Ibrox is gearing up for a war with the SFA. Hampden must be ready for it.

There is nothing like a distraction to stop people asking difficult questions. Nothing works better when an organisation wants to prevent close examination of its policies, internal processes and actual performance.

You get the distinct impression that the Ibrox club is hoping for the best and preparing for the worst in the coming campaign, because the distractions are already appearing everywhere.

I have written several pieces recently about their situation and the defeatism already wafting from Derek McInnes and some of the people around him. The trauma of Celtic’s title victory last season has plainly affected them, and I am not convinced that these people truly believe they can wrest the championship away from us.

That is especially true when, as they appear to see it, Celtic enjoys the backing of the governing bodies and the media. Those are two of the most preposterous ideas you will ever encounter, but we live in an age when insanity is no barrier to a theory becoming popular.

The Ibrox club is clearly determined to push the idea that the world is against it.

The easiest way to reinforce that belief is to pick a fight, and it is already obvious that they intend to do exactly that. Whether this is a deliberate smokescreen or whether they genuinely believe they have a grievance almost does not matter. They are gearing up for a battle with the governing bodies, and much of the groundwork has already been laid.

Earlier, I published my piece on the SFA report into the events at Ibrox. Their club is already raging about that document before the sanctions have even been imposed.

It seems highly likely that the punishment falling upon them will be more serious than anything imposed upon Celtic. You cannot read that report and conclude otherwise. Much of what went wrong that day went wrong because of their own behaviour and under arrangements for which they carried direct responsibility.

Their attempt to point the finger back at the SFA will not persuade anyone outside their own support, but that is not really the purpose.

This is internal politicking. They are playing to the gallery.

Unfortunately, their gallery contains a significant number of people who will interpret any retreat, compromise or acceptance of responsibility as weakness. The club knows that it cannot easily back down once it has encouraged them to believe that everyone else is at fault.

The statement released in response to the report was deranged enough. It attempted to portray their own support as largely innocent, suggest that others carried greater responsibility and imply that the rules should somehow have been altered specifically for them and for that fixture, denying Celtic the allocation to which we were entitled.

That was wild. But it was almost restrained compared with the moon-howling statement issued over McInnes.

That statement revealed their intentions far more clearly.

There is no persuasive reason why they should be appealing McInnes’s suspension on the terms they have publicly advanced. There is no legitimate basis for any of the arguments they have put forward in mitigation.

Everyone understands why he was disciplined. The punishment followed the individual who committed the offence, as disciplinary sanctions always do.

Yet neither the club’s furious statement nor many of the media defences offered on McInnes’s behalf have identified a procedural flaw. There has been plenty of noise about natural justice, timing and the inconvenience caused to his new employer, but little which actually undermines the basis of the sanction.

It is almost as though they want the SFA to increase the suspension. It is almost as though they would welcome being punished for a frivolous appeal.

Why would any club want that?

Because this is a club which wants to appear victimised. It wants to be able to turn to its own supporters and say: “look what they are doing to us.” The Ibrox club is spoiling for this fight, and that takes Scottish football into dangerous territory.

It may be useful internally to tell supporters that success was impossible last season because the authorities would not permit it. It may be useful to say that the governing bodies are already attempting to cripple the club before the new campaign begins.

That allows the leadership to create a simple story. Celtic receives the decisions. Celtic possesses the influence. Ibrox is punished, restricted and denied.

It may be helpful to those running the club. It is deeply damaging to the wider climate in which the season will begin.

One of the great tricks of the modern political right is that organisations and individuals composed of millionaires and billionaires continually present themselves as enemies of the establishment.

What does “the establishment” mean in that context? Usually, it means a free press, elected institutions, public bodies and civic organisations capable of holding wealthy and powerful people to account.

That is the establishment they rail against.

The Ibrox club has borrowed many tricks from that playbook, but this may be my favourite. The original club once proudly considered itself the establishment. It boasted about that status. David Murray described it as Scotland’s second greatest institution after the Church. The club had former officials occupying senior positions within the SFA. It had a President. One of its favoured figures became chief executive.

They were not shy about influence then. Now they have somehow turned Celtic into the establishment. Nothing could be further from the truth.

