How many times have I written on this site that if you are listening to the arguments of the voiders that you should not look for logic in their position? More than a few I’d think. This is another one of those times where one of them has talked such blatantly contradictory nonsense that your jaw wants to hang open.
This time it’s Steven Thompson.
Thompson clearly supports the void the campaign option although he was never pushed to admit that.
It is worth considering his comments in full, as they appeared in The Evening Times tonight.
They were taken from the latest Radio Scotland Podcast, which has become a real go-to place if what you want to hear is inane babble and conspiracy theories.
“Anyone that says Celtic weren’t going to win the league is lying. They were going to win the league. A lot of my friends are (Sevco) fans and they had given up the ghost. Celtic were going to win the league … but now, if Celtic are given the league (Ibrox) fans won’t accept that, across the board. Universally it won’t be accepted. How can you be given a title if you haven’t actually won the title? It’s impossible to award the title to Celtic in those circumstances. I knew they were going to win the league but I don’t think you can give a team the title without having played out the season.”
I’m sure I don’t need to point out the places where he is talking bollocks, but let’s try anyway.
He accepts – as everyone does – that we were heading for the ninth title.
He accepts that everyone at Ibrox would have conceded that it was over.
But he doesn’t think we should be awarded it, unless the full season has been played?
What is this garbage?
One of two things is going on here, and I’ll tell you what the first of them is.
It is as if there is a total refusal by some people to accept either the gravity or uniqueness of our current situation. Nobody wanted it this way. It wasn’t something we planned or could have anticipated. Those who bang on about finishing the season have always been in denial about the position we find ourselves in, but ask them if they’d be willing to compromise public safety to see football being played and watch them clamp up.
The season is not going to be completed. It is manifestly ridiculous to pretend otherwise and it’s been obvious to a lot of us for a while. It is unsafe. It would expose too many people to an unacceptable level of risk. It’s as simple as that really and most us understand this.
At the point where you accept the season cannot and will not be completed as a 38 game contest, you have to get real about what happens next. We had such a big lead, and after so many games have been played, that it would be ridiculous to pretend that we’re not worthy champions.
The idea of voiding 30 matches is plainly insane, but the illogical bent of their position suggests that this is exactly what they are suggesting the SPFL does.
If it’s not that that’s going on – a complete refusal or failure to understand or deal with reality – then it’s something else; this is a nakedly cynical attempt by certain people to use a global health emergency to do off the field where their floundering club couldn’t do on it.
For certain people that’s undoubtedly the case; the indecent haste with which Sevco made its position on this clear, as well as their scandalous assertion that the games would only be valid if they were played in front of full stands, made it transparently obvious that they were prepared to exploit the situation to the fullest in order to appease their fans.
Is Thompson one or is he the other?
I cannot believe anyone would be so wilfully dense as to deny reality in the way he seems to be doing.
His comments suggest that he just doesn’t get that we’re in uncharted waters here and what would normally apply is no longer valid.
He doesn’t seem to understand that if the season is ended early then the team at the top are champions, just like it says in the rulebook.
Do we believe he’s this stupid?
Or is he, like others, just callous enough that he would happily trample over the sick, the dying and the dead, in order to deny Celtic a trophy we’ve won on merit, and which he admits we’d have won had the games actually been played?
I’ll leave that for you all to decide, but either way, let’s face it, it’s not a good look.
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