From Green Brigade to Grudge Brigade – Celtic must end this crass act

The danger inherent to earning a reputation is that you may long feel compelled to live up to it

Making a name for yourself is not what it used to be. Andy Warhol's famous 15-minute share of fame came long before social media offered new ways for otherwise unremarkable people to launch themselves into the attention of others who would otherwise have no interest in them.

It has become the sport of the day – on Twitter, Facebook, comments pages of news websites, forums and the blogosphere.

Wilde was onto something when he said that the only thing worse than being talked about was not being talked about.

But the sad fact is – as countless washed-up once-weres can testify – that, once you have tasted a bit of attention and called it fame, there can be a destructive compulsion to remain in the public eye.

I recall my own doctor – a thoroughly decent guy and good GP – getting his name and picture in the papers. A few months later, he was there again. And then it seemed as if he was doing things primarily to enjoy that rush again and again.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that he became a bad doctor but he certainly seemed less dignified and sympathetic than before.

It's the fate of all who seek attention for attention's sake. They rarely recognise the distinction between fame, infamy and notoriety. As long as they can get a regular hit of being talked about.

Which brings me to the people that every Celtic fan seems to be talking about now – the Green Brigade.

Like most Celtic fans, I've enjoyed many of their displays and their contribution to the atmosphere at Celtic Park, which – contrary to misinformed comment – was lauded long before the Green Brigade existed.

But, over the years, I've found myself raising an eyebrow at some of their antics. Partly because there was always a “look at me” element to their displays but mostly because they had a tendency to seek confrontation where none was needed.

Like most, however, I was of the mindset that they were an asset to Celtic who should be supported, forgiven for past misdemeanours  and, in return, they should observe the rules of safety and desist from putting the club at risk of sanction.
That was largely my position on Wednesday night, even though I felt that they had gone too far once too often.

Let's address the banner nonsense right away: they had no right to take an image of our manager – a Northern-Irishman – and associate it with paramilitary activity, however “cleverly” they thought they had done it.

After the match, David Healy was referring to Brendan Rodgers as “a class act” for shaking the hand of every Linfield player in the dressing room.

Whether Brendan did that simply out of sportsmanship, through affinity with fellow Ulstermen, or because he sees every opportunity for bridge-building as a small step in bringing a better life to people in the six counties, only he can say.

But the contrast with the actions of the Green Brigade could scarcely be more stark. They weren't class, but crass.

Worse, though, they clearly contravened UEFA rules that the Green Brigade have flouted before and punitive action was inevitable. In fact, it would be hard to avoid the conclusion that they were actively provoking sanctions.

There is a delusion that persists in the minds of some Celtic supporters that all that UEFA will do is issue a fine that the club can afford to pay. But when any authoritarian body sees that fines have no effect, they turn to more serious penalties.

Perhaps that really is beyond the wit of some of those self-styled rebels in the support.

For me, two things changed my position from advocating one last chance to lancing the boil once and for all.

One was the pathetic statement issued by the Green Brigade saying they were accepting responsibility before going round the houses of every grudge and grievance they have been harbouring over the years and finishing by saying that nobody will ever tell them how to behave.

That pretty well ties Celtic's hands because, even if they could set aside any personal slights or vendettas, they would be negotiating with a group that has publicly reserved the right to observe only its own rules of conduct.

I don't like the corporate nature of Celtic or modern football in general. I also dislike the corruption of UEFA and the equally corrupt and inept SFA.

But I do like Celtic and, in general, Celtic fans. Like millions of others since 1888, I've put a lot of my heart and soul into the club and I want to see it do what it's meant to do – play good football on the park, support charities and make Celtic supporters proud.

Which brings me to the second reason that I say this must finish now.

Over the past few days, Celtic cyberspace has been filled with the sort of venom directed at any who have dared to criticise the Green Brigade that was once the preserve of a club whose fans thought they were the definition of dignity.

In support of the Green Brigade, lifelong Celtic fans have been subjected to a torrent of abuse with expletive-ridden posts berating “panty-wetters”, “soup-takers”, “Tories” and an array of accusations that to criticise the behaviour of a group of “Ultras” was tantamount to supporting the British establishment, disrespecting the people of Ireland and those who fought for it and abandoning the working class.

