Just For the Record

Not so long ago it was BBC Scotland apologising to Ally McCoist over a piece of selective editing in a deliberate attempt to suggest that the Rangers manager took a flippant view on sectarianism.

This week it is the Daily Record that has been forced to apologise. This time to Celtic boss Neil Lennon after Saturday's back page headline read “Who’s More Hated at Ibrox (is it Lennon or the Taxman). Celtic informed Scotland’s one-time leading daily that it would be withdrawing all cooperation with troubled tabloid until it received “a suitable and substantial apology”.

In fact it is a bit of a surprise that Rangers didn’t have a go at the rag as well.

The Monday edition of the Record offered an apology for using the word “Hated”. In a desperate attempt cover their arses the Record admitted that the headline was “a misjudgement and not intended to stoke up feelings before ahead of yesterday's match.”

The cringing continued with an apology for any offence that it may have caused Lennon, his family and supporters saying that “The Daily Record has a long history of condemning intolerance in all its forms.”

Well it does have a long history. And as such, people expect the editorial team to have better judgement. Its hard to imagine that those responsible for this headline underestimated the affect of the words that were used.

It was done for affect. That's what headlines do. Or at least thats what they're supposed to do. They tell the reader what the story is about. In this case the Record told all who read it that this story was about the “hatred” felt at Ibrox for the Parkhead boss. It was a typical tabloid headline for a typical tabloid story. Absolutely no evidence that anyone at Ibrox “hates” the taxman, let alone Neil Lennon, was offered in what was a tawdry piece shit-stirring.

However, like the BBC, the Record was quick to realise that it needs access to both halves of the ‘Old Firm'. Losing the support of either side would see the paper's sales drop even further. 

Just as in the case with McCoist, the media in Scotland have been found guilty of attempting to fan the flames. Only to get their fingers burned in the process.

McCoist Gets an Apology – But What About the Rest of Us?

Ally McCoist got an apology from BBC Scotland (sic) after they manipulated film footage to suggest that he took a flippant attitude to sectarian violence. But what about the rest of us who were, and not for the first time, deliberately lied to by the state sponsored broadcaster. The people of Scotland were treated with contempt and its time that the liars were kicked over the border to where they really want to be.

The Rangers’ manager, Ally McCoist has received an apology from the BBC in Scotland after it deliberately  manipulated footage from a press conference in an attempt to show the Ibrox boss taking what he referred to as “flippant” attitude towards sectarian-fuelled violence surrounding his side's games against Celtic. McCoist refused to speak to the BBC until they apologised.

In the clip McCoist was shown appearing to smile when answering a question about violence at Old Firm matches. This was followed by the reporter saying “Well it might not bother Mr McCoist”

The thing was that the footage showing the Rangers manager smiling was his reaction to a different question.

This wasn’t just a piece of clumsy editing. The voice-over on this portion of the film makes it all too clear that this was a deliberate attempt to mislead the viewers. But to what end?

Last season, when the Celtic manager was receiving death threats, the BBC chose to make a report from outside Ibrox. The obvious conclusion – to make the link between the attacks on Lennon and Rangers FC.

While no one can argue that sectarianism is no more manifest than through the actions of some of those that follow the Old Firm, filming this report outside the Rangers’ ground was a deliberate attempt to make an association that simply did not exist.

This is not the first time that creative editing has been used by the corporation north of the border.

Normally it is reserved for its anti-SNP propaganda. This was seen clearly when Reporting Scotland manipulated footage from the Scottish Parliament last November. In this pathetic little piece it appears as though First Minister, Alex Salmond is apparently mocking a statement by his Finance Minister, John Swinney. In fact he was reacting to a statement by the then leader of the Lib-Dems, Tavish Scott.

The lie can be seen here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn5T3e4Nk2I&feature=player_embedded 

The truth can be seen here.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5nTcGkEEU8&feature=player_embedded

The actively pro-unionist stance taken by the BBC in Scotland is nothing new. Although in recent times it has become so obvious as to suggest that those in news and current affairs have given up any pretence of impartiality. 

It is the BBC's attitude to sectarianism that many might now question. It undoubtedly sees the problem as nothing more than an opportunity for sensationalism. A chance to do what it does best – continually put Scotland down in an attempt to reinforce the greatest lie of all – that Scotland and its people are incapable of self-determination.

While Ally McCoist has had his apology, that is not really good enough for the rest of us. We were told a lie. Not only that, what we got was yet another deliberate manipulation of the media to promote this lie.

It would be nice to see those responsible for this getting their arses kicked onto the dole.

