Articles

A Handful Of Desperate Hacks, And Outlets, Cling To The Tiniest Threads In Sevco’s Dodgy Dossier.

|
Image for A Handful Of Desperate Hacks, And Outlets, Cling To The Tiniest Threads In Sevco’s Dodgy Dossier.

Next week the SPFL will have its time entirely wasted when its clubs are asked to vote on Sevco’s abysmally weak and desperately dodgy dossier. Have we really got nothing better to do than go through this twaddle for the next seven days, as if it were a credible document instead of a list of petty and pitiful grievances?

Where is the “smoking gun?”

Stewart Robertson has taken it and blasted off his own foot with it.

Sevco has been humiliated here in front of the rest of the clubs. 41 of them were sent this thing this afternoon; that’s whole hours of quality box-set watching time, squandered utterly, on page after page after page of Sevco Logic poured out in an endless stream, like vomit from a teenage victim of demonic possession. Scottish football is facing a real crisis at the moment. That anyone should have to waste their time on this is frankly shocking.

Yet some “journalists” are determined to find any old nonsense they can in this document so they can keep alive the idea that there’s some sort of smoking gun here. Those responsible are the ones you would expect, but they can give these ridiculous “charges” – based on supposition and speculation – acres of coverage they simply don’t deserve.

Let’s take the “allegation” the SPFL and SFA wrote to UEFA asking them to bring the season to a close because it was supported by the top flight clubs; this before a vote was held. Sevco’s dossier claims that this proves the governing bodies acted corruptly.

Have none of these yahoos ever heard of a “straw poll”? The hacks who are pretending this is important knew full well that such a proposal already had majority support amongst clubs, and they published dozens of articles to that effect in the weeks before the vote.

I knew the rough outline of the SPL club’s voting intentions; do you know where I read it?

1 of 20

In the 1951/52 season, SFA chairman George Graham tried to stop Celtic from flying the Irish tricolour flag over Celtic Park, leading to a bitter stand off between him and the club. Which Scottish club backed Graham over his stance?

On a Sevco fan-site where one of their well-connected posters was being constantly pilloried for trying to tell the more febrile members that he’d spoken to club chairman and executives and almost all of them were in favour of that outcome, including awarding the title to Celtic.

This site and a bunch of other Celtic media outlets knew long before that vote was held that it was being supported by the majority of the clubs; how did we know that? Because nearly every chairman or executive who was interviewed in the press had confirmed that it was the way the wind was blowing.

Nobody was in the slightest doubt about that.

But tonight, desperate hacks – including, shockingly, Ewan Murray at The Guardian; a Hearts fan in case the agenda wasn’t clear – are clinging to the UEFA letter allegation as if the governing bodies sent it without having the first clue how the member clubs felt.

It is such desperation. It is shamelessly clutching at straws.

One of the “crimes” being highlighted by The Record are the four “cease and desist” letters Douglas Park is alleged to have gotten. They quote just one of them, and I’ve read it a thousand times and cannot find the word “cease” or “desist” in it; indeed, if it’s an example of bullying then Douglas Park must have gone to a school which was already well ahead of its time on social distancing and where the playground must have been run by Julie Andrews.

The “bullying” communique in question reads thus; “Can we not simply resolve this by a confirmation that such an allegation will not be repeated in connection with these events and that the suggested course of action will not be proceeded with?”

The average maternity blanket has more threatening things knitted on it.

STV just did their report; they brought out an SPFL board member to ask whether or not he supported the club’s allegations. Do you know who they brought out? For those who haven’t seen it, go and look for this online. It was Stewart Robertson himself.

And to think this lot mocked Murdoch MacLennan for answering a bunch of questions he’d selected on his own? (From amongst those the media was asking.)

Other “allegations” are so vague that they are barely worth repeating.

The “£10 million claim” which the media is going on about is so full of if’s buts and maybes that it doesn’t even enter the realm of hypothesising; still, some of the hacks think this is potentially explosive. Potentially. But even they have to hedge their bets because it doesn’t quite make the grade.

This is the best they’ve got, and even as Robertson makes the rounds – Clyde just did exactly what STV did and gave this discredited joker a platform to insult the board on which he actually sits and on which he must have had actual influence – continue to smear all and sundry.

It is unconscionable. The media should be deeply shamed of its role in all this.

Indeed, Roddy Forsyth, one of the worst journalists in the country, confirmed what was surely obvious earlier this evening, as if it was nothing; Sevco’s famous “whistle-blower” was none other than their own chief executive, in breach of his duties as an SPFL board member.

That revelation – which most Celtic fans had already guessed – was not explored in any detail, although it might well be the most bizarre part of this whole affair.

I can write about shamed the media should be about all this until I’m blue in the face; indeed, I have, and repeatedly. They have no more shame than the club itself does. This incestuous partnership clearly doesn’t bother either party, although one of them constantly makes the other look ridiculous. More fool them you might say, but there are still a lot of our fans who aren’t on social media and who read and listen to this nonsense, and may even believe it.

For those who wonder why this blog is so often focussed on our press, well this last month has been a startling case in point and the ultimate example of churnalism over journalism. For weeks now our media has given Sevco its unqualified support in a witch-hunt against those who that club perceives as its enemies.

They have used a global crisis as a cover for pressing their agenda.

Not only has their entire campaign been revealed as the naked fraud the bloggers said, but even with that now crystal clear much of the press refuses to accept it.

The incredible thing here, of course, is so many clubs expressed themselves quite clearly in the vote to end the campaign and award prize money on the “as you were” basis; Sevco and two other clubs, both of them with a vested interest in reversing that outcome, have gone on the offensive and the hacks report that as Scottish football being embroiled in a civil war instead of stating what is surely obvious; this is all down to a handful of malcontents and sore losers, determined to reverse a democratic decision by way of a smear campaign.

Tonight Hearts and Stranraer fans should be asking hard questions about why their clubs have allowed themselves to be associated with such an embarrassing affair.

As Scottish football goes through the current crisis it is important to keep up with developments and the key issues. We are determined to do so, and to keep you informed as well. Please subscribe to the blog.

Share this article