I am never, ever going to be a person who stands up for The Sun.
That rag should have no place in any discussion about football, not after Hillsborough.
To write for that paper is to accept that The Daily Record won’t hire you.
It’s to admit that your “journalistic career” is in the toilet and that you will be spending the rest of it amongst vomit and excrement.
But today, an “official media partner of Rangers” has attempted to exploit the death of one young man and the ruination of another to have a go at that newspaper simply because it mentioned the name of the club in its reporting.
The purveyor of the forum Follow Folow has authored a post entitled “The Sun exploiting death of a young man to score points against Rangers”.
It is a despicable thread, full of angry ranting, finger pointing and disgusting Whatabouttery.
But it is the shameless appropriation of the weekend’s awful events in order to add fuel to that support’s war against the media which stinks the most.
Yesterday I wrote about how there were people out there who could not wait to use this tragedy to score points.
I knew some would use it against Celtic, but this blatant appropriation of it in pursuit of a vendetta against the press is a low I thought might even be beneath these Peepul, but really, more fool me for believing they were capable of restraint.
This reflects dreadfully on the club itself.
They allow this guy access, albiet only after he’s paid his £25,000.
For people like this to act in such a way, with the club dead silent, is an appalling stain on the whole operation over there.
The first word in The Sun headline is “Celtic.”
This is conveniently ignored in all of the ranting that makes up that thread.
The Sun’s sub-headline refers to the person arrested as an “Ex-Ger.”
That’s what’s set off this outpouring of manufactured fury and ugly self-righteousness.
It is absolutely obvious that this is a cynical excercise in score-settling and nothing more.
Not only are we dealing here with an appalling waste of humanity, but with legal restrictions and the presumption of innocence on which the whole legal system is built.
None of that is evident in either the shameful headline or in the subsequent thread, which allows goons and charlatans to pretend concern whilst pointing their fingers and their hatreds in the ugliest and most abhorrent manner.
This is the naked exploitation of death and suffering by someone approved as a “partner” by the Ibrox board.
The sooner that club condemns these people and puts some distance between itself and their kind the sooner they will be believed when they claim to be committed to erasing hatred and bigotry from their stands.
For me, this is the last time I intend to write on this subject.
I did it yesterday and here again today, and frankly it makes me feel like taking a shower.
But these people continue to act like this because it goes largely unremarked on and none of us should be willing any longer to suffer this stuff in silence. What has happened here today is blatant and deserves to be called out.
No, let me put that a different way; it needs to be called out.
But honestly, there comes a time when the club over there has to take a lead on this.
It has to understand that these individuals are doing it harm.
They cannot continue to legitimise this kind of stuff, or these kind of people.
Remember the snickers from the Ibrox boardroom over the child abuse allegations? I wouldn’t hope for any signs of humanity from that boardroom. They profit from hated.