That's not likely to happen though. And it is doubtful that it will deter the liars at BBC Scotland from carrying on with their agenda of treating the people of Scotland with contempt.

Blatter Goes Completely Bonkers as he Gives Kissinger a Job

As the election for the presidency of Fifa resembled polling day in Zimbabwe, it comes as no surprise that Sepp Blatter will not initiate an investigation into Qatar’s award of the 2022 World Cup Finals.

However, if the ethics or solutions committees wish to go against El Presidente and hold an inquiry, he has told them that he would not block it. I don’t really think, as it stands, the investigation to be held in Miami led by an ex-FBI man will lead to much.

But, if they did do the job properly he has just installed the very man who might just make them disappear.

In response to the allegations of corruption in Fifa, Blatter has come up with the great idea of co-opting Johan Cruyff, Placido Domingo and Henry Kissinger onto the board of the solutions committee.

Fair enough, Cruyff has a CV that most people will find acceptable. A legendary and thoughtful player and a successful manager. As with Platini, he can be seen as an antidote to the third-rate footballers come politicians who have, at present, all the ‘good jobs’.  

Domingo, on the other hand, is a man who sings at football tournaments. Blatter obviously thinks that this gives him a greater insight into the running of world football than the millions of other laymen or women around whom he doesn’t know.

But it is surely the appointment of Richard Nixon’s right hand man, Henry Kissinger, that will raise a few eyebrows within the family of football.

As National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, some may say he had a “chequered career”. But I’m not sure if that is the way he is thought of around the world, especially in Chile, Argentina, Cambodia, Timor-L’este (East Timor) and Bangladesh, to name a few. Nor am I convinced that the man who referred to Indira Ghandi as a “bitch” and all Indians as “bastards” is thought of with any affection that country.

He has avoided legal summons by investigators in France, Chile and Argentina. There have also been calls for his prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and for offences against common or customary or international law, including conspiracy to commit murder, kidnap and torture.

On the hand though…

For those that remember it, Kissinger was appointed to the board of the North American Soccer League in 1978. This league was top heavy with over the hill and overpaid mercenaries from ‘footballing countries’. Poorly thought out and badly administered it folded in 1984.

That then is qualification enough for Blatter.

When he asked to be left to “sort it out”, I had high hopes of the ridiculous. But old Sepp has surpassed even my wildest expectations.

An opera singing crony is one thing. A man who is considered by millions to have conspired in the sort of crimes that sees a Serbian end up in The Hague should end once and for all any suggestions that Sepp Blatter is in touch with the real world.

Shame by Association Is a Fallacy.

Billy and Tim are sectarian bigots. Billy and Tim are Scottish. Therefore, all Scottish people are sectarian bigots. The fact that the people involved in the attacks on Neil Lennon are Scottish is as much an irrelevance as is the colour of their hair. The idea that the actions of an individual should result in the collective guilt and “shame” of the many is an “Association Fallacy”. It is one that nobody should agree with. And its time for the vast majority of people in Scotland to reject this argument.

Background: A series of threats has been made over time to Neil Lennon the manager of Celtic Football Club, some players and three prominent fans. These have taken the form of bombs and ammunition being sent through the post. These parcels have been posted from Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is generally accepted that this campaign is motivated by religiously motivated sectarianism. Lennon was also attacked by a spectator during a game against Hearts at Tynecastle. In some quarters this has been deemed to have brought shame on the country as a whole.

Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell has said that the attacks, threats and intimidation directed at his club is “Scotland’s shame and its high time Scotland addressed it.”
(For those, and without doubt that’s the majority who live and breath on this planet, “Scotland’s shame” is the much loved accusation levelled by Rangers and Celtic fans against each other in their endless battle to secure the moral high ground. The use of the phrase by Lawwell should therefore be seen as calculated.)

Lawwell is not alone in the opinion that these incidents should be seen as shaming an entire nation. The question asked on BBC Scotland’s phone-in programme “Call Kaye” the morning after the Tynecastle attack was, “Are you embarrassed to be Scottish?” The usual suspect package of football writers and pundits turned historians and social commentators, “look at me” journalists and politicians with season tickets for the band wagon have been unable to order a pie and Bovril in the last few days without telling the rest of us that it is somehow our fault. And no one has made this clearer than the former Secretary of State for Scotland Jim Murphy who wrote, “There are too many sectarian morons in Scottish football, but it is part of a dark underbelly that shames Scotland.”

This is based in the belief that we, including Lawwell, Murphy, et al, are somehow accountable for the actions of other individuals by association. In this case, the entire population of a country is held responsible for no other reason than that they are the population of that country.

