Can there be any surprise at tonight’s news that police are now investigating alleged harassment of members of the SFA Judicial Panel? On the way home tonight I almost drove off the road when I heard Scotsman journalist, Tom English, on Radio Scotland tell us Rangers knew who sat on the judicial panel a day before Ally McCoist demanded to know who they were on Rangers TV.
Now the SFA inform us the panel members’ identities have been “compromised”. There was no suggestion their identities were hidden until McCoist fanned the flames on Tuesday, these individuals were not subject to a witch hunt or harrassment. The Association added “all three panel members have reported intrusion into their personal and work lives, including abusive and threatening communication.”
In Scotland we now have an Offensive Behaviour and Threatening Communications Act. The Act criminalises “behaviour likely to lead to public disorder which expresses or incites hatred”. We’ll now see how the law works in this country.
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That McCoist is a pure atrociosity!
teabhoy
You working? well what comes close to it in the public sector.
Hoping that is the 3 new strips, The best i have seen!
McCoist’s first statement revealed his as dangerous. His follow up revealed him to be a coward.
He must have known what the consequences of his calling for the names to be published would be. And this craven attempt to deny responsibility demonstrates the callous nature of a man who won’t stand up for his own responsibility.
I look forward to the day when transparency loving Mason McCoist is interviewed as his club is liquidated.
VP,
Tell him no tae get a hair cut.It’ll only make him look wee’er.
Mind n put the urn oan.
Am away tae dae some real work…Everything stops for tea!!!
Big Nan at 09:50
I followed that link had a great chuckle at plod trying to work his computer
I also then saw a link to goalkeeper David James making saves whilst blindfolded!!! it’s brilliant and well worth a look
McCoist should be charged this morning with bringing the game into disrepute
Strathclyde Police should also be looking at a possible charge of ‘incitement to cause physical harm’ on McCoist
His conduct is reprehensible, and if the SFA do nothing about this they will be seen to be complicit in the threat to the panel members health and safety
Over to you Mr Reagan
I hope every Celtic fan who phoned SSB or wrote bad comments about Neil a couple of weeks back take a good look at themselves now and STOP falling for the media tactics to make our manager look bad.
Ally McMoist is a disgrace and that fat rodent should walk.
corrib04 is Neil Lennon on 26 April, 2012 at 09:54 said:
Becasue Scottish Football simply isn’t on major journalists radar until a big story is already breaking. If you think for one second that AT would have got involved without the EBT case, then I think you’re wrong. He’s said himself that it was only when he started looking at that, that he started questioning why Scottish media outlets hadn’t been all over Murray in the past.
It needed a massive story to set the ball rolling.
Let’s take a look back at the case of Neil Francis Lennon after running onto the pitch at Hampden. Look at the language used. “Scenes that will shame Scotland” “bullying” “out of control” “irresponsible” “unbecoming of the Celtic manager”. Now Neil is a passionate man and manages the club he supports. He has made great in-roads into controlling himself, what happened was borne of frustration in the heat of the moment. His worst crime seemingly saying decisions seemed “personal”. Cue faux-outrage.
Then on Tuesday night, we have curious case of The Ear Whisperer.
This interview, given to their in-house TV channel, was 18 hours after the punishment was meted out. The anger will still be present, but the explosive anger is long gone in that time.
Make no mistake the power language holds. When you hear or read a word an osmosis occurs. Words can trigger memories. Words can trigger emotion. If you know how to do this you can manipulate people. What McCoist did was issue a rhetoric filled call to arms. That isn’t a turn of phrase, he issued a literal call to arms.
McCoist said the decision will “Kill” my club. Not happy with that line, he then immediately afterwards repeated it with the prefix of “make no mistake”.
Think of the word “Kill”. It is a very powerful word. Say it again in your head. Kill. Feel that tiny little tweak? That’s osmosis.
McCoist deliberately emphasised that line. It is a trick politicians use.
He then goes on to talk about transparency and “supposed” independence. The inference being that there is bias. After that he attacks the anonymity of the people handing out the punishment, inferring they have something to hide.
The last piece of rhetoric is saying that Rangers need to “fight back”. He twice uses a phrase similar to that.
So we have an angry bunch of fans, with a persecution complex. We have their figure-head and hero saying the punishment is unfair, biased and the guys doing it are trying to hide their identity. He uses the phrase “fight back” and emphasises the word “Kill”.
In the current climate at best what McCoist did was stupid. McCoist is not stupid. IMO what McCoist has done is broken the law of the land and deliberately, in a pre-meditated manner, endangered the safety of these 3 men.
