Has A Scottish Journalist Issued A Threat Against The SPFL Over Ibrox “Rage”?

It is the responsibility of people in journalism to behave sensibly.

For two of our hacks this morning, that has proved to be impossible. As ever, it’s a decision which risks infuriating Ibrox which has driven them beyond the limits of reason and restraint.

In The Daily Record, Keith Jackson spews out a torrent of bitterness over the way season 2019-20 ended, and has accused Celtic of double standards. It is a grossly unprofessional rant, full of half-truths and distortions of reality.

I fully intend to dismantle the whole of his pathetic argument later on today.

It is Matthew Lindsay in The Herald and The Evening Times who has gone way, way, way over the score.

Let’s start with the headline of the piece; “The SPFL risk incurring the wrath of Rangers again by bringing the winter break forward amid more Covid chaos.”

That, alone, is a flat-out disgrace, as though the game in this country revolves around the hurt feelings of a single club.

They are a minor factor in this.

If other clubs have to play in front of no fans they could go to the wall.

Ibrox is concerned for its own narrow advantage, as usual.

Nothing more.

Quite why anyone should care how angry they are at not getting their way is never fully explained.

But as bad as that headline is, Lindsay goes much further.

In an incendiary paragraph, which could be interpreted as a direct threat, he appears to suggest that the Ibrox fans might unleash Stewart Regan’s old “civil disorder.”

This is what Lindsay writes, apparently not realising that he could be seen to be inciting violence.

“Fans of the Ibrox club were incandescent with rage when the 2019/20 season was curtailed prematurely and the title was awarded to Celtic on a points per game basis. They would storm the SPFL offices at Hampden if they were forced to go into such important outings without key men.”

They would storm the SPFL offices at Hampden …

Does he realise that some of the loonies don’t need encouragement?

That there is talk on their forums of them doing just that?

Is this guy so keen to spice up his piece that he feels he has to sensationalise it to that degree, with words like that?

I can’t believe that a senior Scottish sportswriter would put those words in an article, prior to the SPFL making a major decision, for the good of the game, involving a democratic vote of all the clubs.

Lindsay is sending out a warning that if that vote goes the wrong way that the Ibrox horde will be coming for those who called it in the first place. That is a scandalous thing to write, and a scandalous assertion to make.

No journalist should ever pour fuel on the flames like this, and no editor should have let him.

There is pandering to Ibrox – which we’re used to and which Jackson’s does – and then there is whipping up the mob.

Which is what his article could, by some, be viewed as a raw attempt at.

I thought I was beyond being shocked by some of what the press writes.

I guess I have a ways to go yet.