Collective guilt, or guilt by association, is an idea that has roots in the Old Testament in such stories as “The Food”, “The Tower of Babel”, and “Sodom and Gomorrah”. However, it is an idea that most advanced systems of criminal law dismiss in favour of the principle that guilt is personal. That is the position in Scotland.

For any group to feel collective shame there must be an acceptance of collective responsibility and guilt. As such, in this case, it can only belong to a sectarian ingroup. It is doubtful, though not inconceivable, that any individual within this ingroup will view the actions as unjustifiable. However, no one outwith that ingroup can in anyway be held accountable for their actions.

Murphy’s assertion that the ingroup is the entire nation and that we collectively give approval to sectarianism is a sweeping generalisation to say the least. It may come as a surprise to Glasgow-centric commentators but, the vast majority of people in Scotland live in communities where sectarianism is not an issue. In fact for many, religion is an irrational irrelevance in their lives. There are lawmakers, law enforcers and courts to punish lawbreakers. That is how it works in a democracy. And it works that way to allow decent people to get on with their lives without having those lives sidelined by the actions of some religiously motivated retards. They quite rightly refuse to be dragged into the cesspool of intolerance that is the result of ignorance and superstition.

Sharing a social, cultural and national identity with other individuals is so inclusive that it is unreasonable to consider it in terms of an “ingroup”. Holding all Jews responsible for the death of Christ, all Germans for the actions of the Nazis, all Roman Catholic priests for a child abusing minority or all Muslims for the actions of extremists are a few examples of this. It is not difficult to see that such arguments are not only irrational but also irresponsible. Indeed, in recent times, we have been told, ad infinitum, not blame Islam for the actions of a few. No talk of a “dark underbelly” there.

There may be those in Scotland who do feel shame for some misguided reason. However, I have in the last week, taken a seriously unscientific vox-pop survey and found no one who agrees with the “Shame on Scotland” team. When asked “Do you feel ashamed by the actions of these people?” the answers were unequivocally “No. Why should I?” One other thing that they also made clear was that they found the idea that they should be held responsible to be ridiculous and offensive.

As distasteful as the attacks on Neil Lennon are, the responsibility, guilt and any shame lies with those who carried them out. No one else. And certainly not an entire nation.

And it is time the majority made this clear.

Keep Vuvuzelas Away From the Match

FIFA allowed the vuvuzelas the World Cup after organisers did tests at a match at Johannesburg's 95,000-seater Soccer City after concerns that they could drown out emergency announcements.

Ignoring this, as is the want of a politician who hasn’t been in the news for a while, Lothians MSP Margo MacDonald has called for vuvuzelas to be banned at Scottish football grounds saying that safety announcements could be drowned out.

Big Grumpy, a Hibernian season ticket holder, also went on to moan that the vuvuzelas were "ruining" the World Cup.

She said: “There is no intention on my part to limit the enjoyment of fans.”

Quite right.

That’s the job of Hibernian.

The World Cup Runneth Over…For the Few

The truth about how the World Cup benefits the host nations economy can be seen quite clearly, right now, in South Africa. It would appear that the big boys move in, clean up and move out. Taking the money with them.

Regulations imposed by Fifa on host countries stipulate that no-one but it’s commercial partners can trade or promote their products in the immediate vicinity of all World Cup sites.

Local organisers are obliged to create commercial restriction zones around stadiums and areas of importance during the tournament.

Fifa argues that they must protect the official sponsors from "ambush marketing" by those who would want to profit from the event without having contributed financially.

And who are these dastardly feckers that would financially cripple world football.

Well. 

Ordinary street vendors who are being denied the right to make a living. All in the name of the beautiful game.

The street vendors, who have been selling outside the football grounds for years with no problems, have been told that they must apply for and purchase a permit. But many traders have pointed out that they don’t even know how to go about getting these permits.

As one ice cream seller, Nhanhla Mkhize, said:

"We are being made to jump through hundreds of hoops so we can do for a month what we have been doing here for years - and that's selling at the stadium."

The truth is, Fifa know more about money than football. And all the pish we hear about the ‘legacy’ from things such as this is just the suits blowing smoke up our arses.

If the ‘legacy’ involves people like Nhanhla Mkhize not being able send money home to his family while Blatter and the rest of the nonentities and hangers-on swan about endless receptions, then who the hell would want his circus in their town.

So if your going to the finals try and make point of buying your ice-cream and cold drinks from these guys.

It’s their living, they need the money.

And you can stick it to the man at the same time.

