Isn’t it something, that all of British football has come together in a stance against racism? Clubs and even major sponsors are coming offline for a few days in protest at those on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere who can’t help indulging in this bigoted behaviour.
I applaud every single one of these organisations.
Except the ones based in Scotland, who are paying lip-service to the problem by continuing to ignore it in some of its forms. There are organisations which, this week, have shown themselves up.
I am going to talk about some of them in this article, because honestly, this has been a shameful few days.
One of the most over-used phrases is that “the silence is deafening.”
That is as true this week of Scottish football as I have ever seen it.
Because the sound of that silence is almost oppressive. It’s as if the incident that happened at Ibrox last week didn’t happen at all, except that it did and we all saw and heard the video footage of it.
Scottish football is filled to the brim with hypocrites and charlatans, but what’s worse is that the entire support network for the game is similarly filled with them. Scottish football cares about the things it cares about.
Some people are more protected than others.
Today’s cause celebre is the Albion Rovers player David Cox, who was the victim of an horrific slur in midweek.
Again, it is right that Scottish football has rallied round him, and it has and I hope he takes both comfort and strength from that … but honestly, this is further proof that the game here picks and chooses who and what it chooses to get angry about.
If you’re Catholic, and most specifically if you are an Irish Catholic, you do not get the arm around your shoulder.
You do not get the support of the whole game far less the civic institutions.
You get ignored. Your rights don’t matter. You do not count.
This article is going to look at the people who have failed us this week.