As I have always said, anyone who can produce a concrete example of Celtic using this alleged influence to benefit itself at the expense of the rest of Scottish football should present it. I am ready to examine it.

Show me the evidence. Demonstrate the mechanism. Identify the moment when Celtic wielded this supposed institutional control and received a benefit no other club could have obtained. Nobody ever does.

The allegation survives because it does not require evidence. Its purpose is emotional rather than factual. It allows the second-largest club in the country to portray itself as a victim because it cannot make itself the largest.

It is an extraordinary piece of theatre to watch.

I have little doubt that this is what they are preparing to do throughout the coming campaign. They want a prolonged fight with the governing bodies because that allows them to divide Scottish football into “them and us.”

If they win that fight, they can claim strength and vindication. If they lose, the defeat becomes further proof of persecution. In that case, they return to their supporters and say that they were never “allowed” to succeed.

They also know that a significant section of the media will fall into line.

Some already have over the McInnes ban, treating a perfectly ordinary principle — that disciplinary sanctions attach to the individual — as though it represents an unprecedented assault on natural justice.

For all its faults, the SFA cannot give them any ground here.

The worst possible outcome would be for the governing body to recognise what the Ibrox club is attempting, worry about feeding the grievance machine and then soften the sanctions to avoid giving them further ammunition.

That would be a catastrophic mistake.

The correct response is to identify the tactic and then treat the Ibrox club exactly as every other member of the league should be treated.

When it crosses the line, it is sanctioned. When its manager breaches the rules, he is punished. When its supporters or employees contribute to serious failures, the club is held responsible for the parts which fall within its control.

And when the club complains, as it undoubtedly will, the SFA should state calmly and clearly that this is equal treatment under the rules.

The allegations of persecution are groundless. The conspiracy theories are paranoid. The rules apply regardless of who is offended by them.

The governing body cannot back away from this fight. It has to lean into it, but it must define the terms on which the argument takes place.

It must respond robustly, concede nothing to hysteria and refuse to allow a pro-Ibrox media bloc to dictate the boundaries of the debate.

That media pressure has been attempted repeatedly in the past. I have lost count of how many times I have read that someone at Hampden’s position is “untenable” or that the SFA “will have to back down,” only for the governing body to do neither.

That is exactly how it must continue. The rules are there for everyone, not merely for those who happen to feel like accepting them on a particular day.

More importantly, the SFA must keep drawing attention to the tactic itself, because this entire campaign is built on deflection.

It should say plainly that non-issues are being exaggerated to placate a support which might otherwise begin asking more serious questions of its own club.

Questions about the squad. Questions about the manager. Questions about the club’s finances, recruitment, decision-making and realistic prospects of winning the league. Questions about why so much energy is being directed towards fighting the authorities instead of building a team capable of beating Celtic.

The only way to defeat a strategy based on deflection is to shine the spotlight straight back at those using it.

We have recently seen parts of the media begin doing this more effectively with Nigel Farage. Instead of allowing him to say whatever he likes and chase each fresh provocation, journalists increasingly respond by pointing out that he is creating another distraction because he does not want to answer questions about something more substantial.

That approach works. It would work here too, provided the SFA has the courage to use it.

There are now two major moments approaching for the governing bodies.

The first is the McInnes appeal.

The second is the decision over what sanctions should follow the failures and disorder documented in the independent report into the Ibrox fixture.

The Ibrox club wants a battle on both fronts. The SFA should not be afraid to give it one. But it cannot allow the Ibrox club to decide the language, framing or terms of that confrontation. It cannot accept the premise that enforcement itself represents persecution.

The real danger is not merely that the governing body loses the public argument. It is that it behaves timidly and attempts to avoid the confrontation altogether. That would be a grotesque abandonment of responsibility.

Once again, the Ibrox club is testing the limits of the system. The system cannot permit itself to be tested into submission.

Backing down would not buy peace. It would encourage escalation.

It would teach them that enough noise, enough outrage and enough sympathetic headlines can weaken disciplinary authority. Every future sanction would then be met with the same campaign, only louder.

It would be, as Churchill once said, “a disaster of the first magnitude” and it would not be the end.

It would only be the beginning of the reckoning.