Celtic's Bolingoli fiasco – one idiot, many culprits

Rather than continually waiting for the next act of stupidity or deliberate wrecking of the competitions, 
we should call for the charade to be ended and the season to be suspended now

Only a week ago the greatest problem vexing the minds of most Celtic fans was the awful prospect of signing a 33-year-old Steven Fletcher and the fearful possibility that he was being considered as a replacement for Odsonne Edouard.

And if a week is a long time in politics, it can seem like a lifetime in football.

Some of us thought we had problems on Sunday when a repeat of the performances we've seen all too often over the last two or three years at Rugby Park saw us dropping two points in our second game of the season.

The team showing was contemptible, Chris Jullien showed again why he won second prize in the wet paper bag fighting contest and there were serious questions over the approach of the coaching staff who have yet to find an answer to the Kilmarnock high press on their admittedly poor pitch.

If Jullien thought he would be the major talking point there were plenty of other contenders, namely the tiresome lack of availability of Tom Rogic, the paper-thin squad (particularly after the departure of Simunovic, thankfully, and Jonny Hayes), Bayo not being available and the mystery of Shved continuing.

Five substitutions should favour teams with stronger squads but with misfiring in all departments in a tactically hopeless mess, Neil Lennon clearly felt short of quality options to replace the underperforming players on show on Sunday.

Ironically one chink of light came in the form of Boli Bolingoli Nbombo who, coming on late, contributed to three good chances that our foxes in the box managed to foxup entirely.

Those few moments from Bolingoli were the equal of anything he has produced in his risible time at Celtic and if not quite a hurrah they will certainly represent his last contribution to the club.

The facts of what happened are indisputable. Bolingoli went on a moonlight jaunt to Spain for reasons as yet unclear and broke Covid-19 regulations, actually having the audacity to play at Rugby Park without telling anyone at the club about his exploits.

That provided Nicola Sturgeon and her SNP leadership cult with a perfect opportunity to indulge two of their great pleasures: deflecting from negative at media attention directed at the first minister and taking a swipe at Scottish football.

So, under pressure from the Joint Response Group, which was under the direction of Nicola Sturgeon, the SPFL decided to cancel Celtic's next 2 League games; one with Aberdeen who also had their Covid-19 issues.

If the facts of what happened are clear enough,  who's to blame and what should be done do not lend themselves so easily to such simplistic answers as might be imagined.

Bolingoli is certainly to blame. His actions were inexcusable and indefensible and no amount of apologies - sincere or otherwise - can mitigate those actions in any way.

He should certainly be punished to a far greater degree than the £480 fixed penalty notice imposed by police Scotland even if the apparent prompting of the Justice Minister, of whom the police are supposed to be independent, should cause concern.

In my view his punishment should be the maximum fine allowable under the rules as well as a substantial ban, preferably taking him beyond the next transfer window.

But simply ripping up his contract should not be an option. There were some suggestions on Twitter yesterday that Celtic could even sue him for breach of contract and recover some of ridiculous outlay they paid for a player who will surely go down as one of the worst purchases in the club's history.

To me, suing would be a step too far unless it could be proven that his trip (which looks very much like it was intended to discuss a transfer) was planned as some intricate scheme to get thrown out of Celtic. I doubt very much that he possesses is that intelligence.

On the other hand making a free agent of a £3m-pound footballer we dare not play - and who wants a move - would simply be rewarding a scurrilous activity that has already damaged Celtic and has been to the detriment and peril of Scottish football entirely.

Those actions should be non-starters but so, too, should be the suggestion of sending Bolingoli out on loan with an option to buy. That would be in the club's best financial interests but it would do nothing to protect the integrity of football or to protect Celtic or the game in general from potential sabotage through such reprehensible actions, in times of crisis, such as these.

Of course, the club must be careful to observe the law and not give Bolingoli any opportunity to leave through constructive dismissal or breach of contract. This is where the football authorities should show leadership and impose the most significant penalties within their powers.

But we should also remember that Bolingoli's culpability is not in any way diminished by having other targets in our sights.

The SPFL

It may been news to some that resisting the attempts of The Rangers to bring Scottish football to its knees - and force last season to be voided due to the pandemic - is not the same as endorsing the

leadership of the SPFL.

I do not and never have believed that this season would be completed.

Successfully completing the season might be possible in countries where there are clear policies and rules; effective, disciplined compliance and competent administration of the game.

