The SFA’s ban on Michael Stewart is petty and stinks of a weak-minded mentality.

I am going to write about the songs debate later today, but before I get to that, there is a related point worth making.

I am a free speech advocate and I always have been. But free speech has never meant unlimited speech. Not anywhere. Not even in the United States, where the First Amendment is rightly cherished and protected. Even there, speech has limits.

Different kinds of speech exist, and that is where people often misunderstand or deliberately misrepresent the debate around songs. Political expression is not the same as hate speech. The law has to tread carefully, because it must protect political expression. But it cannot allow hate speech to flourish.

That is why I have always believed that if Scottish football ever introduced strict liability, Celtic would have far less to fear than a certain other club.

But this article is not really about that.

This article is about journalism, responsibility and the difference between legitimate scrutiny and bad-faith stirring. It is about how someone can defend journalism and free expression while still believing that clubs have the right, in certain circumstances, to exclude people who abuse those privileges.

This weekend, we found out that the SFA has banned broadcaster Michael Stewart from Hampden. As someone who has openly called for Celtic to take tougher action against certain media figures, some people might be tempted to call me a hypocrite for defending Stewart here. They would be wrong.

Because distinctions matter.

There is a difference between a journalist doing his job and someone using a platform to mislead, smear, personalise attacks or stir resentment, between writing scrutiny and doing spite. There is a difference between strong criticism and bad-faith agenda-driven noise. Michael Stewart falls firmly on the right side of that line.

He has criticised referees and refereeing standards. Guess what? That is part of his job. Stewart is a professional pundit. He is paid to offer an opinion and to state it clearly. You can disagree with him or think he is wrong. You can think he is over the top from time to time. That is all fair enough.

But criticising refereeing standards is not an abuse of journalism.

That is journalism. It is commentary. It is scrutiny.

And Scottish football badly needs more of that, not less.

The SFA banning him from Hampden for doing that is deeply dangerous. It is also small-minded and petty in a way that cheapens an organisation that already looks cheap, defensive, insular and amateurish often enough. The SFA is supposed to govern the game. It should be strong enough to absorb criticism.

Instead, it has made itself look weak.

Michael Stewart has not alleged that referees are corrupt. He has not claimed that they are biased. He has said, in effect, that some of them are not good enough at their jobs and that it is ridiculous that they continue to get high-profile games.

That is not a wild opinion. In fact, it is a view held by supporters across the country. Clubs have openly raised concerns about officiating. VAR has become a weekly source of suspicion, frustration and farce. World football’s governing body did not put a single Scottish official on the World Cup list.

If that is not a warning sign, what is?

If your job is to comment on Scottish football and you are not willing to say that standards have collapsed, then what exactly are you there for?

That is why the Stewart case matters.

If a broadcaster cannot criticise refereeing standards when the evidence is there in front of everyone, then the SFA does not want scrutiny. It wants deference. It wants silence. Clearly, it wants the people covering the game to pretend that everything is fine when everyone watching knows that it is not.

That is not acceptable. Every organisation in public life is open to be scrutinised. The SFA is no different. The media is not only entitled to scrutinise it. In many circumstances, the media is obliged to scrutinise it.

That is the basic function of journalism.

When journalists say that Celtic are having a dreadful season, or that our board looks barely competent to turn the lights off and on, our club might not like it. But that does not make the criticism illegitimate. If the criticism is fair, factual and rooted in observable reality, then it is part of the job.

That is also why I have no time for the idea that Celtic sites are “doing the work of the enemy” when they criticise Celtic. The media is not the enemy.

The job of the media is to report what it sees. If it sees a shambles, it should say so. If it refuses to say so, then it is not doing its job.

My strongest criticism of the media usually comes when it fails to do that job, such as when it fails to scrutinise the Ibrox club properly. When it fails to ask serious questions. When it protects some institutions while hammering others. That is when journalism fails.

But scrutiny itself is not the problem. Lies are the problem. Misrepresentation is the problem. Sensationalism is the problem. Personal vendettas are the problem. Sectarian shit-stirring is the problem.

That is where clubs have every right to take action. If someone repeatedly lies about your club, distorts events, personalises attacks or acts in bad faith, then they should not expect endless access. Access is not a divine right. It comes with responsibility.

But that is not what Michael Stewart has done here.

He has criticised the performance of officials and the standards of the organisation responsible for them. That is not a personal attack. To say that someone is performing badly in a public-facing role is not the same as attacking them personally. It is the basis of how we scrutinise politicians, CEOs, managers, referees and every other figure whose work affects the public sphere.

If journalists and broadcasters cannot do that, then there is no point having them.

That is why banning Stewart from the Hampden footprint stinks to high heaven. It does not project strength but weakness. It does not send a message that the SFA is serious but that the SFA is thin-skinned, defensive and frightened of scrutiny.

And that should worry everyone in the media, whether they like Michael Stewart or not.

This is not just an attack on him. It is an attack on the principle that journalists and broadcasters must be free to examine Scottish football and those who run it. If you can be suspended or banned because you have said critical things about the SFA, then we are in dangerous territory.

That applies to mainstream journalists. It applies to broadcasters and writers from bloggers and fan media. It applies to everyone.

The issue is not whether Stewart is always right. He is not. Nobody is. The issue is whether the SFA can punish a broadcaster for doing the job he is paid to do. The answer should be obvious. No.

Scottish journalism now faces a choice. This is one of those moments where polite words are not enough. Stewart does not need vague sympathy. He needs professional solidarity.

The NUJ should come out clearly and defend him. Major outlets should tell the SFA this is unacceptable. They should insist Stewart can do his job, with his credentials respected and his right to scrutinise the governing body protected.

Because if this stands, the message is clear. Criticise the SFA too sharply and they can remove your access. Cross an invisible line and they can punish you. Say something inconvenient and they can close the door.

No journalist should accept that. No broadcaster should accept that and no serious media organisation should accept that.

And yes, there are people in the profession who write spiteful, agenda-driven rubbish. There are people who sensationalise, misrepresent and stir trouble for clicks. Clubs have every right to protect themselves from that.

But that is not this.

This is a pundit criticising refereeing standards in a country where refereeing standards are plainly a major issue. That is fair comment. It is legitimate scrutiny. It is exactly the kind of thing journalism exists to do.

The SFA should be big enough to take it.

The fact that it is not tells you more about the mindset at Hampden than it does about Michael Stewart. These people are a disgrace. Worse than that, they are a joke and this brings down the reputation of the whole game.

This makes us look like a football banana republic run by lunatics.

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