The logic is laughable but the division amongst Celtic supporters that the Green Brigade has sown is not.
In defence of the Green Brigade, almost every aspect of Celtic – fans, management, European prospects and more – has become fair game.

It has unleashed a keyboard thuggery that is tarnishing Celtic's name and setting fans against each other. All in the name of a bunch of lads who want to be notorious Ultras.

No group should be allowed to have this effect on the club that we have loved and sustained for more than a century and no amount of colourful banners and jolly singing is a compensation for what these attention-seeking egotists have done in the last few days.

Thanks for the good memories but it's time to end this crass act.

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Not fit for purpose: The only victory for Resolution 12 would be to disband the SFA

In 1873, one year after the foundation of a now-lost Glasgow club, the Scottish Football Association was formed, making it the sport's second oldest national association in the world.

The SFA is a remarkable organisation. While most of the world was still sleeping, in terms of football, Scotland was leading the way, having participated in the first ever international match – against England, of course – at the West of Scotland Cricket Club in 1872.

And yet famously, infamously, notoriously, the men's national team has, uniquely in the British Isles  failed to progress past the groups stages of any major international tournament in its history.

That is despite having been peppered with some of the greatest players in football, all the way up until the 1990s.

McGrory, Hibs' Famous Five, the Lisbon Lions, Baxter, Bremner, McLintock, McGrain, Dalglish, Jordan, Souness. For more than 100 years, the playing talent was abundant.

The Famous Five: 

In 1967, the Scottish champions were European champions, too, and the national team was good enough to humiliate the world champions on their own patch. But a sustained endeavour towards a major trophy or a final or a semi-final? Nope.

When we were kings: Billy McNeill

I refer to this purely for background and anecdotal evidence that there has been an apparent malaise at Park Gardens and Hampden Park, ever since – more-or-less – the SFA was founded.

But it's not good living in the past, especially when the evidence of contemporary failure is so abundant.

The most recent revelations surrounding Resolution 12 bring this into sharp focus. Those pursuing this deserve credit for their efforts in a thankless task, even if I, personally, believe that the strategy directing those efforts has sometimes been flawed.

Nonetheless, they have tried and no one should doubt their efforts.

On the other hand, I take reports of their “victory” with a  pinch of salt. They may have been vindicated by some of the language used in the letter they received from UEFA, seemingly acknowledging, at least implicitly, that the SFA failed in its duty of governance of the matter of Rangers' licence to play in European competition.

(And the essence of transparency is that information is widely disseminated, not held by trusted sources.)

They may even have written evidence pointing to malfeasance but the vindication of having someone in high office telling you what you already knew is some way short of a victory.

No, victory would be some measure of justice – appropriate punishment for the offenders and compensation for the injured parties.

We know Rangers can't be punished because they were last seen in 2012 and are now throwing hammers around that great field of dreams in the sky.

We know this. Fans of every club in Scotland know it, too, and yet the fact that the “established” media resolutely close ranks behind the Scottish football authorities to deny this patent truth leaves a sense that the injustices that began when Rangers started cheating through tax avoidance continue to the extent that the accompanying lies are inscribed in silver.

Celtic and other wronged clubs are unlikely to be compensated because they seem to have no interest in saying, “Let right be done”. There may be pragmatic reasons for that in terms of the practicality of recouping financial losses or lost potential earnings.

And if, as has been mooted, the appropriate penalty against the “member association” that is the SFA would mean all teams being banned from European competition, that would be too steep a price to pay for most – though not all – fans.

On the face of it, any “victory” that may be pursued could be described as pyrrhic, though that does not excuse an abject failure to lead by Celtic PLC and others.

But if the lessons of the past are to remain an open wound, it would surely be some kind of victory if they led to a better future.

One in which football was run for the fans and the good of the game itself; where fair play took precedence over financial imperatives.

Is that likely to be achieved in Scotland under the present structure?

Recent years saw the received wisdom of the nylon blazers challenged by two men, now both sadly departed.

The late Paul McBride QC, to put it politely, scared the bejaysus out of the SFA. When arguably the most formidable criminal lawyer of his time was railing against the heady mix of corruption and incompetence guiding the Scottish game, the SFA office-bearers were shown up, not so much as paper tigers as sleekit cowrin tim'rous beasties.