Scotland is not one of those countries.

The SPFL may believe its guidelines are clear and that they can be sure that every club has communicated them effectively to young athletes of varied backgrounds, including different linguistic origins.

But there's a problem with that. With the best will in the world, it's difficult to convey a clear, simple message concerning complex and often vague conditions.

That may somewhat mitigate the actions of the Aberdeen players who went to pubs, legally opened and overcrowded, and found themselves in breach of distancing rules and guidelines over groups from more than 3 households.

And to Aberdeen's credit they did nothing to try to escape the consequences of their players' actions -  and were even quite ready to face what would surely have been a sound drubbing at the hands of a full-strength Celtic team, minus eight first-team players.

But the SPFL, having been quite frankly too afraid to punish the Rangers after fielding players without waiting for their covid-19 tests, have created an atmosphere in which it is difficult to know if any transgressions will be taken seriously, even in the unlikely event of every player understanding their responsibilities.

On top of that, the SPFL simply rolled over in the face of pressure from a government that has been hell-bent on attacking Scottish football ever since the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act was repealed.

Let's not forget that the government were threatening to intervene in Scottish football over crowd-control issues for more than a year, pre-covid-19, and now it has flexed its muscles over eight players in a pub and one player on a trip to Spain.

With weak-kneed leadership, being feart in the face of the Rangers and completely capitulating to the Scottish government, the SPFL and SFA have walked into a situation whereby the Scottish government can constantly threaten to bring the game crashing down.

And, if they can do so while apportioning the blame to others, they will.

SNP and Tories

Celtic are now in the unenviable position of being at the centre of an unedifying fight between the SNP and the Tories for the votes of the Rangers supporting loyalist Orange members of Scottish society.

We are often called paranoid but with buffoons such as Professor Adam Tomkins and Murdo Fraser openly courting the Rangers Supporters online; with their new Tory leader Douglas Ross insisting that he will still run the line in games; and on the other side with Ibrox Park being in the constituency of Nicola Sturgeon there is every reason to believe that damaging Celtic and stopping 10 in a row could be a major vote-winner fin next year's elections.

It doesn't help that Labour in the LibDems are so appallingly ineffective that nobody in their right mind would vote for them.

 

But, with the SNP, it seems that there is a genuine distaste for football and the football supporter. The Offensive Behaviour at Football Act, first introduced by Alex Salmond and defended to the hilt by Nicola Sturgeon criminalised ordinary actions in the context of football that would not be seen as illegal elsewhere. 

There is every reason to believe that football supporters are still considered an underclass in Scotland that is despised by the SNP.

It is also a convenient scapegoat while negative headlines are attached to the party or its leader.

Without strong, effective responses from the SPFL, including Peter Lawwell, who is on its board, Scottish football will continue to be battered by the Scottish government and Celtic will be the biggest losers.

Celtic

And as a club just what have Celtic done about all this? 

They issued the usual necessary statements against Bolingoli but have they done anything to defend the interests of the club and the fans? I see little evidence of that.

What they have done is completely capitulate when, without any requirement under the rules, our club has been penalised by politicians.

Thee club is exceptionally vocal when touting season tickets for matches that they know are unlikely to take place and even less likely to take place in front of fans. They indulge in wall-to-wall marketing of football strips, merchandise, Celtic media and every opportunity for the fan to put money into the clubs coffers. But when the fans need someone to stand up for them, Celtic - Dermot Desmond, Peter Lawwell and Ian Bankier - observe a "dignified silence".

While these people indulge in a high-stakes game of corporate Moneyball the last thing on their minds is the interests of the fans who simply want to see a strong team on the park playing on an even field. 

And what no one in the media - mainstream or independent -seems to have asked is did anyone in Scottish football really believe that this season would be completed when they were selling season tickets in advance.

It defies all expectations of scientists and public health professionals and I for one believe that together they have perpetrated one of the biggest frauds in sport

The people who run Celtic are a disgrace but they have been enabled.

Fans

But the fans also have to take some share of the blame.

Firstly, by the annual act of faith of buying 53,000 season tickets, clearing the shelves of strips and pouring money into the club all on promises that are rarely fulfilled.

Yes we have won 9 titles in a row and that is a memorable achievement. It theoretically puts us in a similar category to Bayern Munich, who have achieved the same in the Bundesliga, and one step ahead of Juventus and New Quay Saints of Wales who have both won eight consecutive titles.

