Now Celtic fans have to tolerate Andy Halliday all over the media. God help us.

It doesn’t seem to matter how many ex-Ibrox players are already in the media—there’s always room for another one.

I find it hilarious that yet another has popped up recently, doing the rounds of every studio and network, right when it looked like we might finally be getting rid of a couple.

That was one of the few upsides of so many of them being on the management team at Ibrox—they couldn’t even pretend to offer a neutral perspective when commentating on the BBC, so they’ve all had to step back. That’s why some barely remembered ex-Hibs player was sitting on the studio sofa the other night.

But no sooner are these guys gone than Andy Halliday has been signed up.

Andy Halliday. Oh dear me.

The Scottish media really isn’t hiring the brightest and the best, is it? And this guy is still playing football! So where does he find the time for all these media gigs—training, playing, and appearing in every possible outlet?

What was he doing before this? Studying for the bar exam? Visiting museums? Of course not. Trying to work out the complexities of KerPlunk, more like, or figuring out which way to face when sitting on the loo.

This is a guy who can barely follow his own manager’s instructions. And yet here he is, pretending to understand the minds of managers and players, posing as some sort of guru qualified to offer insight on tactics—on concepts he clearly has no clue about. Whether it’s on the radio, on TV, or in a newspaper column, he’s an “expert” now.

No wonder sections of the Scottish media are so reviled by intelligent people who actually want proper insight, real experts, and informed analysis. I’ve listened to this guy, and he makes Barry Ferguson sound like a Harvard professor.

Ferguson, by the way, might be the stupidest person ever to have a newspaper column—at least amongst those who aren’t on the staff at the Daily Mail. You’ll see why I say that when you read tomorrow’s 7 AM piece.

I mean, can you believe this? Barry Ferguson, Neil McCann, and Billy Dodds have all left the Scottish sports media—albeit temporarily. We know they’ll be back. They won’t last long in the Ibrox dugout. A year, tops.

And when they do return, you’d think the standards might have improved in the meantime. Instead, their bosses have, with a single hire, somehow managed to lower the average IQ even further.

How do they do that? It’s as if they’ve reversed the usual hiring process. Instead of a test where the highest scorer gets the gig, they seem to have picked the guy who answered only eight out of twenty questions, left a bunch of blanks, and spent the rest of the allotted time doodling a cartoon pig at the bottom of the page.

I mean, I’m being flippant, but there’s nothing funny about this. The standard has now reached the level at which you’re lifting a rock in your back garden and finding a little slug wriggling underneath it and giving it a radio slot.

That’s not funny. The media is supposed to be better than that. It’s supposed to have some kind of duty to inform and educate.

Yet, here we are, getting the same parade of talking heads, each more useless than the last. And what’s their one shared qualification? A past connection with Ibrox. Because let’s be honest—there are multiple players who’ve represented four or five Scottish clubs who are smarter than this guy. I mean, they probably have satnavs that are smarter than this guy. And yet, thanks to that Ibrox link, he’s taken seriously.

You sometimes get the impression that the Scottish sports media’s only real mission is to talk up the fortunes of the Ibrox club. Why else would they hire this endless parade of nobodies, clowns, and fools? These are people who seem so ignorant and so dense that they’d struggle with the intellectual demands of a kindergarten crossword.

And what do these outlets think they look like, putting someone like this front and centre as an pundit? Even if he did have something intelligent to say—which is a stretch—you know full well that nearly everything out of his mouth will be laced with bias. The other day, he was talking about Celtic and actually said it’s “not fair” that we have a player as good as Maeda.

Not fair? What is that? Does that even count as commentary? Does that even count as a valid opinion? Or does it just sound like a whiny kid staring at someone else’s plate of ice cream and complaining, “He’s got more than me”?

Welcome to Scotland. Welcome to the Scottish media ecosystem. Andy Halliday—pundit, professional commentator, expert. Ex-Ibrox, of course, because that seems to be the only qualification that really matters.

I’ve tried to keep this playful and light-hearted, but the truth is, it’s depressing. Depressing to think that this is what we’re going to get from now on. Depressing to realise that this might not even be a new low—this might be, God help us, the new normal.

Just when you think standards can’t fall any further, something comes along to prove there’s always another step down. That there’s no bottom. That there’s no end in sight.

Gone are the days of the brightest and the best. When the Michael Stewart’s of this world finally retire, this is what we have to look forward to—an endless parade of empty shirts and empty heads, all wearing the Ibrox club’s badge in their buttonhole.

Anyone wondering why the mainstream Scottish media is dying on its arse need look no further than this.

Photo by Ross MacDonald/SNS Group via Getty Images

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