Tonight, the media is running a very big story “out of Ibrox.” It’s the bullshit one I highlighted earlier about the club “bidding £4 million” for a 33 year old defender on £100,000 a week. You want to talk about a squirrel? This one has wings on it.
The story itself is absolute nonsense of the worst kind, a dire piece of clickbait with not even the remotest connection with reality. No sane board of directors would sanction a £4 million bid for a guy at that age unless they had money to burn and Sevco can barely afford the matches to start the fire. This story originated in Turkey. The mainstream media has been steered towards it tonight because it pushes another story to one side.
And we all know what that story is.
The media’s failure over Resolution 12 is one of the most scandalous I can remember. Right from the start, when Celtic shareholders raised this, and all the way through it ever since, they have wanted this story to go away. Because confronting it properly would have meant supporting the central tenant of the claim; that Rangers benefited from a decision that was as corrupt as any you are likely to see. The people responsible for it committed fraud. That fraud cost Celtic a potential bounty of millions of pounds. It negatively affected our shareholders.
And that was the crux of this; this issue affected shareholders and they put it front and centre and they made the first demand that something be done. Once they made it an official matter, at the club’s AGM, they created a legal requirement for our board to make enquiries into the issue. The second the club did that they knew it stank to high heaven.
The media has never wanted to call this what it is. They have never wanted to call any of what went on at Ibrox prior to 2012 what it was, but the blogs have always been willing to say it loudly and clearly; it was corruption. It was the biggest sporting scandal in the history of this island, and one of the biggest in Europe. And the culprits were not just at Ibrox.
The worst of them, in fact, were at Hampden.
I get tired saying this; this was never about Rangers or Sevco. It was, and it remains, an issue about football governance in Scotland. It is about the SFA. It continues to be. The SFA is the body that is supposed to make sure the rules are applied fairly and consistently.
When they fail in that duty they are even more to blame than the club which is in violation of them.
The real criminals here have always been those who were official SFA blazers.
But as Rangers and Sevco could not breach the rules if the SFA did not turn a blind eye, I have always argued and always will that the SFA would not have been able to turn that blind eye if the media in this country was up to the job and kept them under scrutiny. If the media had behaved honestly and in accordance with its responsibilities and historical remit the SFA would never have been able to do this and get away with it.
There would have been no European license. There would have been no Craig Whyte. EBT’s would have been uncovered sooner, titles and trophies stripped, a full inquiry launched into who knew what and when and Scottish football would be better for it and we’d have all moved on an age ago. We’re stuck in the mud because the press didn’t do its job.
And tonight it could not be clearer that they are still not interested in this story. They are still not interested in resolving these matters or supporting the inquiry that it is surely now time for. The scandals we’re living with will not go away. There will be no moving on until all this is out in the open, until all this has been tackled and put to bed.
The media is a disgrace. They are chasing squirrels tonight when the biggest sports story in UK history is begging to be told properly. A football club lied in its UEFA license statement. People at the SFA knew they were hiding something. They helped them hide it. Even now, there’s talk (but only on the forums) that the corrupt Five Way Agreement will limit the damage.
If this is allowed to be swept under the carpet – if the media lets it – then we’re a banana republic. Sporting integrity will have been buried with the corpse of Rangers. This is an unexploded bomb at the heart of our game. We know the club is guilty … but the media should be demanding to know who else was involved in this and who helped cover it up.
Their own role in this stinks like a bucket of dead fish.