Sky Sports Scotland was this week forced to deny that Kris Boyd has been moved from covering Celtic games because of a backlash from our fans. That was the headline.
Here’s what the headline should have been; “Sky Sports Scotland Forced To Defend Kris Boyd Having A Job.”
Because that’s the real story here, that one of the biggest broadcasting companies in Europe has issued a statement of support on behalf of a “pundit” so thick that he makes a drunk pub yahoo sound like the smartest guy in the room.
The competition for the top spot is fierce, but I have long been of the view that Kris Boyd is far and away the stupidest person ever to hold a position in the Scottish sports media.
Note that I say “ever”.
I struggle to think of anyone who comes close, and in the modern era we’ve had Derek Johnstone, Alex Rae and even, for a while, Lee McCulloch.
But Boyd stands alone.
Not only does he have the intelligence of an amoeba, but his complete lack of professionalism and inability to even pretend to be able to offer an impartial analysis is the kind of thing that Sky Sports’ English football department would simply never allow.
When you watch the pundits they use on there, you know some of these guys spent long periods of time at one club, and some of them speak with genuine affection about those clubs, but those people are able to analyse the game intelligently and rival clubs dispassionately.
The likes of Gary Neville or Jamie Carragher would never openly sneer at Liverpool or Manchester Utd respectively; indeed, I’ve seen those guys genuinely pained on nights where other English clubs suffered humiliating reversals, and especially in Europe.
There is integrity in being able to respect your rivals …
Boyd has zero respect for Celtic or for Scottish football as a whole.
He has never uttered one insightful word in all the time I’ve seen him on there. He has never said one thing you couldn’t get from someone sitting in a line at the bar watching the same game.
I’m not saying his bias would be tolerable if he was halfway intelligent, but when this guy nods his head you can hear his handful of brain cells rattling and that’s off-putting.
Celtic fans have started a petition to have him removed; it’s pointless and daft and only gives him the notoriety he craves. It’s Sky shareholders who should be querying why their organisation is pissing away money on this halfwit.
It’s Sky Sports Scotland customers as a whole who should be enquiring as to why the organisation insults our intelligence by having him on the air.
This is why illegal streaming is such a big deal now; people feel insulted paying through the nose to watch the dreck Sky Sports Scotland serves up.
Between Boyd and Andy Walker they have managed to assemble a team so third-rate that watching games on some streaming service with Lithuanian commentary sometimes seems like the way to go.
If Sky Sports Scotland isn’t careful, their entire audience is going to go that way … and they will only have themselves to blame.