McBride threatened to rock the football establishment to its foundation and there appeared a genuine chance that he would almost single-handedly force a new, binding constitution for the modern age before his tragic death.

The other figure was, of course, the late Turnbull Hutton. The one-time “conscience of Scottish football”, who “stood up for the 'wee' clubs”, Hutton projected a moral force that, coupled with his executive-level experience at Diageo, was more than a match for patsies and yes-men occupying senior roles in Scottish football.

Turnbull Hutton and Paul McBride: Should fans need heroes?

These two men gave – pro-bono – their time and talents in pursuit of the greater good of the beautiful game.

And yet, it is entirely wrong that fans who wish to believe in football should be left waiting for heroes to emerge to fight their corner.

Fans should not have to fight the governing body; it should exist to fight for them.

And yet let's look at this organisation, in its own words.

The Scottish FA exists to promote, foster and develop the game at all levels in this country.
Founded in 1873, Scottish football’s governing body has recently undergone the most radical changes in its history, enabling us to lead the game into a new era. The launch of our strategic plan Scotland United: A 2020 Vision outlines the vision, values and goals that underpin the organisation and its many facets.
The plan encompasses four strategic pillars:
•    Perform and Win
•    Strong Quality Growth
•    Better financial returns
•    Respected and Trusted to Lead

Two things may immediately jump out from the above.

Firstly – and disgracefully – nowhere in those “four strategic pillars” is there any mention of fans.

Is it the fans who are expected to “respect and trust” the SFA or are they to be led by it? Or is the sole relevance of fans to the Scottish Football Association in relation to “better financial returns”?

The second point leads on from the first – that the SFA appears to fail on all of its stated key aims.

In fact, going back to 1873, when has the SFA ever achieved anything of note? The “golden era” of the Scottish national team consisted of qualifying for five consecutive world cup finals and going home at the earliest opportunity every time.

A simpler question would be: in what areas is the SFA actually a success?

I would argue that the answer is: none, ever.

And I would further argue that the SFA is inherently dysfunctional: structurally, institutionally, in terms of its personnel and its apparent inability to ever repair its standing in the eyes of the fans, without whom there can be no ticket sales and no domestic marketing opportunities.

The SFA has about as much chance of realistically aspiring to its “four pillars” as a Mafia-owned restaurant, run for years as a money-laundering joint, has of aspiring to a Michelin star.

And when that happens, what? As was once said in a famous film, “You bust the joint out – you light a match.”

In these sensitive times, I must quickly urge you to keep your pyros in your pocket. This bonfire must be a metaphorical one – of the vanities of the stuffed shirts, scoffing at the principles of fair play, good governance or even key performance indicators.

The Scottish Football Association is “not fit for purpose” and is beyond reform. Its office-bearers should be invited to a ceremony to be given thanks, a 9ct-gold-plated watch and a gentle boot out the door.

Only a completely new body – with new people – has any hope of bringing Scottish football back to a position of repute.

As a starting point, I'll offer my four “cornerstones”, to underpin the current pillars:

1. Football, without fans, is nothing. We exist to bring football to the fans of all clubs and of all our national teams. We listen to the fans; we respect the fans; we endeavour to meet the aspirations of the fans in all our activities.
2. We commit ourselves to excellence. We measure that excellence primarily on the success and quality of performance of every Scottish national and club team.
3. We are committed to supporting Scottish football at all levels, through providing support in the forms of facilities, coaching and best practice to nurture player development and a continued strengthening of both the quality and entertainment value of the game from grassroots-level to international competition.
4. We will work with fans, clubs, the media and commercial partners to strengthen Scottish football commercially in keeping with the ethos of financial fair play.

Okay, so my “four cornerstones” are cobbled-together ideas and I do not expect that they would form a framework for anything at all.

My point is that I don't believe a multi-million-pound study from a former East Fife player, who left his last political job under a cloud was needed to do a better job of defining what should be the aims of a body entrusted with the task of moving the game forward.

A new body should mean new personnel – from diverse professional backgrounds, including several from outside Scotland (preferably not simply replacing one club tie with another), who are unlikely to rely on “old certainties”.

People with fresh ideas, a willingness to engage and a track record of success.