The point is that being a little better than extremely poor for a very long time should not be the aspiration of Celtic fans.

But it has been enough to mollify sufficient numbers to stop any protests in the only meaningful way possible - by hitting the club and its executives and directors in the pocket.

Similarly, amid the backlash against Bolingoli, numerous Celtic fans were only too quick to bend over and accept any punishment meted out, like children in the class all being belted over the transgressions of one and accepting that it was fully deserved.

What chance do we have of fairness, never mind improvement, while our own fans play into the hands of those who either don't care about us or despise us?

This is the club we've made and this is the game that our club has allowed to become.

Rather than continually waiting for the next act of stupidity or deliberate wrecking of the competitions, we should call for the charade to be ended and the season to be suspended now, with all season tickets being valid for 2021/22.

That may seem like a crime but I would see it as a mercy killing.

Open To ALL - Neither the Green Brigade nor FAC have a right to divide Celtic Park on party-political grounds

I have always had mixed feelings about the Green Brigade.

I love many of their displays and acknowledge the atmosphere that they have generated at times when it has been badly needed.

I also give them huge credit for the food bank collections, which accentuate the solidarity of Celtic fans with the poor for whom our club was founded, especially as so few other clubs' fans ever come close to matching it.

I have similar values to many of those that the GB express – left, Irish Republican, and for a just solution for the Palestinian people.

On the latter issue, I have no problem saying that, overall, I was wrong about the Palestinian flag protest for the match with Hapoel Be'er Sheva and the subsequent "Match the Fine for Palestine" was a very proud moment for Celtic that I had not anticipated. Fair play.

But while the GB was proved right about the previous Palestinian action (and this weekend certainly warranted one), many of their political activities have given me cause for concern.

Not necessarily because I disagree with the message but because claiming Celtic for a narrow political viewpoint is divisive and inappropriate to a club with Celtic's "open to all" identity and values.

Okay, we're not really open to all – not to neo-Nazis, Fascists, racists, Antisemites, Islamophobes, anti-Catholic bigots or anyone who discriminates on the basis of any religious discrimination.

Generally, anyone who advocates discrimination against minorities is not welcome to express their views at Celtic Park (though some minorities would not have been welcomed at any club, including Celtic, in previous decades).

That's just my opinion, of course. This is my personal forum for expressing it and I have to acknowledge that I don't speak for Celtic or Celtic fans.

But this is one area in which I feel that the Green Brigade can often lack an appreciation of nuance and the true value of diversity.

Frankly, I think that they often act like a bunch of overgrown kids (though many are, in fact, just  kids).

I have sung many a song in honour of the Irish rebels, who people like me remember, particularly at Easter time.

The Foggy Dew, Come Out Ye Black-'N'-Tans, The Boys of the Ould Brigade, The Merry Ploughboy, Rock on Rockall and more. But I have never sung any of them at Celtic Park.

Because, they are not necessarily understood and, if they are, not necessarily accepted amongst the Celtic support.

Danny McGrain MBE

Excuse the nuance, folks, but Willie Maley – a far greater Celt than I or (I humbly submit) any Green Brigade member – urged young men to fight for the British Empire. And that's when it was a real piece of work!

That would be the same empire from which many great Celts accepted bestowed honours – Sir Bob Kelly; Jock Stein, Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire; Bobby Lennox, Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire; Paul McStay, Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, and more.

All, immeasurably greater Celts than I could ever wish to be.

And that necessarily implies to me that Celtic supporters can't exclude even those who have fought for that empire from our midst, never mind those fans who currently support Scotland's place in the United Kingdom and vote for it.

And, logically, neither could we or should we seek to exclude people who support Scottish independence.

I've lived through the last throes of Labour in Scotland and I didn't like what I saw. I don't much like the Scottish National Party, either.

Personally, I'm a left-leaning supporter of Scottish independence, with no support for the British union, and would be politically closest to the Scottish Socialist Party had that entity not gone up in a puff of hubris, testosterone and farce.

So, what are we going to say? You can't be a Celtic supporter and vote for a British Unionist party like Labour, the Conservatives or the LibDems?

You can't be a Celtic supporter who, like me, vociferously opposed the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act and vote SNP?

"Radical" Celtic fans say Yes to Scottish independence

If you think, “Yes”, to either question, I would ask who exactly you think you are to make Celtic Park the battleground for your narrow view of politics.