Americans Should Sort Out Their Own Hooligans First

A planned football match (that’s the one where you use your foot to kick the ball and don’t throw it or carry for a couple of yards in between the adverts) between Rangers and Celtic to be held at Fenway Park in Boston this summer is now in doubt after a newspaper campaign to halt the derby in the city after claims that Rangers fans could run riot.

In a local rag, ‘The Boston Globe’, Mark Stokes wrote: "One can't help wonder how the city of Boston will fare after a Fenway game, should the Rangers faithful feel the need to express themselves, as they did in Manchester in 2008.”

"Following their team's defeat in the UEFA Cup Final, the blue-clad fans left parts of Manchester in a shambles and forced the local constabulary to don riot gear to restore order.”

Writing on the Ibrox Disaster in 1971 Stokes claimed: “It is widely accepted that the tensions between Celtic and Rangers fans played a major part in the 66 deaths.”

A suggestion that angered both sets of fans.

After complaints, The Globe withdrew the article from its website and Stokes apologised.

But the Globe began to ‘stoke’ this up a week ago, when another of the newspaper's bloggers, Garrett Quinn, wrote of the proposed game: "It's Catholic v Protestant.” “It's Irish v British.”

Now, normally any opinion about the rest of us that emanates from the most parochial country in the history of the planet wouldn’t merit a response, other than to point out that it would undoubtedly be as ill-informed as the CIA, Fox News or the guy that tells their military where to drop their bombs.

I have no intention of getting into any argument about whose fans done what, where and when. Nor am I going to suggest that there is any connection between the content of the stories and the fact that ‘The Globe‘ is published in Boston. What I am going to argue is that the US is a country in denial of it’s own sports fan violence.

Riots at sports events occur far more frequently in the US than the UK. But American popular culture, almost without exception, portrays the "hooligan" as a ‘soccer’ fan.

It doesn’t seem to matter that many college games end in drunken mob violence and that numerous American city centres see running battles between sports fans and riot police. The US sports media, indeed the media in general, continues to present hooliganism as something that doesn’t happen in America.

This blinkered provincialism saw the 1996 decision by the US State Department to warn US visitors to London that Millwall was as dangerous as Guatemala. A country which, at the time, was more or less governed by right-wing death squads.

A typically breathtaking example of these ill-informed double standards can be found in an article by Mickey Charles on sportsnetwork.com

Although he points out that: "There are riots in the streets after a championship comes to town in any sport. Looting, burning cars, terrorising women and ripping their clothes off as part of the ceremony seems to have reached obscene levels ..."

But he goes on to claim that this is nothing compared to the psychopaths of European football when he suggests: "... the fans rushing on to the field don't want to embrace the players. They are carrying knotted ropes used historically for lynching*, rocks, beer bottles poised to be thrown and whatever else is not nailed down. Frenzied followers of one team chase down those of the opponents, not to congratulate for a good effort, but to dismember."

*(For those unaware ‘Lynching’ is an old tradition in the US. Much favoured by the KKK in southern states)

Have none of these guys been to Philadelphia?

At a 1980s Philadelphia Eagles against the Dallas Cowboys game a Cowboys fan in a wheelchair was pushed to the top of a steep ramp by two Philadelphia fans. They ripped his Dallas shirt to shreds after threatening to push him down the ramp.

In 1997, Veterans stadium – the then ground of the Eagles - saw a fully functional court set up it’s basement, along with a small jail, after a game against San Francisco resulted in an estimated 60 fights. When the Lincoln Financial Field (the team's current stadium) opened in 2003, it was equipped with similar facilities.

And you know that things haven’t improved when one of heir own fans, Al Petrillo, talks about the “shit-faced drunk and out of control” fans beating up and breaking the leg of a 60-year-old Washington Redskin’s fan. Petrillo has worked with security at Philadelphia Flyers ice hockey games where, violence is just as rife. "Especially in the play-offs. There's fights at every game. There was this guy in a [New Jersey] Devils jersey, just sat there minding his own business. A Flyers fan walked past him then just turned around and just beat the piss out of him."

The reputation of the Eagles fans is so bad that they were congratulated by ESPN.com., when they failed to boo a little blind boy with cerebral palsy when he faltered while singing the national anthem during a snowstorm.

But it’s not all about Eagles’ fans.

Here are just some of the more famous examples of US fan violence:

In 1974 the ‘Nickel Beer Brawl’ at a baseball game at Cleveland Stadium caused the Cleveland Indians to forfeit the game to the Texas Rangers after drunken fans started a riot.