And – who knows – maybe it would even be “respected and trusted to lead”?
Wouldn't that, in itself, be a victory?
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The Scottish football media - a special shower

That fans of a Celtic persuasion tend to distrust the Scottish football media is nothing new. Those of us old enough to remember Don Morrison and Alex “Candid” Cameron needed little convincing that being anti-Celtic was rarely, if ever, to the detriment of any aspiring young journalist's career.

But, even in those days, the Scottish sports press had the odd reliable maverick, such as Ian Archer, the cautiously respected like Alan Davidson and the rare pearl that was Hugh McIlvanney whose retirement in March of this year surely pulled down the curtain on Scotland's last great sportswriter.

It now seems ironic, if not fanciful, to note that one of the would-be heirs to McIlvanney's mantle was one James Traynor, formerly of the Glasgow Herald parish. There is a whole generation of football fans too young to remember those heady days and most are reluctant to believe they existed.

Traynor, like no other, embodies the collapse of professional and ethical journalistic standards and the derision heaped on those who followed him into the profession.

I sometimes wonder what prompted Traynor to propel himself from understated respectability to the sort of man who would represent the worst form of dishonest tabloid journalism to the darkest tactics in PR – sometimes blurring the two roles.

Once, Scottish football fans simply laughed at Darryl Broadfoot and his “Greek Saga” prose. But few are laughing now – from within the ranks of the media or their consumers at any club.

However, since the events preceding – and subsequent to – the liquidation of Rangers, there has been the sort of psychotic meltdown that one might only expect when facing Armageddon.

With shock troops rallied by Traynor and Jack Irvine before him, a climate of fear has arisen concerning any mention of Rangers.

Chris McLaughlin was banned from Ibrox, with scarcely a whimper raised publicly by his peers. Graham Spiers was forced to leave his freelance gig at the Herald, after a gutless performance by Magnus Llewellyn, who is now to be his new editor at The Times.

And only recently Tom English and Stuart Cosgrove were named in an “enemies-of-Rangers” style press release that some viewed as an incitement to disorder. Again, the defence of both men was muted, to say the least.

But if some would say this calls into question the intestinal fortitude of the press pack, they have pulled no punches in attacking the readers, listeners, new media interlopers and their fellow inhabitants of “Socialmedialand”.

In this, few provide better exemplars than Neil Cameron, normally a relatively low-key player on the scene. After a warning to Herald & Times staff came from Barclay McBain, Cameron quickly took to social media with a “what the boss said” Tweet that, to some, may have looked like a bit of career opportunism.

But Cameron has been more full-blooded in his online spats with retired journalist Brian McNally and particularly Phil Mac Giolla Bháin, who Cameron has described as both “a vile man” and “a scab”.

Some Neil Cameron Twitter exchanges

Now, Phil is not everybody's cup of tea, including a number of Celtic supporters, but he remains a figure who challenges the natural order, being on the outside of the Scottish media tent pissing in, against years of tradition and patronage in the private members' club.

And yet there is something desperate in all of this. Some have questioned why Cameron should have been so silent on the fate of Spiers (and Angela Haggerty) yet so abusive to Mac Giolla Bháin, invoking their common membership of the National Union of Journalists, as if the number one rule of the club is “Omerta”.

It's relatively easy to attack McNally as he presumably has few strings to pull for young journalists and has had the irritating habit of enjoying his retirement by criticising coverage of football issues. For this, he has drawn abuse from, among others, Keith Jackson.

Much of the current talk is of a column by Gordon Waddell, who has insisted that only the word of journalists on the scene at Hampden can be taken at face value over the events of the Scottish Cup Final.

The likes of Cameron and Spiers, naturally enough, support this while playing down Jackson's claim that every Rangers player was assaulted after the final.

But there's the rub. There is barely a shred of trust, respect or sympathy left for any Scottish sports journalist – and they have brought that state of affairs entirely on themselves.

Spiers remains the one who has done most to stand up for the integrity of his profession but he has got less fearless as time has gone on. And Spiers retains a haughtiness, sometimes verging on a sneering tone directed at the plebs who follow this game that he graces with his words, an attitude that is amplified by English, who seems to feed his not-inconsiderable ego by putting fans down.

