On Friday, Rangers 'withdrew cooperation' from The Herald and its associated newspapers, The Sunday Herald and The Evening Times, after The Herald supposedly ran scaremongering stories over Rangers' finances...in short, claiming there were concerns over the club's solvency.
As I've said before, the PR agency the Ibrox side are employing seems about as suitable for the job as a lioness would be for babysitting infant wildebeest. Various journalists from other newspapers tweeted about this move almost instantly, though few papers and news media reported it. By Saturday afternoon, the BBC reported the leaking of legal documents concerning the upcoming unfair dismissal case of Martin Bain, the former Rangers Chief Executive deposed as part of Craig Whyte's takeover. On Sunday, the front page of the Sunday Mail (sister paper of the Daily Record, a paper accused by many Rangers fans of being biased against the club, yet derided as The Daily Ranger by supporters of other clubs) ran this story.
All the while, Rangers denounced a 'whispering campaign' against them, suggesting that elements in the media have an agenda against them, a charge they have already accused HMRC of over their pursuit of unpaid taxes. They presumably think the same of the Scottish legal profession, given the way those court papers ended up on the net. Yet there has been no talk of legal action against the journalists who have been reporting these stories, and one word that has been conspicuously absent from all these tales of £50 million tax bills and accusations of potential future insolvency - 'deny'.
Those who read this blog (all three of you) will please note that I posted on the subject several months ago, even when the mainstream media (save the BBC's Scottish Economic Editor) seemed to be steering clear of it. The reason is pretty clear - it is easy for those in Govan to issue veiled threats to the press which go along the lines of "report negative stories about us and we'll stop talking to you". It's a powerful threat - for, let's face it, articles about the Old Firm make up, oh, roughly 99% (give or take 1%) of news stories about Scottish football. I doubt I would continue reading The Times if the back page stories were about Aberdeen's defensive frailties or Dundee United's injury strewn forward line (though, if I had any morals, I wouldn't be reading a Murdoch paper anyway...but Graeme Spiers remains the best and most interesting of Scottish hacks).
So now all the gory details of Rangers' financial problems are in the public eye, though, if you knew where to look, you could have found them on the net six months ago. There are enough pro-Celtic journalists out there who seized on the story long before the end of last season. And while even the best of these, such as Phil Mac Ghiolla Bain, put a hugely biased slant on the tale, time has proven their reporting to be accurate.
Not that Celtic are innocent of putting pressure on reporters; Scotland international-turned-pundit Pat Nevin revealed to a Scottish Parliament committee this week how, during the broadcast of this year's Scottish Cup Final, he dared to comment on the very audible singing of pro-IRA chants. The response? Furious complaints by Celtic to the BBC. You would have to search far and wide to find any match report on the Cup Final that mentioned sectarian songs...just as, for example, nobody commented how, at Inverness earlier this season, the entire Rangers end broke into a loud rendition of "You can stick the Virgin Mary up your arse".
The most striking example of this appears to be the infamous assault of Neil Lennon at Tynecastle (though, according to the courts, it wasn't an assault, of course)...a horrific event, obviously, but it apparently escaped the notice of the papers that, following that incident, Celtic fans attacked stewards and pelted the ballboys and girls with missiles; one ballboy was hospitalized.
Hopefully the fact that this tax issue has finally broken into the public domain will encourage Scottish journalists to dare to report on other failings of Rangers and Celtic...and goodness knows there are plenty to choose from.
L.
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