the park on Black Sunday, but nobody will ever convince me that these things mattered to the outcome.

In both of those seasons we had chances to put the matter to bed and we flubbed them.

Our failings were our own.

Did their cheating factor into the overall result? Yes.

But Celtic fans would be calling them cheats even if we had won those titles. What these muppets fail to understand is that their club were cheats the whole time; the fact we won some of the titles in the EBT years doesn’t change what was going on elsewhere. If you caught someone pulling an ace out of their jacket whilst playing poker you wouldn’t give them a pass if you checked your own cards and found out you were winning regardless; a cheat is a cheat is a cheat.

Their own allegations are not only baseless, they are preposterous.

Scottish football didn’t destroy Rangers; the club and its leaders were perfectly capable of doing that job on their own. HMRC wanted paid back the money they were owed; what a novel concept that is. It’s clear none of these morons has ever had to file a tax-return by a due date. Banks which had given them credit wanted some guarantee that they could pay back huge loans and meet the terms of an expensive overdraft. My God, in what world is that not the way things are done?

The conspiracy wasn’t just about “keeping Rangers down” of course – Rangers was in a shallow grave, the only thing “keeping them down” was gravity and some topsoil – it was also about boosting Celtic. So, of course, HRMC and the banks were conspiring along with us. Scottish football was simultaneously weakening them and strengthening us. At the same time, we had dodgy land deals, City Council cover-ups, UEFA, the EU. Hell … even the Queen’s Jubilee and the Commonwealth Games were timed, to perfection, so that we reaped the benefits … their own dear Maj, the one who’s picture hangs up on their dressing room wall.

God man, you can’t trust anyone these days.

And in spite of the obvious One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest level lunacy of all this – I once compared them to Charlie Cheswick and their screaming to his own anguished plea for his cigarettes – they persist in broadcasting these nutty ideas to the world.

Even as they scream “I want something done! I want something done!” they are stoking the fires of even more madness, with Gersnet last night slamming the BBC for not talking to them, although many within the walls of Ibrox openly and plainly hate that organisation.

The culmination of this mind-set is in articles like today, when they allege various transfer deals have been done – or not – to inflict suffering on them.

Let’s take a look at the first of them.

Kenny McLean And Aberdeen’s “Failure” To Sell Him To Sevco.

The article starts with a specious claim that Aberdeen got less money from the sale of Kenny McLean to England than they would have if they’d sold him to the Ibrox basket case instead.

This claim bears not the remotest scrutiny, because their club never submitted an offer to Pittodrie for the player. I mean, this is where the whole article falls on its arse and dies twitching in the gutter. Because £200,000 – which the Dons got for their man – was £200,000 more than Sevco ever put down on the table or was ever likely to.

Their club arrogantly, and stupidly, assumed that McLean would wait around for them to make him a pre-contract offer.

To the best of public knowledge, they didn’t even manage to do that.

To the well informed there’s a different story; the player was keeping his options opened and just didn’t fancy a move to Ibrox.

But at no point did Aberdeen decide to snub a bid from them because they don’t happen to like Sevco very much. To suggest otherwise is basically to lie. If Sevco fans are angry that McLean – who most of them had tipped to wind up at their club – has gone somewhere else, then they should be pointing that anger where it belongs; their own director of football, their own stand-in manager, their own board and their own dodgy chairman.

It was their incompetence and failure to put together a deal he and his club found acceptable which has ended in the player signing for Norwich.

Aberdeen actually did well to pocket £200,000.

The guy was in the last six months of his contract and could have hung out at Pittodrie until it was up and left for nothing. As it happens, he will hang out at Pittodrie for the next six months, because part of the deal is that he’s been loaned back to the club until the summer.

Overall this looks like bloody good business for the Dons.

No wonder Sevco fans are pig sick by it.

Scott Allan And A Fascinating Re-Write Of History

These barmy sods actually said that the move to Celtic has “ruined” Scott Allan’s career. What utter nonsense. For openers, he’s made good money and he’s now back playing regularly in Dundee’s first team. The kid himself – and he’s only 26 – says he has absolutely no regrets about the decision he took. Not that there was much of one to make.

Sevco behaved deplorably in the case of Scott Allan.

They strung that move out exactly the way they’re attempting to string out the deal for Hamilton’s Greg Docherty, doing their business via a compliant media until Hibs point blank told them to put up or shut up.

When Sevco made further efforts to unsettle Allan Hibs made it plain that they would not sell the player to the club for any price.

Had Sevco behaved properly, had they acted at all professionally, or even just scrupulously, there is no doubt in my mind that Scott Allan would be their player right now.

The article says Hibs refused to sell to a “rival” and then sold him to Celtic, as if this was somehow a breach of their word. What Hibs said is that they would not sell to them … and Celtic was not a rival to Hibs or Hibs to us by any conceivable standard; we were on top of the Premier League and they were going head to head with Sevco for the Championship … it takes someone absolutely thick not to recognise what Hibs concern was or why it didn’t apply to us.

The fee we eventually paid – which some estimate at around £300,000 – was more than Sevco offered at any point in the proceedings.