Spiers and English will mock their own readers as derisively as Jackson (if a little more pithily), laugh up their sleeves at the antagonistic antics of Hugh Keevins and blindly ignore the absurdity of their fellow journos Chris Jack, Matt Lindsay et al.

And for this, they expect what – our trust? The people that have gone into every contortion possible to resist saying that Rangers Football Club was liquidated and the evidence of corruption at the heart of the Scottish game expect respect?

Cameron eventually did something to mention The Offshore Game report into corruption, after Spiers acknowledged its existence.

But it is an indictment on the entire industry that the best and most comprehensive treatment of the issue was by Robbie Dinwoodie – again retired – writing for the independent Bella Caledonia (aptly titled The Unreported).

And, after so conspicuously failing to stand together on real interference and even intimidation, why should they expect a level of regard so much higher than that which they (fail to) show the football public?

Will any of these journalists of note rally to the aid of Rachel Lynch, the latest writer to be harassed for saying things that are off-script – or will they offer her the same support that Jim Spence enjoyed?

What they are struggling to accept is that their relevance is diminishing as fast as the esteem in which they may once have been held.

Frankly, we don't need to know that a journalist was sent to Monaco to watch a draw that was broadcast live by UEFA.

We don't need to hear their ill-qualified insights into events of matches that were televised live (especially when some of those match reports have been written by people who weren't even at the game).

And for their “eye-witness reports” to carry any weight, those delivering them must have more than a long-lost sliver of credibility.

The one enduring skill of the overwhelming majority of the Scottish football media pack is to irritate fans enough to get a reaction to feed off.

In other words, the term, “football journalist”, has become synonymous with being a troll.

But, like a troll, that will soon all be water under the bridge – most of their careers are sailing down the river.

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Surely they won't fool the Children of the Resolution

Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.

I have a professional contact, who loves to point out how hard she works. And she does work hard, too, emails from the early hours backing up her assertion that she spends most of the day at her PC.


But – it's a big one – she's hopelessly, haplessly inefficient. One of the reasons that she works so hard is that she has no concept of processes. And she rebuffs any suggestion that she might do things differently because she has always done things this way and therefore it is right.

And that impacts on me, as well as everyone who works with her. If I need information, she can't give it to me when I need it. She does everything strictly in the order that it comes up, with no view to time sensitivity, relative importance, knock-on effects, etc.

In short, if she worked less hard and was more receptive to the view that she might take a different tack, my life would be easier and her strong work ethic would be a source of admiration from me rather than frustration, noting her apparent assumption that she is doing things the only possible way.

I admire hard work where it is necessary or achieves a better result than a less industrious approach but I'm always wary of people who praise sweat for its own sake, when approaching a problem from a different angle might have been more effective.

So I am ready for brickbats from some quarters if I do not lavish unqualified praise on those who are working hard for a result on behalf of Celtic that they are highly unlikely to achieve.

And so we come to the hard-working people who are trying to pursue the aims of the now-infamous Resolution 12.

In short, Resolution 12 was put to the Celtic AGM and withdrawn because the majority shareholders indicated that they intended to vote it down. Had it been passed, it would have required the board to refer the Scottish Football Association's decision to submit Rangers' application to play in the Champions League to the UEFA Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) to examine what appeared to be a breach of the rules on Financial Fair Play.

Specifically, that, as Rangers had not paid their tax bill in 2011, they should not have been allowed to participate in any UEFA competition.

By all accounts, the main protagonists, notably “Auldheid” and “Brogan, Rogan, Trevino and Hogan” of Celtic Quick News fame put forward a carefully-researched proposal, backed by as much evidence and legal advice as could be reasonably available to them.

However, one of the notable things about AGMs in recent years has been that they are largely a charade, as far as fans being able to use their shareholdings to influence the direction of the club. Simply put, any policy that the directors and major shareholders dislike can be voted down.

So those proposing Resolution 12 had to rely on their carefully-researched case persuading the big hitters at the club that it was in their interests to act.

And that could only be based on another assumption – that those who wield power at Celtic Park view their interests and those of the club in the same way as the overwhelming majority of fans.

It is here that the pragmatism of their efforts can be called into question. CQN has long been the site most loudly banging the drum for the corporate “plan”, and Peter Lawwell's strategy for achieving it. And all the evidence to date seems to show that the Resolution 12 proponents maintain an unshakable faith in the integrity and good faith of those running the club.

