For four weeks since the Celtic Park game, we have been waiting on an official word out of the SFA in relation to Alfredo Morelos’ gesture to the Celtic fans.
In that time, Sevco has declared itself ready to fight the player’s case if there was a citation.
The media was briefed that Clare Whyte was contemplating calling him up before the beaks.
The press corps has buzzed with speculation about what would happen next, and just the other day I was told by someone I know within the Hampden sphere that they had accepted Sevco’s pitiful explanation that Morelos’ gesture was “well known in South America” and not what it seemed.
Today The Sun is reporting that Morelos was booked in the dressing room for the gesture, which of course rules out any further action and aims to put the whole issue in the rear-view.
Who honestly believes this?
Because of course, that’s a story which is so clearly nonsensical that all it does is create further questions.
The obvious one is this; why would all involved have sat on that all this time?
If that booking happened nobody told Celtic, Sevco or the player. And for four weeks it somehow escaped the attention of the media. That’s an insult to our intelligence even worse than Sevco’s bizarre and wholly dishonest defence of the player.
The media was waiting for the panel to issue its notice of complaint. So was Sevco. It is risible to suggest that the club – which made its position on further action crystal clear – didn’t know that their own player had already been disciplined for this.
What of the journalists who were briefed that Whyte was reviewing it, pending a decision?
Who told them that – and why? – if the player had already been booked? Indeed, the same newspaper which reported this story this morning was the very one which was briefed the SFA was still considering opening up a case on the matter.
Their journalists should be screaming blue murder here and asking for proper clarification on this.
That the media will simply accept this is almost a given. Most of them wanted this matter set aside the day after the game, and so there is zero chance of them rocking the boat over it. This will be simply accepted as the “official” explanation, no matter how patently absurd it is.
You know what I reckon this is? It reeks of a face-saving exercise, something cooked up between the governing body and the Ibrox club to put this issue to bed. The SFA knows that Morelos should have been cited for an inflammatory gesture and the Ibrox club knows that it could not successfully have contested it because whether it’s a throat cut gesture or not it was done in front of our supporters at the end of a tense and bitter game.
This is a shabby compromise, something probably cobbled together well after the fact, as a way of forestalling further questions and criticism. That it is so obvious that some kind of crooked deal has been done here is just further proof that our club is perceived as weak and easily walked over.
This one struck at the heart of Celtic and we allowed it.
I am well and truly fed up with those who run our game.
They continue to piss on us and call it rain.
Just how much longer is our club going to play along with these people instead of taking them on?
What’s it going to take?
What level of insult will finally slap this board of ours out of their complacency and force them to finally rout this lot?
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