Everybody put’s checks and balances into their own behaviour to mitigate the traits and characteristics that we recognise in ourselves and do not like. We do this to “conform” to society or to a role we are expected to play in society, or indeed the role we want to play. In short we all have a mask we hide behind. Not many people have the luxury to be able to 100% be exactly who they are all the time.
In times of great stress or high emotion I always take a step back and have a look at the people around me. Why? It is in these times that people are unable to maintain the facade. You get fleeting glimpses of somebody’s true self. The information you get on people within those fleeting moments is invaluable.
I saw what you are Ally…..
I suppose the one good thing it that the SFA can’t be seen to back down due to threats – maybe.
teabhoy on 26 April, 2012 at 10:00 said:
Says he’s gonna do me in ,do the time for it,and get to you.
Sounds like McCoist talk.
See you later.
hen1rik
I agree with you except for 1 point, he should be pushed before he has time to walk!!
If it was Lenny he would already be in a prison cell
Mountblow tim on 26 April, 2012 at 09:43 said:
Morning Mountblow.
McCoist has also used ‘sly kicks’, ‘kicked when we’re down’ analogies. Then said we’ll remember who did it. So it’s not the first time he’s used threats and hints of retribution.
Having said that if there is a Rangers next season I hope he’s the manager.
RogueLeader @ 10:04
Excellent piece and so well written
fair play to ya
Interesting quote from Alistair Murning, one of the ‘Hampden 3’:
‘“When the full facts of this case are made public I’m sure others will realise why we were left with no choice but to take the action we did.”
HH
MSM after watching Ally McCoist rant
“It has yet to be decided therefore I cannot have an opinion”
“It may be subject to an appeal, therefore I cannot speak about it”
“Is this football related or business”
Why don’t they just do their jobs.
Alex Thomson does, Scotland deserves better.
There was a time when i liked Sally, Thought he was hilarious on Question of Sport, I shook his & Walters hand outside Paradise when i lay my shirt down when Tommy Burns died.
I now dislike the man.
Hey, Ally and Rangers,
3 little letters coming soon to a ground near you….E B T
Be afraid…be very afraid because this really will kill your club.
I wonder how many volunteers the SFA will have for their next panel. Of course if it doesn’t involve one club there will be no problems.
Super Ally for Scotland manager until the heat has cooled down.
Hadd Neil Lennon been involved in such an episode the media would be camped outside his door morning noon and night.
Getting nearer and nearer Belfast Celtic time.
Gordon_J
Stick my name down
corrib04 is Neil Lennon on 26 April, 2012 at 09:54 said:
Depends what you mean by ‘the story’.
To me ‘the story’ is the EBTs and their consequences. That story is fairly recent.
That the Scottish media haven’t been up to the job is no surprise.
The first, and for years the only journalist to mention, never mind criticise, the huns anti Catholic signing policy was Cyril Horne, who was English (and Jewish).
bamboo on 26 April, 2012 at 09:44 said:
McCoist reminds me a bit of Ian Paisly . Preach hatred and incite the lunatic elements then step back wash your hands of the consequences saying he doesnt condone violence.
Spot on bamboo 2 demagogues speaking out the the more sinister & fanatical element of there support calling for action then walk away when the bombs go off quite litterally, the actions of cowards
Paul67
If the police aren’t looking into McCoist’s comments the SFA should be. Imagine if it was Lennon. Have you heard anything that might be happening or is it just being brushed under the carpet?
ANKARA, April 26 (Reuters) – Fenerbahce have dropped a court case against UEFA and the Turkish Football Federation over their exclusion from the Champions League due to a match-fixing investigation, the club said on Thursday.
Fenerbahce, the 2011 league champions, said in a statement to the Istanbul Stock Exchange they were dropping the case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport but gave no further details.
Fenerbahce shares rose more than 5 percent after the announcement.
Fenerbahce were barred from the Champions League because of their alleged involvement in the match-fixing scandal and the club’s chairman is among 93 defendants, including leading soccer officials and players, being tried in a case that has cast a shadow over Turkey’s multi-billion dollar league.
The team could be stripped of their domestic title, thrown out of Turkey’s top league and forced to play in a lower division, penalties that could cost the club millions.
Chairman Aziz Yildirim, who is still in custody, denies the charges and says the case was specifically designed to undermine the 18-times domestic champions. (Writing by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
traditionalist88 on 26 April, 2012 at 10:12 said:
That is interesting mate. Where did you get that from??
voguepunter on 26 April, 2012 at 10:08 said:
Mountblow tim on 26 April, 2012 at 09:43 said:
Morning Mountblow.
voguepunter morning to u 2
bamboo on 26 April, 2012 at 09:44 said:
‘McCoist reminds me a bit of Ian Paisly .’