And who the hell you think you are to use Celtic or Fans Against Criminalisation to make party-political points at Celtic Park, as the Green Brigade did on Saturday during the match against Ross County.

"FAC 1 – 0 SNP", the banner went, with the Green Brigade “Ultras” skull logo, despite FAC having gone to great lengths to say that they represented a broad range of opinions and football loyalties.

The banner also had the tag – ACAB (All Coppers Are Bastards).

The OBFA, admittedly, caused tremendous damage to relations between Scottish football supporters and Police Scotland (and Celtic fans have long had an at best guarded relationship with the police as an institution).

But, to be kind, this is just another example of the rebel wannabe kids spewing forth on banners without thinking of nuance at all. "All coppers are bastards"? Doesn't that sound discriminatory? Have you envisaged a state that can exist in the absence of a police force?

(As I have always said, if you want to say, “ACAB”, then never lower yourself to call the cops so that one of those bastards has to risk his or her safety to get you or a loved-one out of a hole.)

So, according to one banner, you can't be an SNP-supporter or a police officer and be a Celtic fan.

Only if you believe that the Green Brigade's big banner – thankfully not recently with their “pyro” bonfire-night displays – speaks for Celtic, rather than a bunch of kids, who can grow up in their own time, not on Celtic's.

As with most divisive issues, I see stridently diverse opinions on the issue of Scottish independence.

Some see those who sing against British imperialism in Ireland but support British-Unionist Labour to be the most risible of hypocrites.

Others see the SNP, the primary party of Scottish independence, as an untrustworthy shower with no regard for Scotland's Irish Catholic community or football supporters as a group.

William Wallace and Bobby Sands banners at Celtic Park

Both positions have their arguable merits.

But, like it or not, members of both camps have a place at Celtic.And many thousands of SNP supporters and voters also support Celtic.

Just as Green and LibDem supporters, capitalists and – yes – even Tories. (We've had plenty in the past, though I find the party particularly offensive - which is not illegal).

Our club has embraced them all – imperialists, republicans, Catholics, Protestants, “Mohammedans” (as Maley referred to our first Muslim player), Jews, Gay people and many (though fewer now) homophobes.

Let no one or any group try to dictate that the Celtic family or club, open to all, should be divided according to their own narrow views or use the platform of Celtic to seek to exclude people from our club.

Our unity and diversity has enabled us to stand strong against every outside force that sought to divide us - one club since 1888.

There is a place for us all – even the Green Brigade.

And, always, especially the kids.

Do not mourn for the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act – spit on its grave

Politicians of one party made football fans subject to special laws and extraordinary police attention. Its death knell should be welcomed

Keep politics out of sport, we were once told. A noble ideal.

Let the dreamers dream and the players play, without the cynical machinations of a different world

Political, offensive or criminal? 50 years ago,
Tommie Smith & John Carlos shocked the
USA with this gesture at the Olympics,
calling attention to Black Human Rights 

turning fair athletic endeavour into another field of conflict.

Moscow was the target in 1980, when Soviet intervention in Afghanistan led to the US leading a boycott of the Olympic Games.

Four years later, the Games were hosted in Los Angeles, providing a perfect opportunity to 14 Eastern Bloc countries to retaliate by implementing their own boycott.

Not for the first time, the Olympics had been made into a political football.

It was difficult to see who had won in either case, apart from the competitors who won medals that boycotting non-participants would likely have secured.

The fans didn’t win. Both Olympiads had been significantly diminished.

But who has ever really cared about the fans?

Politicians just couldn’t and wouldn’t keep their noses out.

Politicians are the weirdest of breeds. The most successful of them see everything – but everything – as a political opportunity to be exploited or a risk to be mitigated. (Watching The Thick of It or Veep gives something of a feel for that politicking mentality for those who are not politics fans.)

When you hear them saying, “Don’t play (party) politics”, on any issue, you know they believe that they cannot win.

Yet this is the preferred message of some to the Scottish Parliament as it prepares for what should be the final nail in the coffin of the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act (OBFA).

Scottish politicians chose to interfere in sport with the OBFA – but only one sport.

The only one that could be considered the Scottish national sport, which vastly exceeds all others in participation, attendance, television viewing, and economic contribution. Football.

Would you expect a “Gouging at Rugby” Act? A “Cheating at Golf” Act? A “Hooliganism at Outdoor Music Festivals” Act?

