The SFA moves slowly, doesn’t it? But it does move, and it finally has.
Kyle Lafferty has been given his ten match ban today, the one for abusing a Celtic fan with a sectarian slogan.
It feels like we’ve been waiting for that longer than Liz Truss has been floundering in office; indeed, it happened at about the same time our support was eating all sorts of dirt from the moon-howlers of the right because our fans didn’t kiss the royal ring.
Lafferty’s behaviour was disgusting.
The video footage of it was clear-cut.
His club fined him internally but continued to play him whilst the SFA struggled to get its act together. He scored goals. He won them points. They reached the League Cup semi-final and he scored in the quarter final against Dundee United, who should be furious.
The length of time this has taken has been a flat-out disgrace and in playing him in the meantime Kilmarnock have made their contempt for the whole issue clear. This is Scottish football though, where everyone talks a good game on sectarianism and bigotry but nobody is actually willing to go the extra mile and treat it seriously.
There was nothing in that video which was in any way ambiguous.
His national team sent him home the second it surfaced.
The SFA would never have offered the ten match ban if there was the least doubt. But this guy has been allowed to continue playing and influencing games because they could not put together a panel to rubber stamp what we all knew?
When the governing body isn’t fit to govern, that falls upon the clubs themselves to do the right thing, and that Kilmarnock stood by their man is dire. The idea that he’s “learned his lesson” is equally appalling.
Lafferty is not some daft kid still wet behind the ears, so this idea that he simply needs “educating” on an issue with which he is very familiar is a gross insult to all of us.
But it’s an insult we’ve become accustomed to. It’s the same insult we’ve been putting up with for decades. No wonder they call it “the last acceptable form of bigotry.”
It’s not bigotry it’s racism, and as such Laughatme should be banned sine die.
If the victim had been Asian or a person of colour, there would be no question of anything other than the most serious sanction applied.
If you don’t call it out as racism then you enable it.
Genuine question Tony B. Why do you think it is racism? What race is being slighted when you call someone a Fenian? I’ve been called a Fenian bastard loads of times and I am Scottish as is my ancestry as far back as I can trace, even though I have an Irish surname.
Let’s not confuse anything here which only gives that lot an excuse to call us out as MOPES.
Fenian equals Irish particularly in the eyes of the Loyalists of whom Lafferty is one.
When he says Fenian bastard he means Irish bastard.
If you don’t understand that you are being disingenuous.
The intention was there, and I’ll say it again, if you insult someone’s ethnicity you are engaging in racist behaviour.
No I would be disingenuous if I did unserstand that and still asked the question. But I didn’t understand it (and still don’t) so I wasn’t and still am not being disingenuous.
Thanks for the response, though.
Guy should be kicked out of football altogether,whilst he gets away with it, a 10 game ban is nothing,,tell me this does he still collect a wage for these ten games???
That’s down to his employers, not the SFA. I believe they fined him as is stated above.
” I get called Fenian, pauper, beggar. You call it sectarianism, I call it racism ”
Neil Lennon. 2 Nov 2018.
I’ve been called a fenian bastard before, not for a long time though. Do I think it’s racist, or bigoted, well I think calling someone an orange, hun bastard is equally as bigoted, but people on here say it with such regularity, and that astounds me. It’s a west of Scotland thing, unfortunately it’s a cultural thing as well. Down south, football rivalries, are really just a geographical thing, but up here it’s religious. It’s scandalous, that this day in age, it’s still happening. But unfortunately, it’s as much a thing here, as Irn Bru is.
Catholics from other European countries don’t get this abuse from the peepul. Catholics from the Western Isles aren’t treated this way. Latin American players are not abused like this, but if you appear to have an ethnicity that points to an Irish Catholic background you get the abuse. Nothing to do with religion but all to do with perceived race.
Exactly right. If it were only about religion it would be much more prevalent, but we all know it’s about Irish ethnicity and therefore it’s racist.
Ask Neil Francis Lennon about it. He was very clear.
So how come we get called Fenians even if, like me, I’m not connected to Ireland in any way?
Because apart from being racist, these people’s predominant attribute is their stupidity.
