Badgegate Reveals What Celtic Fans Already Know: Ibrox Has Utter Contempt For Everyone.

The “big” story doing the rounds on the forum of the club across the city is the one some people are calling Badgegate. It’s a small thing on the surface of it; the Ibrox women’s team was playing a match at Tynecastle at the weekend and someone defaced the home team dressing room by putting an Ibrox crest over the Hearts one. Like I said, a small matter.

But there’s a much larger issue under the surface level, and whether or not this was the SPFL who allowed this (or even did it), Ibrox has basically refused to discuss it with Hearts, they’ve acted with complete disdain for their views and what this whole affair reveals is something that comes as no shock to a single Celtic fan; the colossal level of disrespect the Ibrox club has for every other team in this country. Disrespect verging on utter contempt.

Theirs is the club that thought nothing of jeopardizing the game’s commercial contracts simply to pursue a vendetta against the SPFL executive committee.

The money on offer for that might not matter a damn to them, but it does to other clubs.

I might not rate the people at the top of the “governing body” but Ibrox was perfectly happy to place the rest of the clubs in harms way if it meant getting a clean shot at them, and that’s disgusting behaviour, that’s genuinely nasty, and the clubs should have demanded that they be punished for that, but of course they weren’t. It’s no wonder they believe they can act as they like.

So yeah, it’s a small thing but its symptomatic of the wider problem, which is that Ibrox doesn’t have the least regard for convention, no interest in even the basic common courtesies and will walk all over anyone who allows it.

Hearts, at least, don’t seem prepared to do that and I don’t believe that their reaction is OTT or anything like it, they recognise this for what it is. It is not before time.