I have a degree in media and communications. I also have a background in political activism. I know when the best time to release good news is. You try to do it when it will dominate one of the two primary news cycles, the morning one or the drive time early evening slot. The best time is around 4:00pm, before the stock markets close and when the newsrooms are preparing their tea-time slots. Drop good news in there and watch it take off.
Celtic appointed Brendan Rodgers at a little after 4pm, on the day before the Scottish Cup Final between Hibs and Sevco. We knew two things; it would grab the headlines that night and be on the back pages of every paper the following day. The cup final would not get a look in. We had gone box office and that was the story of the weekend. It was a beautiful piece of PR, the sort that must have had everyone at Ibrox punching the wall.
McLeish was announced as Scotland boss last night, or rather the news that he was to be appointed leaked.
Deliberately.
The official declaration was this morning, not an hour ago, but the news media were all told 14 hours ago and they put the story out there where it generated absolutely no buzz. It was not the way a credible organisation would have released major news.
They dropped it into a news cycle that was already dominated by the Europa League tie at Celtic Park. They put it out too late to be the headline story. They dropped it when they knew a big chunk of the Scottish football audience would be focussed elsewhere … and without a press conference, without anyone on hand to offer analysis, it died on its arse.
Which any good PR person would have told them.
As I’m sure PR professionals at Hampden did tell them.
See, you would swear that they wanted that announcement out there where it would generate no heat, where people would have a chance to absorb it and where the media would have a morning to spin it. The SFA knows this is not news that will be greeted with raptures.
They released it quietly, like a particularly noxious fart at a cocktail party.
And it stinks. It reeks.
They even used the anonymity of the crowd to drop it and move off on the opposite direction from the fume, getting it done before they have a CEO to publicly take the flak. Everyone involved knows this will be received like a turd in the punch bowl.
They don’t care.
This SFA is even more contemptuous of the fans than when Regan was in charge.
There is nothing positive to say about this appointment. There are no positives to find in it. It is a retrograde backward step, appointing a guy who was up to his balls in the biggest corruption scandal in British football history. His last job was in Egypt; the last decade of his career is a catalogue of failure. And I still wonder if this is not an audition for the Sevco job, at the rest of Scottish football’s expense. It is disgraceful. It is indefensible.
The SFA has graduated beyond farce. This is the kind of appointment that leaves you in no doubt as to the “quality” on their board or the necessity for cleaning house once and for all. These people are laughing at us, there is no other way to put it, and last night they used our club’s European tie as a cover to drop a diabolical news story which otherwise would have had the complete attention – and thereby scorn – of the football public.
These people have neither an ounce of shame or the first clue how to move our game forward. This should not be forgotten, or forgiven, by those of us who take this sport seriously and wish the best for it. It is an outrage, piled on top of previous outrages.
Other associations chase corruption, and try to pull it out at the roots. The SFA gives those involved in it jobs and helps water the garden for the next set of blossoming scandals. And the press pours on the manure, to help them grow.
Shame on everyone involved in this.
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