With due respect to Auldheid and BRTH, that confidence is not universally shared amongst supporters.

The result is the now farcical situation whereby the Resolution 12 supporters, having invested years of effort in trying to pursue sporting integrity are defending a board that refuses to even request an investigation into the possibility that the club was cheated out of a chance to compete in the Champions League, and denied potential earnings of up to £15 million.

“In the intervening period of time, there have been numerous meetings and consistent correspondence between those shareholders and officials of Celtic PLC, all with a view to furthering the aims of Res 12, and there is no doubt that the Celtic board have played a full part in taking the resolution to where it now stands,” they have claimed, omitting to mention that “playing a full part” would have involved Celtic, as a member club, formally requesting action by the SFA, the absence of which would logically dictate that a formal complaint would be made to UEFA.

“Working together, the board and the shareholders have seen to it that formal letters of enquiry have been sent to the SFA, together with various pieces of documentation and supporting evidence.

“Through the shareholders’ lawyers, the SFA were asked to answer specific detailed questions in relation to their procedures, however the SFA responded by saying they would not answer any questions other than through the “member club” i.e. the board of Celtic PLC.”

Throughout the process, the board of Celtic PLC have consistently failed to exercise their rights as a member club, knowing full well that their refusal to act allowed the SFA the only get-out in a situation that was at best demonstrative of incompetence and at worst corruption.

Instead, the club have insisted that the shareholders should pursue any action.

It beggars belief that meetings where the club's representatives demonstrated verbal support that was inconsistent with their inaction should be seen as facilitating anything. The shareholders of any company are not required to act in the interests of the board; the case is quite the reverse.

For the CFCB to open an inquiry, its members would almost certainly have to consider that a group of minority shareholders, without authorisation from the board of directors of the club or any resolution passed at AGM were somehow legitimate stakeholders in representing the club.

There is little to support that position. Does anyone really imagine that UEFA would set a precedent of allowing any minority group with a handful of shares to precipitate the machinations of their investigative and disciplinary processes?

Theoretically, the CFCB could decide, unilaterally, to open a case but in the absence of a complaint from the allegedly aggrieved party, to do so would be a remarkable decision.

Which takes us back to assumptions and Occam's Razor, quoted at the top of this piece. When business people are reported to hold private views that are in direct conflict with their actions, it can be assumed that their actions are a more accurate indication of their intentions.

And when a club declines to take a complaint, where it appears that it has unfairly incurred a loss, it requires fewest assumptions to conclude that its representatives do not wish to have the outcome that such a complaint might bring about.

We could only speculate on their motives. But we can state with certainty that the club has not pursued its interests in this matter and infer why that might be.

In the meantime, the shareholders have been left to submit a complaint that the CFCB has no responsibility to consider and – crucially – resolve the entire matter before July 2016, when its own statute of limitations on this issue would run out.

In other words, the shareholders will almost certainly be rebuffed and the board will then say, “Sorry, but it's too late to do anything now.”

If that scenario comes to pass – and, in the absence of direct fan pressure on the board, it is difficult to see how it will be avoided – we will have been witness to one of the greatest betrayals in football history.

Of course, that last assertion would prove outrageous, if the board can be relied on to act in good faith, in pursuit of the club's best interests, fairness to its fans and sporting integrity.

Can we assume that to be the case?--

UEFA must investigate corruption at the heart of Scottish football

In 2005, Robert Hoyzer shook German football to its foundations with the revelation that he had been involved in match-fixing in the 2nd Bundesliga.

Hoyzer had sent off SV Hamburg’s Emil Mpenza and awarded two penalties to Paderborn who had been trailing 2-0 at the time.

Hamburg’s players’ complaints of bias were vindicated.

In 2004, Czech club Synot were fined 15,000 Euros and docked 12 points when the club were found guilty of bribing referees. The crisis worsened when 17 referees and club officials were charged with corruption.

Some of the biggest clubs in football were found guilty of corruption in Italy and punished severely.

Today, Celtic should call upon UEFA to investigate corruption in the Scottish game.

With an SFA Chief Executive who has not even pretended to be impartial, and whose comments, submitted prior to his appointment but which were published afterwards, did much to question his capacity for objectivity, it seems unlikely that any such allegations in the Scottish game will be taken seriously by our authorities.