That thought went through my mind. By his rhetoric he wound up Gusty Spence and the like to go killing Catholics and then reacted as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.
McCoist though has made a huge blunder. It’s obvious he’ll never make a manager so long as he has a hole in his arse and his future must lie elsewhere. It’s difficult to say how much he has damaged his cheeky chappy personna by doing what he did but he’s now damaged goods so far as media work goes.
The only MSM paper to be critical of Aunt Sally was the Daily Mail and even then they just accused him of being ‘rash’.
One Nation…
tomthelennytim
The DR unfortunately, its near the end of this article:
ONE of the Hampden Three blamed by Ally McCoist for pushing Rangers to the brink last night insisted he has “no axe to grind” with the Ibrox club.
Raith Rovers director Eric Drysdale also insisted he would relish the chance to explain the reasons behind the decision to ban the Rangers manager from the transfer market – but fears he’d be hammered by the SFA for breaching a strict gagging order if he did.
On Tuesday McCoist demanded to know the names of the anonymous “experts” selected by the SFA to make the decision which the Rangers’ manager says could kill his club.
By lunchtime yesterday, following McCoist’s demands for transparency and despite SFA concerns over the safety of the individuals concerned, the internet was ablaze withspeculation as to who the three were.
Record Sport can confirm Drysdale was indeed part of the judiciary panel along with leading QC Gary Allan and former freelance football journalist Alistair Murning.
And Drysdale contacted Record Sport in a bid to explain his part in the process which is being blamed for kicking the club closer than ever towards oblivion.
The chartered banker, who feels he has been placed in an almost impossible position amidst soaring levels of animosity, said: “It was unfortunate Ally McCoist chose to speak out in the way he did yesterday and cause this furore for people who have given up their time voluntarily to assist in the administration of Scottish football.
“But while I found that disappointing, I also understand feelings are running high. If it was my club then I would understand the emotions.
“I genuinely believe when the statement of reasons is published obviously Rangers can and no doubt will appeal.
“That’s the process and I have no difficulty with that whatsoever. But I would like to make it clear I have no axe to grind against Rangers, Celtic or any football club. I’m a Raith Rovers supporter and I have been all my life.”
Drysdale, Allan and Murning were hand-picked for the tribunal and charged with the task of dishing
out appropriate sanctions for a list of misdemeanours dating back over Craig Whyte’s 10-month reign.
The absconded Whyte was hit with fines adding up to £200,000. But the club he plunged into administration was also hammered with £160,000 of cash penalties and banned from signing new players for a year.
The Ibrox club’s administrators, Duff and Phelps, have announced they will appeal the decision, with a hearing likely next week.
Drysdale said: “Were it not for the confidentiality agreement I would be more than happy to speak out in full and explain what happened but I cannot do that.
“There will be a detailed statement of reasons which will come out when it is ready and I hope when people have the opportunity to read it and digest it in full, they will form a better understanding of the process and the decisions reached.
“Beyond that I won’t say anything else about the process.”
Last night Murning said: “I didn’t have any concerns about being asked to make such an important decision. On the contrary, I felt ideally qualified to deal with the questions raised because they related to business matters.
“Apart from being a former football journalist I have also been involved in some fairly high-level business positions – a lot of which involved investigatory work.
“On top of that, I realised the very serious nature of the situation dictated that the people involved would not be fazed by the subject matter or the size of the club in question. We were well served by our chairman and I believe we reached the only possible conclusion.
“When the full facts of this case are made public I’m sure others will realise why we were left with no choice but to take the action we did.”
Edinburgh-based lawyer Allan, who headed up the three-man tribunal, said only: “My role is a judicial one in this process and, accordingly, it would be quite inappropriate that I make any comment at all at this stage.”
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/football/spl/2012/04/26/rangers-in-crisis-judiciary-panel-member-eric-drysdale-insists-hampden-3-didn-t-have-it-in-for-ibrox-club-86908-23837847/
stupid attempt by mccoist to intimidate the appeal panel.
a simple solution is to withdraw the right of appeal.
this sinister organisation has bullied and cheated its’ way through 100 years of scottish football.
paul67> about the offensive behaviour act.
hateleys colum in the DR.
sorry if posted before.
sickening.
http://blogs.dailyrecord.co.uk/markhateley/2012/04/sfa-allowed-three-people-outsi.html
slan
aldo
I have long considered the Daily Mail to be the lowest common denominator when it comes to publications in the western world. I believe it’s tone to be racist, homophobic, pathologically right wing, ignorant, shallow and on its worst days wholly reprehensible. This is the newspaper which blamed a girl’s death during a stormy day on striking school-teachers, by “pointing out” that if the schools had been on she would have been there.
