You have to hand it to Ibrox; at every stage in the global health emergency, which has killed more than 5 million people according to the official WHO statistics (which most people believe are a gross underestimate), the first thought those at the club over there have whenever a new phase of this disaster looms is “how can we profit from this?”
I mean, it’s grotesque. It’s vampiric. They have to be one of the only clubs on the planet who sees death and destruction all around them and thinks “this actually might work to our advantage.”
The latest attempt to benefit as the rest of the planet reels from the impacts is that they are pinning their hopes on this crisis taking out the African Cup Of Nations.
And the organisers of the tournament have said that it will not happen. Furthermore, Nigeria has just sacked its manager and the new guy is in no mood to do any favours to clubs who are asking for special dispensation. This will rule three players out of their game against Celtic in January, and the effects will be felt beyond that to at least the rest of that month.
So this morning, there is some glee amidst the media and the Ibrox fan-sties about rumours that the tournament might be called off.
They only have to turn on Sky Sports News to see that the broadcaster updated its schedule today to reveal they are showing every game in the competition.
That sounds like they’ve had a pretty good steer that it’s going ahead.
The Confederation of African Football has denied the stories calling them “fake news” and insisting that the competition goes ahead as planned. Which is to the benefit of all of us, I think.
Because as per usual the Ibrox fans aren’t really thinking terribly hard about the implications should this crisis reach the point where a major global football competition is suspended or cancelled.
In case they haven’t noticed, Omicron is now rampaging across the West.
There is no more danger in Africa than there is here, and if their issue is travel restrictions then those are just as likely to affect UEFA competitions as they are to impact on other regional tournaments.
As usual Ibrox cannot see anything but their own narrow advantage, but in this case it looks like being snatched away from them.
Not only is it probable – I’d say nearly certain – that the tournament will go ahead, but I’d bet that their players will be there for training from January onwards … which rules Aribo, Bassey and Balogun out of the game at Parkhead.
And oh how they will wail, forgetting that we’ve had players out, and major players at that, for every stage in this campaign so far. We’ve also never shown a willingness to step on top of the sick and the dead for the sake of winning a few football matches.