Craig Whyte and Rangers freak show does nothing for Celtic or Scottish football

Here we go being “obsessed”. Dust down any other social media tropes for those who dare to comment on the Craig Whyte case or the freak show that has been Rangers and their sequel, The Rangers.

Perhaps spin-off would be more appropriate as this sorry tale has gone from Breaking Brox to Better Call Donald as the focus has shifted from one improbable anti-hero to another with the common theme being that everyone close to it ends up being irredeemably tainted.

Apart from, perhaps, Donald Findlay QC. There will be no paean to Findlay here, any more than any sympathy will be extended towards the club that cheated the tax-payer, businesses, employees, fans and the game of football.

But Findlay could claim to be “untainted” in the sense that just about the only criticism that would sting Scotland’s highest-profile lawyer would be that he was a bad lawyer, which he patently is not.

Lawyers can be a peculiar breed – indeed, every profession has its attendant foibles – but they often get a bad press unnecessarily. They do an essential job that you hope never to need but pray to the great star above that you get a good one, if you do.

Something like an insurance policy; everyone hopes never to collect and resents paying but wants to make it work for them when called upon.

Findlay gives the impression of being that particularly obsessive type – the kind who feels a rush of cerebral orgasm when touching a clever legal spot. The kind who would see “lawyer” as being what defines him before family, faith, football or even Freemason.

So, to see him in Craig Whyte’s corner against his former friends and colleagues only added to the slapstick nature of the Govan Comedy.

The rest of Scottish football can laugh for a moment – and probably should. The case against Whyte smacked of bitter, visceral revenge and the defendant (himself no “innocent” in the world of underhand business) looking like a patsy to draw the focus from the real culprits in Rangers’s demise – David Murray, Campbell Ogilvie and a bunch of directors.

It’s amusing because the metaphorical blood promised by the same people who ushered Whyte into Ibrox has not been shed. He’s not going to jail, after all, for buying a football club that was already on the rocks and finally sinking it.

But any sympathy for Whyte should extend to the actual injustices visited on him (when his erstwhile backers hung him out to dry) and “respect” should be limited to an Artful Dodger who had enough craft to see Fagan and Bill Sykes hoist by their own petard.

That the Scottish Football Association should respond by mooting a legal challenge to recover a £200,000 fine for “bringing the game into disrepute” is worthy of derision at best and another reason for an organised campaign to clean the SFA of the corrupt and the incompetent – which covers just about all of the senior positions.

Having a president who lied about knowledge of EBTs while having received one himself at the club that was under investigation brought the entire game into the worst ill-repute possible.

21st-century Scotland is still so small in places that a small, one-nation clique of handshakers, blazer-wearers and pocket-liners can still hold sway in major institutions to the detriment of the game of football and the reputation of the country itself.

Do not underestimate the power of football. The modern political consultancies have been tuned into the “soft power” potential of sporting and media events to enhance a nation’s international standing for years.

It is for this reason, above all, that the political world suddenly becomes focused on gay rights when major tournaments like the Winter Olympics and World Cup are awarded to Russia. The politicians care no more for Russia’s oppressed LGBT communities than they do for them in the British Commonwealth but PR-gold sporting events? That’s a problem.

Forgive the digression but a Scottish football game that was healthy and winning friends on the international stage would be a major boost to the stature of the nation. And the tawdry, insular catastrophe that has been the Scottish game similarly has an inverse effect.

So, what now? For a few days fans of the other Scottish clubs will exchange

jokes and the endless stream of shysters and snake-oil salesmen a who have stuck their nose in the Ibrox trough over the years will bleat like lambs marked out for succulence.

Then, on Saturday, the nation will unite to support the SFA’s team against England. If they win, the game will ride a summer wave of delusion; if they lose Gordon Strachan will be sacked and that will be the Scottish football news.

It’s no good asking: when will the punters have had enough? The punters had enough years ago and came back for more, martyring themselves like the unappreciated partners of a no-good spouse, whining over cups of tea and deserving very little sympathy.

Celtic supporters of a certain vintage will recall that we have had our own camel-coat-wearers to bear and that our own major shareholder has a few sharp moves of his own.

But until the fans start to act – by boycotting the national teams and exerting co-ordinated pressure on their own clubs to reform or disband the SFA, they will be part of the problems, victims facilitating a wider malaise.

A stinking fungus has befouled Scottish football for generations. The game will not be rid of it without root-and-branch removal.

Hold your nose, not your breath.