I once believed the writers of that gutter rag were the lowest of the low, and as an advocate of free speech I wondered how they could abuse such a precious thing, by devaluing it and corrupting it in the way they often chose to do.
You have to ask yourself; when the Daily Mail wants no part of a hate campaign, when the “paper” which pioneered that black art, and elevated it to a whole new level (or sunk it to one), wants to step back, out of a sense of responsibility, you have to wonder how far from the path of sanity other people in the media have strayed.
Today, the Daily Record has strayed so outside the limits of reasonable behaviour that it literally takes my breath away. Following yesterday’s staggering irresponsible, dangerous and inflammatory back page, which carried three silhouettes and demanded the names of the panel who sat in judgement of Rangers, today they will go much further, and put names and faces on their piece – an act which the Daily Mail itself thought was a step too far.
Their front page carries condemnation of those whose threats against those panel members were the all-too predictable result of what the paper had, the day before, attempted to do. If Wednesday’s Daily Record was an encouragement to the lynch mob, a rallying call the baying hordes of Ibrox were only too happy to answer, today was the day they turned loose the attack dogs. For the task they have chosen one of the most nakedly biased, woefully ignorant and wilfully uninformed men ever to be given a press card in this land – and that is not an honour one would ever aspire to. Two pages, with names and photos, are given over to Mark Hateley with which to vent his fury at men whose “crime” has been to apply the rules to his beloved club.
With every day that passes, the Daily Record makes it ever clearer that its editors are moving further from the path of responsible journalism and down the road to the gutter. With every fresh revelation, sending Rangers closer to the edge of the abyss, this newspaper takes a further step deep into the darkness. It is no longer a newspaper, but the in-house propaganda publication of Rangers (In Administration.) The editorial line is that the club must not be punished. That it must exist for “the good of the Scottish game.”
Rangers sins’ are now so severe they present not only Scottish football, but Scottish society, with a crisis of deepening proportions. The questions at stake now are fundamental to the type of country we want to have. Do we want one of justice, tolerance, respect, rules, fairness and compassion or do we want one where cheating, hatred, disregard for the law and other such sinister behaviours are the order of the day?
Already the press wishes the nation to forget, forgive and move on when faced with a colossal tax fraud. They say we need Rangers too much to inflict the severe punishments they are due. When the EBT case is resolved and it is proven, beyond all doubt, that the club has spent the last ten years engaged in a fraud against the whole of Scottish football, and when, truly, there is no place to go except to put Rangers’ backs to the wall, what then will the excuses be? That the integrity of the game must be sacrificed before the alter of that “greater good”? It is a nonsense.
You only have to look at the hatred whipped up against Neil Lennon, and contrast that with the tone of understanding being applied in the case of Ally McCoist to see the full scope and scale of the double-standard at play. Lennon has been a hunted manager from almost his first hour in the job, with every mistake magnified. That he is relatively new to management has not been allowed as an excuse for his failings. That he and the club were the targets of a terrorist outrage has not bought him sympathy. That his touchline persona has been blown out of proportion – he, after all, has not assaulted someone on the touch line, unlike Craig Brown, or dropped dark hints about where a referees allegiances lie, like his predecessor Smith – and the pressure he has been under was not permitted to be used in mitigation.
Yet Ally McCoist, who escaped his part in the Game of Shame controversy last year, although his behaviour was clearly the trigger for the touchline bust up, is allowed to place lives at risk, to put people in danger, to whip up hate against three men who were merely doing their jobs without as much as a whimper of criticism from the Scottish press? The fact they are all his mates is no shield behind which to hide. The media is excusing the inexcusable, they are putting their bias front and centre and they are building a monument to hate ever higher. These dark days are such primarily because they were not so much asleep at the wheel as they were getting a hand job from the driver when the car crashed. Theirs, at least here in Scotland, has become a truly debased and reprehensible profession.
McCoist himself has removed the mask behind which he has, for years, hidden. The calculating, shameless, opportunistic stoker of hate we now see before us is not a creation of circumstances but the beast within, and he was always there just under the surface, and carrying Tommy Burns coffin did not make him a good man, merely underlined how great a man was he who had died. McCoist is a hater extraordinaire, but it would have taken a thoroughly evil man to have harboured such feelings for our fallen friend.