I’m guessing not.

But the OBFA created a special class of citizen under the law that would be subject to prosecution and police action in circumstances that did not apply to any other section of society.

In fact, it was specifically contrived to exclude every other section of society. And, in doing so, it made football fans an underclass subject to special treatment in other areas.

You fancy packing a few tinned G&Ts or Mojitos on a bus trip to a pantomime? Fine – nobody is going to harass you.

Set up for the journey to Pittodrie? Let’s pull over and search that bus for six-packs of beer.

Why? Because the roads to football grounds are paved with unrepentant or unwitting sinners – the distinction does not matter because they are all potential criminals, though they know not yet what they do.

And, yes, the wording of the Act is so vague and all-encompassing as to include offences of “offensiveness” that could only occur if people who might have been present, but weren’t, had only been in attendance to claim offence.

And it takes no consideration of the mere technicality that the offenders may have had neither the desire, intention nor knowledge of the potential criminality of their hypothetical offensiveness – as long as it was in a tangentially-related football context.

This was deemed to be good law by the Scottish Government and was pushed through against all objections from every opposition party.

Now that it faces what should be its death knell, the only party that has ever supported the OBFA is claiming to be the victims of political expediency – or put another way, saying, “Don’t play party politics with this issue.”

Holyrood members of that party have, remarkably, all supported the Scottish Government’s position on an act that has been condemned by Sheriffs, Human Rights organisations (such as Liberty) and pressure groups claiming to represent plebeian football supporters.

The politicians even made it a criminal offence to express political views within a football context.

One of the Act’s most vociferous supporters, SNP MSP, John Mason, even noted that wearing a Yes badge (supporting Scottish independence) should be considered unacceptable while watching football, commenting: “We should all know by now expressing political views is no longer acceptable at football matches.”

Of course not – they might be offensive.

But only at football.

At the Olympics, it’s a different matter.

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Masks, Nazi salutes, Scott Sinclair attacked – all in the name of The Rangers and the Union Bears

The “Goodnight, Green White” march went on to demonstrate just how low the fans of The Rangers have sunk but the blame goes much wider

To start with the usual disclaimer, all football clubs have their undesirable element. And most of us view the excesses of our own supporters with an understanding that tends towards lenience while being acutely focused on the specks in our rivals’ eyes.

So much for the “whataboutery”.

But Scottish football, through inaction, excuses and encouragement, has allowed a monster to grow and it is best illustrated by The Rangers “Ultras” group, the Union Bears.

The UB had their much-publicised march before the game with Celtic on Sunday, behind a banner with the logo of someone in a Celtic shirt being kicked in the head and the words, “Goodnight, Green White”.

Police Scotland, forewarned of the event and having promised to crack down on any potential hate crime, watched as masked fans, dressed in black, made Nazi salutes. But they took no action.

After the match, it was reported that Celtic player, Scott Sinclair was the victim of an attack at Glasgow airport by suited fans of the famous “same club”.

At times like these, typically, a few politicians blame football itself. Newspapers seek examples of anti-social behaviour from the “other side” to show that “they’re all as bad as each other”.

Some writer will lament piously about what football can learn from rugby union and a social commentator will push the context of a disenfranchised, white, male, working-class youth, seeking recognition and affiliation in the absence of the place their forefathers might have occupied in heavy industry.

Statements are issued, a few arrests made and a handful of faces splashed across the papers.

But the noise itself eventually becomes of chatter, rather than the cranking up of the machinery of change.

It would be hopelessly naive to think that this occasion will be any different. But it should be.

The output of the Union Bears is something like a magnifying glass to the sun. It is an intense concentration of values that formed the bedrock of Rangers Football Club and were the main traditions thought worth preserving after that club was liquidated and the new club was formed. (And the absolute denial of the truth of that liquidation is part of this toxic culture).

It is an aggressive right-wing, Protestant supremacist attitude manifesting itself in a hatred of the Catholic, the Irish and Celtic.

Fascism

You can openly make Nazi salutes amid the Ibrox throng for a good reason. Many of these people are simply Neo-Nazis in their element.

Every Fascist movement has had its “white-collars” defining a strategy that depends on “boots on the ground” – ill-educated thugs desperate to believe that there is glory and prestige attached to attacking whatever “othered” group is the current victim of choice.