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Incompetent SFA challenge fans to boycott the game

Physical embodiment: The SFA

'Understanding' is a two-way process. To be effective, an organisation needs to listen to the opinions of those with whom it deals and not solely provide information. Issuing a barrage of propaganda is not enough in today's open society.

So say none other that the Chartered Institute of Public Relations as a footnote to their definition of what their organisation is all about:

“Public Relations is about reputation – the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you.

“Public Relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics*.”

It is a definition that seems to have passed over the Scottish Football Association's heads at high altitude. But then PR is under the direction of the Communications department, which is headed by Darryl Broadfoot.

Broadfoot always seemed a strange choice for such a wide-ranging role. Having worked his way up – with some assistance – to being Chief Football Writer at The Herald, Broadfoot's path to success was one more appropriate to pre-1980s Britain, eschewing university for a much-sought-after job as a teenage “copy boy” at the title.

He was, by all accounts, well-liked – grafting, doing as he was told and giving no one around him an inferiority complex. His football affiliations were well-known by his workmates, which may well have facilitated a close working relationship with David Murray.

But he did as well as could reasonably be expected of someone with his abilities and some might say he deserved praise for that, though few would accuse him of self-sacrifice in the name of journalistic integrity. He was also the man who referred to the “Greek Sagas” and had a brief but infamous association with Michelle McManus, meaning that to the football-supporting public, he was something of a figure of fun.

At that time he seemed incongruous at The Herald but little did we know that his was the shape of things to come with Chris Jack and Matt Lindsay following in his footsteps.

There was little, then, to suggest that he was in any way suited to heading a major department in the national sport's governing body where modern, outward-looking, strategic communication was a key requirement.

It could even be said that only an organisation that would put the likes of George Peat, Gordon Smith and Campbell Ogilvie at its head would be so backward as to appoint a friendly football writer who had paltry education, no qualifications and a very limited relevant skill set.

To communicate with all the SFA's publics, they turned to someone who had spent his entire career with one newspaper, much of it with wiser heads looking over his shoulder.

Is Broadfoot promoting “goodwill and understanding”, in the CIPR's sense of the words? Could anyone say that the SFA enjoys a strong reputation? Or would it be more accurate to say the the Association transmits a “barrage of propaganda”?

The report from John Clark at the Scottish Football Monitor of his meeting with Broadfoot and Alan McRae makes astonishing reading.

First, the President of the SFA is apparently deemed incompetent to answer any of the most pertinent questions put to him. Let's be clear – the Head of Communications may sit in on an interview and occasionally butt in, should the interviewee drop a clanger that requires clarification.

It is not his job to speak for his boss because, quite simply, the boss is supposed to know better than anyone what his organisation is doing. The PR may handle routine press inquiries and briefings but could you imagine, for example, if Alastair Campbell didn't consider Tony Blair capable of outlining Labour Party policy?

There is only one time when such tactics are used and that is when obfuscation or shooting down dissent is required. And that is when the organisation knows it is not on solid ground in its dealings.

Perhaps even more remarkable than Broadfoot's comment, “for the purposes of this meeting, I am the SFA,” which apart from the hubris is a clear indication of McCrae's perceived competence, is what Clark attributes to him about football supporters' concerns being heard:

“Mr Broadfoot opined that the future would show whether Scottish Football supporters were really concerned about the old club/new club debate, if huge numbers turned their backs on the game.”

There, in a nutshell, is the SFA telling fans that if they keep buying tickets they will be ignored. Only by turning their backs on the game will the issues begin to be addressed.

It is rare for any organisation to challenge its own customers to abandon it but that is exactly what the SFA, through Darryl Broadfoot has done. It is over to the fans to respond.

*(“Publics' are audiences that are important to the organisation. They include customers - existing and potential; employees and management; investors; media; government; suppliers; opinion-formers.)

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Official: David Murray clears up 'crisis' speculation

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Cheap shots and dirty tricks in vain as hamstrung team beats club on its knees

We should have known something was in the air. Indeed, we would have been warned had we been the sort of people to buy the Daily Record: Incorporating the Rangers News.

As the worst paper in Scotland heading further into decline, the Record is the ideal vessel as the tabloid of choice for Rangers. However, even by its low standards, choosing the morning of a game against the Scottish Champions to announce David Murray’s team of all-time Rangers greats was questionable. The content of that list pointed at a man transparently desperate to regain popularity with the lowest form of his club’s fans.

