The John Brown furore is ridiculous. This is the SFA engaging in gutless tokenism.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I think John Brown is anything other than a goon. I’m not going to sit here and act like his comments on the Ibrox internal TV channel, commentating on the weekend’s game, weren’t beyond embarrassing.

I’m not going to sit here and defend John Brown — not in this lifetime, not ever. And I’m not going to sit here and claim that I don’t believe that if the SFA does investigate him, and finds him guilty of something, that he shouldn’t be punished, and that his club shouldn’t be punished too. Because I agree with all of that, and especially in light of their demented statement which came out earlier today.

I may cover that in more detail tomorrow.

But my acceptance that Brown should be punished — and would deserve to be punished — and my belief that, if there really is going to be a proper investigation, and if it’s serious, that he and his club should be held accountable… none of that has anything to do with what I’m about to write.

Because I think the very act of sanctioning him and the club for his comments would be an embarrassing incident in its own right. I don’t think it would represent anything other than a token gesture, because people in this game have done much, much worse and got away with it.

Let’s take just one example: Steven Gerrard.

He wasn’t even in the Ibrox dugout five minutes before he was spouting spurious allegations against all manner of people. Following his very first game in charge, he made comments that were severely critical — not only of the match officials, but of the SFA as a whole.

The suggestion that the organisation was biased against his club was so blatant that I was one of many who expected the axe to fall — and fall hard.

Nothing was ever done about it.

It wasn’t the first time an Ibrox manager had made such comments and, of course, it wouldn’t be the last. The club itself has specifically targeted certain officials — as good as called them corrupt — and even went further, speaking to their fan organisations and asking their fan blogs to put pressure on them.

I think those things are far greater breaches of the SFA and SPFL protocols than anything Brown said. But no-one ever paid the price for them.

We’re not even three weeks on from a match that was characterised by objects being thrown at our players and by a full 90-minute sectarian bigot-fest. A banner was unfurled during that game which was profoundly disturbing, and for which the club itself issued an aggressive and angry statement — against its own fans.

Everyone knows what happened that day was lamentable. Everyone knows it should have been punishable. But it never was, and it never will be.

These are the facts of the case, and they are undisputed.

So what is this really about?

They’re going to go after John Brown — who is every critical thing we’ve ever said about him or written about him on this blog and others. He is every bit as stupid, as backward, as close to the perfect parody of a redneck shit-kicker as you could hope to find. Because he said things that only confirm what we’ve always suspected — that the worms have been eating his brain for years?

Brown is a classic example of the West of Scotland bigot in all his gory glory. Keevins, that desperate excuse for a hack, once told a story — which I’m sure he thought was somehow endearing — about how Brown snarled at him for suggesting he eat a plate of green jelly at a function. I don’t know what picture Keevins was trying to paint of Brown, but it was a pretty awful one that emerged.

It was not a surprise either. Nobody even pretends not to know what John Brown is. Everyone knows exactly what he is. His comments were exactly the kind of comments you’d expect from that snarling eejit. So we’re punishing him for what? For being true to his nature? For being who — and what — he is?

Let me repeat what I said at the start: I have no issue with the idea that those comments crossed a line. I have no issue with the idea that they should be punished, and that the club should be punished too, since they employ him.

But it all has something of the squirrel about it, doesn’t it?

Something of the “look over there because we don’t want you looking over here” element. Because if the SFA and SPFL come down hard on this guy, maybe we’ll forget that the club itself has escaped sanction for the behaviour of its fans. Maybe we’ll forget that Vaclav Cerney got a slap on the wrist for spraying our supporters with water at our ground after they’d just scored in the last minute.

Nobody’s saying that Brown did nothing wrong.

But we’re entitled to ask why those who did far worse aren’t being investigated and weren’t sanctioned. We’re entitled to wonder how we’ve ended up in a place where crass, stupid, idiotic comments made on the club’s internal TV channel — to the club’s own fans — words that can do no real harm except to feed a paranoia that’s already rampant, are somehow seen as worse for football, and for Scotland, than all the other actions that have gone unpunished for as long as some of us can remember.

The truth is, Brown is an easy target. And it’s an easy sanction to apply. Put him on notice. Give him a warning. A slap on the wrist. A small fine. Something that can be brushed off. Something that does no damage.

It’s not going to spark a major outcry except from their club is foaming at the mouth over it, creating its own spectacle for the Americans.

But, unlike what they’ve alleged in their latest moronic communique, it’s not even going to distract from the front-page criticism being levelled at referees or our absolutely dire version of VAR — which they’ve been moaning about all weekend and will probably still be moaning about in 10 years. As though that one decision would’ve had momentous consequences had it gone the other way.

So, this isn’t even a deflection tactic from the SFA to stop people talking about that, because they know that’s hopeless — people are going to be talking about it, and rightly so, for a heck of a long time to come.

And whilst I think Ibrox’s reaction, and that in the media in general, has been typically hysterical and over the top, the central point — that our version of VAR is a cheap, low-rent joke — is pretty irrefutable.

And we’ve all said that ourselves.

So I ask again: what is this about? What’s the point? What’s the function it serves?

They are going to punish John Brown because he said a few choice words — stupid words, wrong words. He shouldn’t have said them. They shouldn’t have come out of his ignorant, blundering mouth.

But this is a stupid, ignorant person. What do you expect?

So punish him. Sure. Go ahead. Do it.

It’s certainly justified. It’s certainly reasonable. But don’t pretend this is the SFA getting serious. Don’t pretend it’s a crackdown, or that anyone there has suddenly grown a pair. Don’t pretend this is part of some coherent philosophy to remove this sort of poison from our game. Because it’s not.

It’s a token gesture. And that’s what makes it pathetic.