That, alone, would have swung it.

And yes, I do believe Hibs took a certain pleasure in selling him to us … but Sevco only have themselves to blame for that due to the shocking way they tried to do business.

Jamie Walker And The Move That Never, Ever, Ever Was

Sevco’s conduct over Scott Allan was mirrored almost exactly in what they did with Jamie Walker, and that’s why some have concluded that there is virtually no chance of them agreeing terms with Hamilton over Greg Docherty.

The MO is depressingly familiar; they made an outrageously low offer with spectacularly bad payment terms, Hearts rejected it and then the media pressure started.

One of the most prominent stories was from Jim Jeffries who was allowed to spout threatening nonsense about how his former club would “regret it” if they did not agree to sell the player to the Ibrox club. This was disgraceful, but the media lapped up every word.

The consensus on Walker was that he, like McLean, was so desperate to go to Ibrox that he would wait until this window to open talks about a pre-contract deal. The sheer arrogance of this took no account as to what the player himself might fancy doing. Hearts held out, kept him for another couple of months and have no got £300,000 for a guy who could have walked away for free but chose not to. Again, this has upset the Sevconuts.

But in truth, £300,000 upfront is more than they offered Hearts at any point.

Stories of £500,000 bids paid no heed to the insulting terms of the transfer, wherein Hearts stood to get peanuts up front and the rest in staggered instalments depending on games played and other such assorted nonsense. The player was unsettled by all this talk, which was part of the plan, but wise heads around him asked that he consider Sevco’s behaviour before deciding if he wanted to sign for them.

“I don’t want to go into too much detail – but, if I was Jamie, I’d be a little bit disappointed that a lot of the promises that were made to him weren’t kept. And not from our club,” Levein said at the time. A lot of young kids might have ignored such advice.

Jamie Walker listened though.

And that was clearly a determining factor for the kid.

He didn’t wait around for them to get their act together and treat him with respect.

The chance came to move to England and he grabbed it.

Jordan Jones, Gary MacKay Steven And Lewis Morgan: Desperate Clutching At Straws.

In the case of these three wingers, the site’s bonkers writer has tried to draw some ludicrous equivalence, saying that they were treated disrespectfully whereas clubs rolled over for Celtic. But the truth is a little bit different, as most rational people know.

First, Jordan Jones is under contract at Kilmarnock and they have no need to worry about losing him early. Sevco and its board, and the media which pushes their nonsense, have banged on so much about what they have to spend (we are the ones who’ve pointed out that these stories are largely rubbish) that it’s no wonder some clubs take them on their word.

Kilmarnock were fully entitled to name their price for Jones. And they too didn’t like the terms of what they were offered. Sevco appears to know this one is a bust, although Ian McCall has swung the hammer heavily on their behalf.

The article states that Celtic offered £250,000 for Gary Mackay Steven and “got him.”

True, but it omits several important details. We had actually signed GMS on a pre-contract agreement; Dundee Utd would have got exactly zero for him in that deal, but we offered them a nominal sum to take him to Celtic Park immediately, which they were grateful for.

And Lewis Morgan? He was another player approaching the end of his deal, and once again Sevco believed that they could grab him on a free but their offer didn’t come up to snuff. Celtic could have taken him on freedom of contract, and St Mirren would have got the sum total of nil. Instead, they actually got the best of both worlds; they kept the player for the duration of his deal and netted a small windfall at the same time.

In both those cases, Celtic acted with genuine class and respect for the teams we were doing business with.

And as with the Allan case, that made a difference.

This Puerile Whining Is Why They Are So Openly Mocked

Sevco fans have become hysterical children, crying at the slightest negative story.

They are the ones who demand the press give them facts, but whenever those muppets do their job and report on what’s going on at the club they go off the deep end. Their supporters were absolutely raging when the first media reports about what Craig Whyte was up to aired; the BBC told them the guy was a crook. They picketed the BBC. I mean, come on.

They blame everything that happens over there on someone else. When the Warburton saga ended so ignominiously it had to have been all his fault. When Pedro crashed and burned he was a joke for ever having taken the job, and they ignored that many of us had said that from the hour of his appointment. No real scrutiny was done of their own directors and the roles they played in it, far less that of their absentee chairman Dodgy Dave King.

No idea they hold is more insidious and dangerous than this notion that all of Scottish football hates them, and this crazy idea that teams would rather lose money than sell them players is a prime example of that madness.

The simple truth is that their club is an unprofessional and underhanded shambles.

They conduct their business via the press to save a few quid and in the last few months that strategy has blown up in their face like never before. It is apparent in the fact that Louis Moult, Lewis Morgan, Kenny McLean and Jamie Walker all chose other clubs. It is apparent in the fact that the Jamie Murphy transfer descended into such farce. It is apparent in the collapse of the deal to bring Derek McInnes from Aberdeen and the subsequent temporary contract they handed to Graeme Murty.

That club is a mess because the people who run it are a mess.

There doesn’t have to be an outside conspiracy to destabilise them.

They are perfectly capable of blowing their own feet off, without needing help from anyone else.