Conveying a bizarre message that he intended to pick only players who “knew what the club was about”, Murray therefore confined himself to Protestant Scots, scorning the contributions of the likes of Brian Laudrup, Mark Hately, Paul Gascoigne, Ray Wilkins, Trevor Steven and even Terry Butcher. (His man at the Evening Times surprisingly got a mention).

He began by declaring that Andy Goram, a known associate of terrorists and other gangsters, recently quoted as having boasted about his racial and sectarian abuse of Pierre Van Hoydonk, a notorious debauched drunk and incorrigible gambler was “a great character, … the best we’ve ever seen”. (Presumably a role model for young Rangers fans).

In case you need reminding, this is the same Rangers Chairman who celebrated his 20 years wreckage of the club by insisting that he acts with “dignity”.

So much for the value of the Record-Rangers alliance – they thinking they’re helping Murray but in fact are only giving him a platform to make an even bigger fool of himself and stripping him of every last shred of credibility in the process.

By the time the teams left the tunnel, it was clear that Murray would do anything to regain that respect that others understand as notoriety. Long ago, when he still occasionally bemoaned the “FTP brigade”, however unconvincingly (he never mentioned Donald Findlay by name, after all), Murray admitted that he had to stop playing the Tina Turner number, “Simply the Best”, because his supporters insisted of shoe-horning “F--- the Pope and the IRA” into their rendition.

On Saturday, however, the strains of the song – and the sectarian abuse that goes with it – were again heard echoing around the stadium. Already, we had some indication that Murray policy at Ibrox is dangerously close to being dictated by the kind of supporters groups usually noted for their fondness of Nazi salutes.

On the pitch, there was something more sinister. There has again been criticism of the Ibrox pitch, with the suggestion that the grass had been watered on the coldest day of the year and the undersoil heating “not working properly”. This is clearly a farcical euphemism. Every time a better team plays at Ibrox – that means every time Celtic play there – the pitch, once described by Murray as one of any football club’s most valuable assets – seems to be in any condition from atrocious to dangerous.

Only a very friendly press and Scottish football administration would continually ignore the fact that this has been a deliberate ploy to frustrate superior teams.

They do have form for this, after all. As far back as their European tie with Dynamo Kiev, Rangers illegally narrowed the pitch between Dynamo training on it and the start of the match. Before their tie with Marseille, the pitch was mysteriously flooded. When they are forced to do so in order to play a team seriously hampered by injuries, it makes clear just how desperate their sense of inferiority has made them.

As usual in the game, the match was notable for the Rangers culture of cheating and dirty tricks – apparently the only speciality of the Walter Smith-Ally McCoist coaching partnership. From Kirk Broadfoot throwing Artur Boruc into the net to Celtic reject Kenny Miller’s diving, it was clear that this was to be a day for winning by unfair means or foul.

Having controlled the ball with his hand before diving outside the box to see his Scotland team-mate Gary Calwell booked, Miller screamed at the referee, apparently believing that his cheating merited a penalty. In doing so, he merely further illustrated that bitterness and second-rate football is now the order of the day at Ibrox and that he is better suited to Rangers than Celtic.

However, in contrast to his last outing against Scotland’s top team, when he seemed to celebrate scoring by shouting “We are the f---ing peepul”, at least his form in front of goal showed that he didn’t discriminate when it came to missing chances. It is unlikely that a Premiership club will be pursuing him this season.

The highlight of the match was, of course, the perfect Celtic goal. Brilliance by Scott McDonald, helped by Georgios Samaras, against a backdrop of Kirk Broadfoot defending. McDonald has shown in recent weeks that a player can work his way through periods of poor form and looks ready to find a goal-scoring streak.

There were several outstanding performances but none more so that Scott Brown. Those who think that Brown must be a defensive or “nullifying” midfielder because he makes a lot of tackles are to be pitied. You will rarely see such a compilation of aggressive energy and attacking instincts in any one player and Brown is an asset far too precious to be allowed to leave.

Along with Barry Robson and Paul Hartley, who both performed heroics in the midfield, Brown seemed to particularly relish the occasion. Brown is maturing rapidly and the day when he utterly dismantles a Rangers team is coming soon.

At the end of the match, the Ibrox PA system belted out Rangers songs in a piqued attempt to drown out the singing of the Celtic supporters.

The attempt failed but did allow for ironic context. As the Celtic fans and players shared the victory, the words rang out: “There’s not a team like the Glasgow Rangers; no, not one and there never shall be one.”

To which the obvious response is: “Thankfully true; and we certainly hope so.”





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