Well we might have known it would happen, eah? The SFA set out charges against Sevco today in relation to 2011-12 and said the club had until 22 May to respond; nobody thought it would take them that long and we were right. The response was almost immediate, and as poisonous and paranoid and ranting as anything Ibrox Noise could have come up with.
For openers, it claims that the SFA cleared them on the central charge before drumming up a brand new set of charges. As we don’t really know what passed between the club and the governing body we can’t interpret that except as Sevco saying “we were innocent, you found us innocent and now you’re charging us anyway”.
Do I believe it? I believe the SFA tried to ride the middle of the road, and they’re probably still trying to. The charges against Sevco appear to be quite serious, but I wouldn’t be shocked if they turned out to be slap on the wrist stuff … UEFA’s response is what will matter and we’ll find out in due course exactly what that will be. Celtic’s response will also be interesting, but don’t anticipate anything from our club until the case itself has concluded.
That’s the professional way for us to handle it.
Sevco has no interest in doing things the professional way. Their statement is another incontinent rant which seeks to play the victim card and allege conspiracies against them. They also have the brass neck to accuse the SFA of squandering resources on the investigation; they sound more and more like mobsters standing on the courthouse steps before a trial and screaming about persecution and telling the press “why don’t they go after real criminals?”
Personally speaking, I don’t believe Sevco should be getting charged with anything. Sevco didn’t do this. If that was their reasoning, I’d support them on it. I would support them 100% of the way. Rangers was the club that committed these offences.
But the Survival Lie ties everyone involved together rather nicely.
As long as it is propagated there will continue to be consequences for it.
What’s interesting here, but not surprising in the least, is that Sevco’s board is trying to wash its hands of any wrongdoing. But their criminal chairman was on the Ibrox board that lied to the SFA and UEFA in the first place. Paul Murray was on that board too. Alastair Johnson, who the SFA has up until now refused to grant “fit and proper” criteria to was there as well and he wants to be on the board at the current time. It’s not clear how these charges affect that.
The fact is, nothing has really changed in the way boards at Ibrox behave, as this season’s smoke and mirrors routine with the European license definitively proves. They still refuse to play with a straight bat. They still refuse to recognise that the rules are for everyone and not just those who play their football somewhere else. And as usual, any attempt to make them adhere to those rules is dressed in the rags of “anti-Rangers hatred.”
How long will they continue to get away with that bullshit argument?
This was never about them in the first place, of course. It’s about – and it continues to be about – the way the SFA behaves in administrating our game and seeing that the rules apply equally to everyone; the “level playing field” I’ve written about before.
But to the goons who run Ibrox right now this is always tracking back to the same old stuff, to the same old nonsense, the Unseen Hand doing its evil work.
Their rant closes off with this:
“It seems that Scottish Football is, once again, being directed by individuals intent on harming the Scottish game, Rangers Football Club and its supporters by pursuing a course that has no sensible purpose or reasonable prospect of success …”
Notice that they never name these “individuals”. Notice that in all their talk of the game being harmed they never acknowledge that all this started and stops with their own scandalous, corrupt behaviour. Instead this is more of the same old wailing, the same embrace of victimhood, the same self-pity, the same self-regard.
Those who say Scottish football needs this are barking.
Scottish football needs to be shot of it once and for all.