Celtic yesterday “declined to participate” in the strange Media Conference set-up that’s now in place at Ibrox. Apparently the Livingston manager David Martindale recently found himself in a situation where he was being asked questions by two members of theRangers fan media, from the Heart on Hand Podcast and the Follow Follow forum with each apparently having paid the Ibrox club £25,000 for the privilege.
A Celtic source told us about the bizarre nature of the post match briefings on Sunday after Celtic suffered a disappointing 1-0 defeat, despite having the best of things for most of the match. Apparently the wider media are involved for a short period before being asked to vacate the room, tails between their legs, so that the paying Rangers Media Partners are thereafter granted special privileges that apparently justify the huge fees paid.
These privileges however did not extend to speaking to The Celtic captain Callum McGregor or Ange Postecoglou the Celtic manager who had participated in that moving interview with Sky Sports shown before kick-off when he explained how much his partners had sacrificed emigrating from Greece to Australia – where they couldn’t speak the language – so that the next generation of Postecoglou’s could have a better life.
Ange gets what it is like to be part of an immigrant community and ironically just as that moving video interview was being shown on Sky Sports, a march against Irish immigrants staying in Scotland by a group of black shirted Rangers racists was taking place in the city centre heading towards Ibrox, with an apparent escort from Police Scotland.
Celtic declined emphatically to get involved in these post match shenanigans and any thoughts of access to the press facilitates at Celtic Park on 2 January for the paying privileged partners has also been ruled out by Celtic, despite the suggestion.
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This new Cash for Questions policy put many mainstream media noses out of joint, although having been in the Co-op earlier today I noticed that not a single one of this morning’s newspapers had yesterday racist march from the Ibrox black-shirts on the front page. This story has however been driven by social media to the top of the news agenda as the day has progressed but it has to be noted, BBC Scotland are an absolute disgrace, as usual.
Their bulletins all day have referred to this as “a sectarian song about the famine” with no mention whatsoever of anti-Irish racism. And this evening they had planned to have someone from Call It Out on their Drive-time programme on Radio Scotland only to change their minds and opt instead for the guy from Show Racism the Red Card who likes to blame both sides, or goes completely silent like the time Scotty Sinclair was racially abused at Ibrox. Soro has today also been the subject of a racist attack by one of their fans making the same gesture in a photograph on social media, that was made inside Ibrox directed at Sinclair a few years ago. Maybe Show Racism the Red Card will pick up on that tomorrow.?