In Scotland, that disdained group has overwhelmingly been the Irish Catholic community, the belittling and oppression of which has a tradition of more than a century.

It was validated by the Church of Scotland and put into practice by polite, white, Protestant Scottish society, both working-class and middle-class.

In the working-class, it was enacted through restricting access to apprenticeships, once the best bet of lifting your family out of poverty. In the middle class, it was through closing off opportunities in the professions.

The media combined both and allowed a comfortable consensus to be formed that society was largely all right, just as it espoused the hypocritical British sense of fair play.

Most of those socio-economic barriers have now been lifted but the institutions formed in that atmosphere have changed only superficially.

Dangerous

A sizeable proportion of Scottish society remains hostile to that Irish Catholic community that gave birth and identity to Celtic, regardless of the diversity that the club embraces.

That is why so many hate Celtic just for daring to allow that class that they believe should be the eternal subordinates an open expression of confidence and pride.

And this is what makes these times increasingly dangerous. The supremacists ultimately lost completely and finally. Their club was liquidated.

The new club, formed to feed off the supporters of the old one, loses again and again and again.

And, without on-the-field success, their supporters are becoming increasingly aggressive.

When the Scottish football authorities were talking of “social unrest” and “Armageddon” if Rangers were allowed to die or if the rules were not broken to allow a new Rangers to exist, they were acknowledging a culture that they had nurtured.

The blazers at Park Gardens and then Hampden were, after all, almost entirely worn by members of that same white, Protestant demographic, impressed by the “dignity” of the likes of Struth, Waddell, Ogilvie, Murray and Smith – men very like themselves, without Irish immigrant names.

The fans were singing about being “up to their knees in Fenian blood” – it was simply passion barely worthy of comment. The players were singing the same in the dressing room – exuberance. (Neither Chick Young nor the BBC thought it appropriate to comment on footage of Graeme Souness’s team doing so until 30 years after they filmed it).

The suits were doing it – just harmless banter.

Widespread prejudice

Of course, much prejudice is genuinely unconscious. If 85% of your workplace seems to look and think like you, you may normalise dysfunctional attitudes. Likewise, few people define themselves to be bigots, never mind much-loved relatives or respected members of the community who seemed fine, loving people but who didn’t like Catholics.

Low-key expressions of bigotry can seem benign. So, that great champion of the working-class, Mhairi Black MP can mock “plastic Irishmen” without apology or admonishment from the Scottish National Party, which seems to take every other form of discrimination very seriously indeed.

The SNP will not legislate against hate marches any more than Labour (formerly the traditional party of the Irish working class community in Britain) have done – so thousands of members of the Orange Order will march on Scottish streets in an open display of contempt for the one community that it is still acceptable to denigrate.

Tories, propped up in Westminster by the anti-Irish Democratic Unionist Party, are regularly found to have expressed various forms of racist and anti-Catholic abuse – with even MSPs tweeting “WATP” (again supremacist language: “We are the People”).

The politicians will not actively address anti-Irish or anti-Catholic hatred as they either actively or tacitly support it or are fearful of losing more votes than they may gain. That in itself tells you something about how far-reaching these attitudes remain in Scotland.

Instead, the SNP created legislation against football fans in general  with the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act and dressed it up as being “anti-sectarian”, though the word was not even mentioned.

Same hate, different march

In essence, the Union Bears march was not significantly different to the Orange marches that are so popular in Scotland.

There were flares and smoke and the uniforms were paramilitary in style, rather than faux military marching band designs. The hatred, though, was directed against the same people.

However, there was one key difference.

The logo inciting violence against Celtic players and fans was prominent and yet no action was taken to remove it.

And later three men were removed from a flight after abusing a Celtic player.

Should we really believe that the sentiment so freely expressed by the Union Bears had no bearing on three men thinking that it was acceptable to harass a man famous for wearing the same green and white hoops that appeared in that logo?

Does the problem that needs to be addressed lie solely within the Union Bears or The Rangers Football Club as an entity?

Would it be more honest to blame Scottish football as a whole?

And what of Scotland?

More on this topic

• Why The Rangers and Police Scotland must take action against the Union Bears
• Falkirk Twidiot outs The Rangers pal as author of Union Bears ‘Bash-a-Fenian’ post
• Blogging for the public good – police take action against Union Bears’ violent threat to Celts
• Union Bears in crisis! The Rangers fans split over violent sectarian idiocy ahead of Celtic match

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