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The Asterisk Debate Has Focussed Non-Celtic Fans On What Rangers Did With EBT’s.

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Last night I wrote about Alex Rae and his insistence on discussing a subject that does him no good whatsoever; the idea that our title should have an asterisk next to it. The clowns who want to have this discussion simply do not get what it is that they are doing.

What they are doing is focussing the attention of the world on what happened with Rangers’ EBT’s.

They might not realise this – in fact, they almost certainly don’t – but they are educating audiences all over football about what actually went on in the latter years of Murray’s control at Ibrox.

This does not have a happy ending for them.

The world had largely forgotten that period, if it cared in the first place.

But with Gerrard in charge there’s an audience down south for Scottish football stories all of a sudden, and it’s all the more interesting when you consider that Liverpool might have gotten a similar decision from their own league on their title, and so their fans were already paying attention.

They know Gerrard kept his gob shut about it, and they know why.

But I’m willing to bet that few of them either knew or cared about what went on here in the 2000’s when Murray was running out of cash and decided to start cheating the tax man. Those stories are now being resurrected at precisely the time when the world is watching. This is especially true when you consider that Sevco’s wailing, and that of their media allies, has focussed attention on Scottish football –and most importantly how it is run – than ever before.

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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?

Scottish football was cheated for ten years. Alex Rae and others were amongst the cheats. If you were in their shoes and you had escaped the scrutiny that went with it, wouldn’t you want to put that in the rear-view mirror? Wouldn’t you want to bury that fact?

Instead they are highlighting it, in trying to make a wholly specious point about Celtic.

Words cannot express how dumb that decision is.

Celtic fans tried hard to get people to focus on this debate when Sevco was born and we were pushing up against the Lord Nimmo Smith verdict.

We probably thought that the discussion was effectively closed down forever. Yet all over the internet, it’s being had all over again and we’re winning because we can contrast our league triumph – fair, just, in keeping with the rules – with the tainted titles won by the first Ibrox club.

This is why you should embrace these discussions; whenever you hear about the so-called “asterisk” next to our title win, steer the conversation to the EBT years.

Remind people – not just the person you are debating with, but everyone in earshot – that the rules allowed for our title, that the clubs voted in favour of it twice, and that this is the key difference.

They broke the rules. What we did was in keeping with them.

Focus on that, until you silence them.

Or better yet, let them keep digging the hole.

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.

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