Keith Jackson claims not to understand why the Ibrox banner drew such ire from the board.

It’s often been said on this blog that Keith Jackson is one of the worst journalists in this country, and he’s the guy whose work I take apart every single chance I get. But not everything Jackson writes appears online.

Some of it is confined to that paper he works for, and therefore many of us never get a chance to see it, because we would sooner shoot ourselves in the foot with a shotgun than buy that rag.

One Ibrox fan site published today a comment that he made about the recent Ibrox fan statement. Before I go on, I just want to say one more thing about that. As you all know, I was away last week and didn’t have a chance to comment on every story as it broke. So, when they released the statement, I wasn’t automatically on hand to talk about it, which is why I’ve mentioned it a few times since and run a couple of pieces about it since I got back.

But the one subject I haven’t yet touched on was their dire effort to drag us into their shame and disgrace with UEFA.

That statement mentions incidents at Celtic Park, about which I have heard absolutely not one thing elsewhere. There was no video footage. There was no fan outcry on Ibrox fan media. None of their players acted on it. It wasn’t reported in the press. So what exactly is it they’re talking about? What incidents are they referring to? Having asked friends of mine, no one seems to know.

As regular readers will be aware, I’m the last guy who’s going to defend misconduct by our fans. If there was misconduct, then it should be condemned. If there was misconduct, then the people responsible for it should be identified and turfed out of Celtic Park for the rest of their natural lives, not to mention prosecuted to the fullest possible extent of the law.

But until that Ibrox fan statement, I hadn’t heard a word about it. I hadn’t heard a word about any such incidents since. So, I have to conclude that it’s largely a figment of the imaginations of those on the Ibrox board who issued the statement.

I must conclude that it’s one of those statements they’ve made for the sake of what they might call balance. Because if you’re going to attack your own supporters and you’re afraid of the consequences of that, then you must attack someone else’s fans too, which is what this smells like to me.

I’ll be talking more about the Ibrox club’s problem with UEFA later today, or maybe tomorrow. But let’s get back to talking about the banner, and the statement that the club issued because of the banner, and how that statement has been covered by some people in the mainstream press, and specifically our friend Mr Jackson.

As I’ve said before, this guy has never had an original thought in his life. When I read what he is alleged to have written in his newspaper, some of it sounded an awful lot like what some of us have written. It sounded an awful lot like what I wrote, after I saw the banner, that they should be prosecuted by UEFA for it—but they might not be because no one really understood what it said.

As such, Jackson wonders why the Ibrox board have chosen this particular ditch to die in because he thinks that the banner was “obtuse.” A complicated word for him to use; I can only assume he heard it somewhere and is taking it for a test drive. He thinks that no one really knows what that banner meant or what its intent was.

“This was a strange bone to pick with them,” he said of the board’s statement against the fans, “given the banner involved was so obtuse and badly worded. What did it even mean?”

At this point I think either Jackson is being a little cute with himself or he is just stone stupid. Because it doesn’t really matter how badly worded that banner was.

It doesn’t really matter how politically incoherent it turned out to be.

The meaning behind that banner may not have been clear, but the intent most definitely was. It was racist. It was about foreigners. It was about protecting Europe. Protecting Europe from what? From foreigners. Ergo, it’s a piece of disgusting racism.

I mean, I know Jackson is not the sharpest tool in the box. We’ve all said this. All of the Celtic sites have written this at one time or another, in some way or another. But Jackson is smart enough to know what naked racism looks like when he sees it—or at least he should be smart enough to know that.

I think this is just one of many examples of the Ibrox fans indulging in open racism. But this one got attention for two reasons. First, because UEFA focused on it and second, because I suspect some of the investors or potential investors also focused on it.

However muddled the political message on it was, the meaning of it was crystal clear. It was an anti-immigrant banner, of the most loathsome and disgusting sort, and one that doesn’t belong in any football stand anywhere in this country.

If the Ibrox club wanted to be credible on this subject, they would have attacked that banner on the day it appeared instead of waiting for a UEFA disciplinary case to officially be opened before they did so. The time to put distance between the club and that disgraceful sentiment was when it happened.

Jackson seems surprised that they bothered to do it at all, which tells you everything you need to know about Jackson—both as a writer and as a human being. If he really doesn’t understand why their board thought it appropriate to dig out those fans on those disgusting sentiments then he’s even stupider than most of us think he is. The really important question is what the Hell has taken them this long?