Friday 1 February 2013

Time for Rangers to Step Up


In the last week, blogger David Leggat and Rangers site Vanguard Bears have exposed several agendas against Rangers, as has my fellow blogger Chris Graham. The fact that Rangers fans are learning some more details of said agendas obviously has to be a good thing, but this information is currently being constrained to Rangers fans’ websites, when it should be front page news.

Firstly, we have the details of those Daily Record news office who have been displaying a hatred of Rangers that should be seeing all Rangers fans boycotting both the Record and their sister title the Sunday Mail.

Vanguard Bears named Record Editor Allan Rennie as the newsroom editor that held his head in his hands as the FTT judgement was released, with David Leggat also naming News Editor Kevin Mansi as the individual who shouted “It’s a fvcking Government conspiracy” upon hearing the judgement.

Rangers have already taken the Sunday Mail to task about their shameful reporting of a complaint to the Armed Forces with regards to Rangers remembrance day activities, but in case the message from Rangers is too subtle, and I think it is, these two rags are actively trying to destabilise Rangers, and the sizeable Rangers support should be forcing change at these newspapers.

Let’s be absolutely clear, having Celtic fans running a newspaper should not be an issue, if they can display at least a professional level of objectivity that the job demands. The Record and Mail are not in that category.

When Celtic took umbrage at the Record’s reporting of their “thugs and thieves” night out in Newcastle many years ago, they didn’t issue a statement on a website and leak some info to a blogger. While they have been rumoured to use Celtic Quick News or Phil MacGiollabhain to get information out there that is too hot to handle, when they really need to do so, they will go for the jugular.

In that instance, Celtic flagged up on their screens to their crowd to boycott both the Record and the Mail, and pressured the Mirror group in to apologising, and what has followed has been years of capitulation by both titles.

While I appreciate Rangers leaking info to Leggat or Graham, there comes a time for the club to be direct and get the message out loud and clear in an unambiguous fashion.

It is time for subtlety to be rejected in favour of a bold new direct approach, particularly with two other issues that have arisen in the last week

The SFA Arbitration panel has rejected Rangers rights to transfer fees for players who refused to TUPE over from one registration holder to another, following advice from SPFA lawyer Margaret Gribbon.

Like several other questionable committees and panels set up to deal with Rangers in the last 12 months, this one is at complete odds with the promises of transparency that Stewart Regan made on his appointment, with the identities of the 3 man panel kept secret.  Leggat asks if Peter Lawwell of Celtic was on the panel. Rangers should publicly ask the same question, and ensure that the question does not go away until it is both answered and proven.

If Lawwell was on that3 man panel which has effectively prevented Rangers from being paid to the tune of £10M+ f0r the players, then that is as clear a conflict of interests that there can be. That would not just be blogworthy but would, if true, be worthy of national front page news.

Likewise, the involvement of Celtic lawyer Rod McKenzie (blogged about here http://williampoole.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/the-spls-kangaroo-court/) should be headline news and questions being asked again

When previous questions were asked about his involvement, the SPL dismissed claims of a conflict of interest, with a remarkable claim that McKenzie was only involved at a low level to gather paperwork.
Then the tribunal was delayed as McKenzie recovered from a car crash. Now he has recovered sufficiently to attend, he was in his place at the rescheduled tribunal this week.

For a low level paper gatherer, he sure has been afforded some level of importance by the SPL, and Nimmo Smith’s tribunal.






















Again, this odd set of circumstances has been identified by Rangers fans and put to various journalists aswell as the SPL, to a wall of silence.

This is where Rangers as a club need to step in and publicly challenge the SPL’s agenda and inform them that Scottish Football is not ready to move on until this agenda is halted.
Saying it in a room, or leaking information to bloggers is not enough

If nothing else has become obvious in the last year it’s that Rangers are by far the biggest club in Scotland, with the biggest and most loyal support.
We have the power collectively to halt this agenda and move all of Scottish Football forward together, but that cannot be done alone by a small number of internet supporters, and the only people that can bring along the vast majority of the support are Charles Green and his board.

Green’s statements on Rangers TV or on the Rangers site have been great for what I would call phase one of establishing Rangers as a force to be reckoned with in terms of PR. Now there needs to be a phase 2, with more direction, and with subtle hints of legal action to Rangers detractors, being replaced by real and tangible action.

If not, there is a real risk of the club being seen to be full of hollow threats and left as vulnerable as ever.

In an ideal world, people like myself, Leggat, Graham, and the various contributors to Rangers fan sites and fanzines would not need to spend such considerable effort fighting these agendas. The club have the power, and always have had, so they should use it.

Bill.

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