The SFA decision to respond to charges of sectarian singing at Rangers with “no action” closely followed Smith’s appointment and since then their fans have been guilty of disgusting racism at home and away matches without censure.

However, the performances of Mike McCurry in Rangers matches, notably against Dundee United today, demand special attention.

With Dundee Utd 2-0 down, McCurry failed to award a clear penalty that should also have resulted in a red card for David Weir.

Later in the same game an own goal by Weir was disallowed for offside.

A few moments later, the Rangers player Daniel Cousin received only a yellow card for a head butt.

None of these decisions can be justified in any context. The fact that they all favoured Rangers who are challenging for the SPL demands attention.

If the Italians, Germans and Czechs can acknowledge corruption, why should we suppose that it does not exist in the Scottish game? And if the Scottish authorities will not take action, UEFA must be asked to investigate.

Craig Levein on the match

Empty vessel begs for favours

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

These wise words are attributed to President Abraham Lincoln. They also stand as rarely heeded good counsel for certain figures in Scottish football.

On Friday Celtic’s Chief Executive Peter Lawwell announced his satisfaction that the SPL has confirmed the dates of upcoming matches and states his opposition to any altering of the fixture calendar that might give an advantage to opponents.

In doing so, he quite properly defends the interests of the club that employs him – simply stating that the league should adhere to its commitments.

“Thankfully it seems the integrity of the League will not be threatened by playing any more games away from home stadia or by extending the season.

“Clearly, an extension is something which we would be strongly opposed to, as it would further inconvenience supporters and could have a significant effect on the integrity of the competition.”

Fixture congestion is not unique to Scotland – it is a perennial issue in the English Premier League and has led to clubs such as Manchester United and Arsenal making radical changes to their squads, prioritising the league and European cup competitions, or employing squad rotation systems with the intention of avoiding burn-out of players.

It is a fact of life that goes along with success. Occasionally one or two replays or postponements further complicate the issue but changing the conditions of a competition after it has started is not countenanced.

We can only speculate therefore as to what prompted these vacuous comments to Radio Clyde from Rangers Chief Executive Martin Bain.

"It's probably more to do with the fact that there is a points difference at the moment.

"Why would we want to play eight games in four days? Our preference is to extend the season if it comes to that.

"I'm not prone to comment on other's comments but what I would say to you is that to ask this football club to play four games in eight days, when we could be possibly competing in European competition, is not something that I think the SPL would do to be quite frank.”

"Rangers' involvement in the UEFA Cup affects everything, from the co-efficient to Scottish football (as a whole), so I think it would be rather foolhardy to ask us to play four games in eight days."

The story as reported in many news outlets comes from the Press Association Scotland’s reporter, Rangers historian and co-author of, among other titles, It’s Rangers for Me, Ronnie Esplin. One can only speculate as to whether or not Esplin’s impartiality has been compromised in the story headlined "Gers chief senses Hoops fear".

If Mr Bain thinks the suggestion that Rangers should be expected to fulfil their fixture obligations is foolhardy, perhaps he will invite UEFA to indulge his club by bending their own rules.

The club does seem prone to expecting rule changes in their favour. There was apparent bewilderment at Ibrox that FIFA chose to adhere to its own rules over the proposed sale of Daniel Cousin. Maybe UEFA will allow Rangers to play their ties with Sporting Lisbon at a time to suit them.

Of course, amid the growing clamour to have the league calendar altered to give Rangers a competitive advantage over their rivals, some obvious questions have been overlooked:

• Why should Rangers, unlike every other team in British competition, not be expected to fully utilise its squad to cope with any upcoming pressure?

• Why do Rangers currently have the fourth-smallest available squad in the SPL and is this fact relevant to their public request to have the league calendar changed?

• Given the demands on their squad, why then did Rangers transfer out three players and attempt to sell Daniel Cousin during the January window?

If Rangers have been unable or unwilling to assemble and maintain a squad capable of fulfilling their fixtures, it would be foolhardy, wrong and probably liable to legal challenge if their negligence should be accommodated to the detriment of other league members.

The next time Bain is thinking of saying something about Celtic, hopefully he will think of Honest Abe.