Let’s End This Media Dishonesty About What Really Happened After Celtic’s Win Over Ibrox.

In the immediate aftermath of the game at the weekend, Keith Jackson of The Daily Record praised James Bisgrove for his “deflection tactic” in changing the story from one about the Ibrox club’s failings to one about the officials instead. He knew what this was right from the start, as so many others in the media did and still do.

Jackson’s congratulatory tone ignored the very strong possibility that this deflection tactic would have adverse consequences for Willie Collum. Jackson at least is honest about his fundamental lack of scruples; he went right along with the witch-hunt although he freely admitted knowing that’s all it was. Others were far more insidious.

Rarely has there ever been more sound and fury over nothing at all.

The decision to award or not award a penalty kick for the handball was entirely subjective – part of the problem, as this site has pointed out a million times – and could have gone either way. I believe that based on a strict interpretation of the rulebook there’s no way it can be given.

Others disagree and they are fully entitled to do so.

But what isn’t in doubt is that had it been given the decision would have been overturned almost at once when the offside issue became clear. That incident was not going to result in a penalty, so it had no impact on the game whatsoever.

In the aftermath almost every media outlet took Ibrox’s side, and every single one of them, without exception, promoted and continues to promote Ibrox’s “right to seek an explanation”. Ibrox does have that right, as any club in the league does.

But that wasn’t what their club did, and a week into this, I am thoroughly tired of the constant promotion of this false narrative. Ibrox went way beyond that, and they did it right from the start. Their opening statement was a clear attempt to inflame the situation well in advance of any talks with the governing bodies.

“(We) have asked the Scottish FA to make the VAR audio available to the club to understand why no penalty was awarded despite a clear handball by Celtic’s Alastair Johnston,” the statement started out.

Had they left it at that, the media might have a case when they claim that all the club did was seek clarity on that decision.

“The club is keen to understand the process that led to that decision being made as it was not made public at the time, nor communicated to our team.”

Which is the first effort to bend the truth.

Because what “process” were they seeking to understand which isn’t clear already to everyone who follows the game? The ref didn’t think it was a penalty and the VAR officials did not see any reason to ask him to reconsider.

You might not agree with the decision but to pretend that there is some opaque process here is to lie. The VAR check was announced on the Celtic Park scoreboard. The result of it was put up on the Celtic Park scoreboard.

This wasn’t done in total secrecy; the VAR audio might not have been relayed to people but the process itself was crystal clear and easy to understand.

“We also understand Sky, as the league’s official broadcaster, is deeply unhappy and confused with the situation,” the statement continued.

“Their panel spent half-time in agreement (we) should have been awarded a penalty, unaware of any offside check. Again, this only surfaced in the second half.”

Which is an utter irrelevance in relation to the decision making and was only thrown in there for one reason; to muddy the waters and suggest that there was something dark going on.

But once again, you could read all that and still give the club the benefit of the doubt if you were so inclined, and our media has done just that.

Had they left it there, the whole situation would have been defused and then you’ve arguably just got a club angry about a strange call and wanting clarity on the situation. Then they released statement number two.

Statement number two crystalised my concern, already growing, that this was nothing to do with the pursuit of clarity but was being whipped up into something else.

Statement two was unhinged. It was completely un-necessary, it was hectoring and it went from asking for clarity to suggesting that the SFA was deliberately engaged in an act of concealment and perhaps even cover-up.

But concealment and cover up of what? Remember; the offside renders all this moot anyway, at least in terms of the impact on the match.

I have never heard of a club behaving this way in relation to a decision which everyone agrees was fundamentally correct. I mean it doesn’t matter what way you break this down. They were asking for clarity about a decision they didn’t get and which wouldn’t have resulted in a penalty even if they had initially been awareded one.

But it’s with the second statement that the narrative starts to get turbo-charged against Collum. That statement mentioned him by name and questioned his professionalism.

The allegation that the SFA was “refusing” to disclose the audio or to meet the club until days later, along with the suggestion that club was now openly questioning their “motivation” was designed to imply, quite clearly, that the SFA was attempting to buy time on Collum’s behalf.

In short, it was a huge hint that the club was operating on the assumption that there was some sort of cover-up going on. And the media knows this full well, just as the club knew nothing of the sort was taking place.

These people make a living working with words and they know what words mean and some of them are far more intelligent than they’ve spent the last week pretending to be.

That was the moment when the media should have stopped parroting their party line and started asking what the Hell they were up to.

The SFA had not “refused” to do anything. They had given the Ibrox club a date for the meeting, and this was confirmed by the statement. Ibrox’s demand for an immediate sit-down – on 31 December with games on 2 January – was not simply unrealistic it was ridiculous and, again, the media knew this full well.

Every one of the Celtic sites knew it, and we were writing it.

The media continued to proceed as though Ibrox’s increasingly aggressive stance was either proportionate or reflected the true situation.

They continued to after the meeting took place, by immediately printing Ibrox’s version and writing their conclusions based on that … although Ibrox has a history of deliberately misrepresenting events and making some of these outlets look extremely foolish.

At no point during this has Ibrox merely “sought clarification” or asked legitimate questions in a legitimate way.

At every stage they have attempted to suggest that there was some ulterior motive for the initial decision not to award the penalty and followed that up by suggesting that the VAR team then used a secondary justification to cover for that corrupt outcome.

And I believe that the media not only did play a role in that but continues to do so by pushing the idea that all Ibrox has done here is exercise its basic rights.

That is not the case.

From the first, they were clearly after Collum and determined to do whatever it took to put as much pressure on him as possible.

The newsrooms may express their disquiet about those tactics now, but I consider many of them to be accomplices in something that should leave them feeling ashamed.