If you’re a Celtic supporter, in their eyes you’re Irish: a Fenian, a Taig etc .
Try to analyse their mindset and it will lead you to a bad place.
Call it out at every opportunity.
@ roonsa. Here in Scotland and I would say right up until about 30 years ago, the word fenian was used by that lot because about 90% of them actually thought they were referrin tae a Catholic and a lot of them still do. Half of them didnae know the difference, that the word referred tae an Irish nationalist, tho either way suits their mindset these days. Put it down to pig ignorance.
How come he apologises to his club, his teammates and his family but not to the person/ people he insulted?
Because he isn’t sorry for what he said and the people he insulted. His views are symptomatic of the community where he grew up. Indeed they are proud of them, as witness the displays every year where bonfires are universally adorned with Irish flags.
Lafferty is sorry he got caught, end of.
My thoughts exactly. He also hasn’t said he regrets it because it’s not who he is or how he thinks. He’s basically apologised to all the people close to him or that will benefit him (Kilmarnock and the fans), but hasn’t actually said he regrets the term he used or the offence it might have caused to the guy, his family or anyone he knows that is catholic.
An absolute horrible, bigoted, lanky waste of man-goo!
What’s worse than that is that no one has pulled him up on it in the media either. What the feck do Nil by Mouth do? ????
racist,sectarian,cheating,thug bigot….on the same theme…jimmy millar – 1960’s hun player died, i see….andy cameron said..”he epitomised what being a rangers player was all about”…..yea, happy enough to play for the club that had a sectarian employment policy….the same policy that was in place when “everybody’s pal” mccoist had no problems with when he signed for them…why have none of these scum players been called out for this in public ?
sectarian racist bastards….EVERY one of them – supporters included.
Not everyone of them.. my brother in law is a fan of that mob, and you couldn’t meet a nicer, decent guy. And I’ve also got friends who are as well, so don’t let your prejudices speak for all of us, there is good in bad in every group of people, in every walk of life.
yea…just lovely peepul….as they sit there with fingers in their ears as “up to our knees….” rings out around them….lovely….
And I take it you shout the idiots down in our fans when they sing about “Orange B’s or the IRA ??
it comes from all four fukn stands at ibrox….not a minority of them…
totally disagree with ira chants/orange bastard chants…club should do more to weed them out-wouldn;t be a hard job…if they put their mind to it…
While I have no time for Lafferty, I don`t have much more time either for people who try and trap someone by pretending to be friendly with them. The person who asked for the selfie with Lafferty should, instead of slouching away, have put one on his chin but I suspect that would have meant showing a bit of bravery, which always seems to be lacking in these “pranksters”
So your view is, if you, in an act of premeditation antagonise a person, whom you know to be openly racist, your justifiable response to his reaction to your antagonism towards him is to ‘lamp him wan’.
How very civilised.
Apart from being dumb it’s very unlikely that it will change is mind. In fact it will only reinforce his viewpoint that
the ‘ other’ deserves his vile ‘othering’.
I agree with this a hundred percent.. the guy should have floored him. I thought it was actually a tad sneaky, with what he done, a bit of a grass actually. He should have been a real man, and let him know the script.
His Kilmarnock coach ,ex the Rangers employee ,McInnes ,stated that he was delighted by bigot and racist Lafferty ,for his efforts for the team .There was not a scintilla of remorse or regret from the aforementioned McInnes by the club for Lafferty’s bigoted and racist comments . Just fulsome praise . We all know where Kilmarnock FC are coming from ,don’t we ?
Well argued Tony B. There seems to be a lot of sympathisers on this site …
https://www.ibroxnoise.co.uk/2022/10/former-rangers-striker-banned-for-10-matches-but-what-of-the-others/
How has this not been picked up on? What planet do they actually live on?
Any way of getting this to Phil?
SFATHENADIR etc., etc,. etc.
To answer your initial remark: YES!
I notice you made no comment on the sleekit individual who caused all the bother in the first instance. I make these comments without having any time for Lafferty who, of course, was wrong. I made the same comment when it happened to Scott Brown although I thoroughly agree with the way Brown handled it.