I will accuse McCoist of being no such thing; what he is is backward, ignorant, aloof and tainted by the squalid, bankrupt culture in which he has been immersed his entire life, and for a man in his late 40’s it is too late to change him now. I will not say he should be pitied; indeed, no, because all of that makes no excuses for a man who, like any other, knows the difference between right and wrong.
He has been corrupted so thoroughly there is very likely no way of making him better, but he has the intelligence to make choices, and this is the decision he made. I look forward to his tears when his job is consigned to history and his club to oblivion. They say one of the defining parts of a sociopathic personality is an inability to feel what others do, but to be acutely aware of your own suffering. Those tears, I fully expect, along with the sympathy from his friends in the press as they wipe away their own.
There is something fundamentally, and, with great regret we must accept, irredeemably wrong with that club. Its true nature, so long disguised from the wider world outside this small, insular country in which many of us live, has now been revealed to the wider world. They have made no apology, accepted no responsibility and assumed no guilt, but instead tried to make a virtue from their vices, a positive from the poison coursing through their veins and a triumph from the tragedy they have brought upon us all. For weeks we have watched the unedifying spectacle of publicity seeking swine engage in the Rangers equivalent of a battle of wills – a little like watching two lobotomized patients in a mental hospital trying to play table tennis – trying to convince people they have a “plan” for the club which will give creditors small and large a “fair deal.” It is all a sham.
The self-confessed strategy is to pay as little as possible. To dump as much debt as they can. To delay and deflect any punishment for what they have done. To restore their club to full health, history, titles, all the sectarian and hateful baggage intact, even if that results in the utter disgrace and collapse of the rest of the Scottish game.
Their behaviour makes it clearer, with every passing day, that not only is the notion Scottish football needs them wholly wrong-headed but that it is also a distortion of reality and offensive in every way. Scottish football, and indeed society, can only be properly served by their utter annihilation. This is an institution our country, and the world, would be better off without. It should not be consigned to history as much as it should be shuttled down the winding road to Hell with the greatest possible speed, before it does further damage.
The media too, who are in deeper disgrace than I at any time have ever known, should be torn down, piece by piece. Their’s is a profession, at least here in Scotland, where there is no longer a shred of honour or respect for the greater good. Indeed, it is doubtful they would know the former or even recognise the latter. The makeup of the Scottish sporting hack is of cut-and-paste working practices, a complete lack of morals or scruples, an absence of even the most basic ability, laziness, ineptitude and spite and malice, in no way disguised, as a substitute for objective, balanced reporting.
We have come to this sorry pass because of people like them; people like Traynor, Keevins, King, Broadfoot, Guidi, Jackson, Forsyth and Murray. Each day, they do more damage to their profession. With every article they do more harm to the higher calling for which their job exists.
Lucius Calpurnios Piso Caesoninus, Roman consul and father-in-law of Julius Caesar, said “Let justice be done though the Heavens fall …” In Scotland, that logic has been inverted, warped and shot. Here, they would rather see deception, fear, intolerance and hate triumph and prosper beneath these skies. They would rather live in a cesspit, with the rats and the corpses of their morals, profession and ethics than do what has to be done to clean up the land in which they live. They sold out so long ago that they probably don’t even remember when it was. Their corruption, and that of the club they defend, now go hand in hand.
If there is such as thing as karma, they will collapse, together, into the pit, there to squeal and plead together, food for the roaches and worms, as a reminder to the watching world that there are still rules, they do still apply and that in the end the things we do catch up to us.
Otherwise, what’s the point?
Morning….
Dull and grey with rain looking not far off in the far NE of Glasgows Green and White.
Sorry if already posted but……..
Sally has walked into the middle of the SFA panel, thrown a sneaky punch hoping nobody noticed then walked away leaving mayhem behind him.
This scum coward has previous for this.
Easter rd ’86.
Typical hun….scum.
The fat coward speaks…
Rangers manager Ally McCoist has defended his calls for transparency regarding the Scottish Football Association’s judicial panel and insists his comments were not a signal for fans to engage in threatening behaviour.
The SFA revealed on Wednesday night that Strathclyde Police have given security advice to the three members of the independent panel after their identities were revealed.
McCoist had demanded the trio be named after the administration-hit club were handed a £160,000 fine and a 12-month embargo on signing players for bringing the game into disrepute since owner Craig Whyte’s takeover last May.
Rash demand: Rangers manager Ally McCoist called for the panel to be named
In a statement released this morning, McCoist said: ‘I would not for one moment want anyone to interpret my remarks as a signal to engage in any form of threatening behaviour.
‘Such activity disgusts me and anyone who engages in it does Rangers Football Club nothing but harm. No Rangers supporter should get themselves involved in it – not now nor at any time.’