.. and they wonder why nobody buys papers

As most of you will be aware, the Guardian recently agreed to and accepted payment from CQN for an advertisement which was intended to raise awareness of the Resolution 12 issue, an issue pursued determinedly by Celtic shareholders for the last three years. Subsequently, and citing the thinnest of excuses, they decided not to run the ad. This developed hard on the heels of the Herald actually soliciting the business from the advertisers for their own paper, and then without even seeing the copy, refusing to move forward. (See CQN story here)

A troubling aspect of GuardianGate is that CQN were lied to. They were initially advised that the ad was to be removed after editorial scrutiny. Subsequently they were advised that the decision came from an intervention by senior officials.

We are now focused on a media conspiracy to impose censorship in favour of a multi-million pound industry –  to the detriment of its small investors and paying customers.

So which was true – and which was the lie?

Here’s a thing about the truth; it is seldom complicated, which is why the failure by the Guardian and the Herald to deliver a straightforward answer implies that there may be more to this nonsense than any of us first imagined.

At this point, it is worth noting that the Guardian is currently running an ad campaign by Toyota, a company who have admitted lying to environmental regulatory bodies for years about emissions from their cars (the Guardian professes to be a major campaigner on environmental issues), but won’t accept a paying ad that asks some polite and important questions about the conduct of a multi-million pound industry.

The denial  of the Res 12 guys’ right to ask questions (no accusations – just bloody questions) via the once assumed to be pluralist and free press, should be ringing alarm bells all over the country, and the substantive issue has become largely irrelevant as a consequence. We are now focused on a media conspiracy to impose censorship in favour of a multi-million pound industry –  to the detriment of its small investors and paying customers.

Two so-called quality newspapers, have mysteriously, after touting for advertising business, refused that very same business, and have given no good reason for doing so. If  the Guardian refuse to accept an ad, I don’t believe that is censorship in itself, but when the dwindling number of newspaper proprietors in this country conspire to arrange an effective blackout of ideas, that is quite clearly censorship.

And for something so relatively inconsequential as football, I can only assume that we have all stumbled on to something far more serious.

Given the recent media rhetoric about Russia Today and their forthright coverage of Chilcot and Tory Election Fraud, it seems that like so many of the players in this saga, the irony circuit in the collective press brain is now as devolved as a human tail.

There are dark forces at work in our country, and they are running riot with basic freedoms.  However it is important to put the football issue into the proper perspective; if the media can go to these corrupt lengths for a game of football, what will they do to protect the capital interests of arms manufacturers, food producers and media dictatorships?

They may have lost the war, but through fix after fix at the SFA and the SPL, in the press and in the media, the authorities are winning the peace – basically by denying that any peace is possible until we all accept the notion that black is white, right is left, and wrong is right

Migrant fruit-pickers
© Scotsman

Back in soccer La-La-Land’s Mount Florida Fruit Factory, the football authorities most definitely lost the recent war. RFC went out of business and failed the fundamental task of any football club – to sustain itself. In allowing that to happen on their watch, the authorities failed in their most fundamental role – to keep RFC alive.

However through fix after fix, at the SFA and the SPL, in the press and in the media, they are winning the peace – basically by denying that any peace is possible until we all accept the notion that black is white, right is left, and wrong is right.

And still, even in this atmosphere, the major shareholders at all of our clubs sit and do nothing. Are they part of the problem, an integral part of the conspiracy? Or are they scared witless of the forces that may line up against them if they dare to grow a pair, like the Resolution 12 guys?

Sporting integrity has taken a back seat recently. Season ticket sales are up all over the place; Celtic provided a marquee manager; the red tops are ablaze about the ‘return’ of the Rangers; Hearts and Aberdeen are newly emerged from financial difficulty, and now enjoy the realistic prospect of new eras of success; and another competitive and exciting year beckons in the Championship.

In normal circumstances this would be fantastic news. But all of it is based on a Lie – the Lie that the game is run according to the rules, and for the benefit of all clubs. When the euphoria at Parkhead dies down; when TRFC are reinstalled (actually it will need to be with a shoehorn, but it will be done) as part of the old duopoly that sees the vital contribution made by the likes of Hearts and Aberdeen and others as insignificant; when the next major ‘bending’ of the regulations becomes necessary; all we will be left with is that Big Lie.

The clubs will eventually have to deal with that – and the complicit roles they played in ramming it down each and every one of our throats.

I hope we make them pay.

Another thing about the truth though is this;

Everyone with skin in this game, with the exception of the mentally deficient, know exactly what the truth is;

• RFC cheated;
• RFC evaded, avoided, and deliberately withheld payment of tax;
• RFC failed to register players properly over (at least) a decade;
• RFC lied to the SFA, the SPL and LNS;
• Whilst all the above was happening, RFC won over a dozen on-field prizes;
• The SFA rewrote the terms of LNS to better tailor their preferred outcome;
• RFC were punished by way of a £250k fine. No other penalties were suffered by RFC;
• RFC entered liquidation and a new club, which co-existed with RFC, began playing in competition BEFORE RFC’s SFA/SPL membership lapsed;
• That club (TRFC for differentiation purposes) just achieved promotion to the Premiership;

As long as we keep reminding everyone of those truths, as long as we continue to give them a voice, they won’t go away.

And what if, next time, it is Hearts or Aberdeen or Celtic, who make a desperate attempt to get an edge over their rivals (an emergent TRFC perhaps)?

The irony (and I exclude the TRFC fans who frequent this site) is that TRFC, despite having the weight of the football and press establishments behind them, are being done no favours at all.

The increasing pariah status of their club is a sad but inevitable consequence of the wrong-doing by the old club, because the fans (understandably to be fair) seek to side with their own partisan interests in the face of outside hostility.

But think of this. If the initial-ism ‘RFC’ above was replaced by the name of any other club in the country, wouldn’t TRFC fans be complaining as loudly as the rest of us?

And what if, next time, it is Hearts or Aberdeen or Celtic, who make a desperate attempt to get an edge over their rivals (an emergent TRFC perhaps)?

What if they run roughshod over the same rules that were broken before but remain unfixed? What if, as a consequence, a compliant TRFC are denied an opportunity to play in Europe, or compete in a final, or win a league?

Will we then still be ‘Rangers haters’ if we protest about that or merely Hearts or Dons or Celtic haters?

This is not about revenge – it never has been – and no amount of wishful thinking will make it so. For most of us on SFM, there is no RFC to have our revenge on anyway, so the accusation makes no sense.

What we are about, what we are all about, is weeding out the clucken wort in Scotland’s football garden on level six at Hampden.

And it appears that some extraordinarily powerful individual or group, with enough muscle to bend the fourth estate to their will, wants to keep us all away from that garden..