In 1984, Kansas State defeated KU at football. After the match Kansas fans rioted, smashing windows and signs, overturning a car, and uprooting street signs. Police who attempted to intervene were chased by students who hurled obscenities and bottles at them. Five police officers were cornered for a time and pelted with rocks and bottles. At one point, the Kansas Highway Patrol called Governor John W. Carlin's office to request that he declare a state of emergency and send Kansas National Guard troops to Aggieville

Two years later, despite a number of precautions, Aggieville was the site of another riot after Kansas State again defeated KU. Students wearing t-shirts that said ‘Riotville’ and ‘Riot II’ mingled amongst the crowds that filled the main street outside the bars. As night fell, the crowd again turned violent. Almost every building in Aggieville had its windows smashed.

In 1984 (one night after the first Aggieville Riot), violence erupted outside of Tiger Stadium in Detroit after the Detroit Tigers defeated the San Diego Padres in the World Series. 

A Tigers’ fan holding a World Series pennant in front of an overturned and burning Detroit Police car.

In 1990, a victory celebration in Detroit after the NBA Finals degenerated into a riot that left 7 dead.

In 1993 three people died in Chicago after the Chicago Bulls won the NBA championship.

In 1998, Denver Broncos fans rioted in the streets of Denver after their team won Super Bowl XXXII.

In 2000 Los Angeles Lakers fans rioted in the streets of Los Angeles after the Lakers victory over the Indiana Pacers in the NBA Finals - starting bonfires dancing and stomping on parked cars, and even turning a news van over.

In 2003 in Oakland, California fans rioted and destroyed property after the Oakland Raiders lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl XXXVII. The rioting fans left several streets strewn with burnt-out cars and smashed glass. One McDonald's restaurant was looted and set on fire. Three fire-fighters suffered injuries while at least 23 people were arrested, in most cases on charges of public drunkenness. When the trouble broke out, huge squads of officers marched through the streets and authorities closed off some areas of the city.

In 2004, in a NBA game between the Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons, a brawl erupted between Pacers players and Pistons supporters.

And just in case a trip even to nearby Philadelphia is too much for the hacks at the Boston Globe, they might like to reflect on the events of October 2004, when fans of the Boston Red Sox rioted just outside of Fenway Park after the Red Sox won the American League Championship Series over the New York Yankees. And to take a quote from Mr Stokes “forced the local constabulary to don riot gear to restore order.” In restoring that order, Emerson College student, Victoria Snelgrove, was killed. The result of being hit in the eye by a pepper spray pellet fired from an FN 303.

Stokes need not look as far as Glasgow for a story. There is one on his doorstep.

It’s a story about a long-term deeply rooted and entirely home-grown problem that affects American sport that no one is willing to recognise exists.

It’s about mindless drunken violence inside and outside stadiums.

It’s about cop-taunting, car-burning, vandalism and death.

It’s about hooliganism.

It’s about putting your own house in order before pointing your finger at others.

Shoot the Bores

Relief has swept through the little known country of Engurland. Wain Rooney will be OK for the World Cup. The soccer minnows had feared that their star pie-eater would miss out as their brave lads’ head of to do battle with Johnnie Foreigner in South Africa.

And there’s no one happier than me. Because, what a lot of pish we’ve had to put up with since Tuesday night.

He sprained his ankle for fuck’s sake! It not as though he stood on a landmine!

I remember spraining an ankle many years back. It was a Saturday-morning game. I hobbled off to the local abattoir where the put a bandage on it and told me, that as the X-ray guy didn’t work weekends, to come back on Monday and they’d see if it was broken. The upside was two weeks of work just as the World Cup was starting (more than enough time to see all of Scotland’s games).

With an army of medical experts to pamper him, I’m sure Roooooonaaaaaay will survive a couple of weeks on the panel. 

Fifa Copyright the World, the Universe and Everything

A South African budget airline has pulled its tongue-in-cheek advert after Fifa complained that it infringed its trademark during the 2010 World Cup.

kulula.com's ad described the firm as the "Unofficial National Carrier of the You-Know-What". It also contained pictures of stadiums, vuvuzelas and national flags.

A statement from football's august world governing body said, "For the record, FIFA did not tell Kulula that they could not use soccer balls, or the word 'South Africa', or the Cape Town stadium, or the national flag or vuvuzelas,"

It was the combination of these elements which were banned, the statement said.

Good to see that they have their priorities right and aren’t wasting time sorting out:

The cheats in the game, like Thierry Henry

or

The increasing amount of overpaid Nancy-boy players who seem to have every nerve end in their body somehow attached to their face

or

The incompetent match officials who will spectacularly make an arse of it during the forthcoming competition

or 

Sepp Blatter

Just for the record:

Her's the name

'South Africa'

And here’s a picture of

A Soccer Ball

and Cape Town Stadium

and The National Flag of South Africa

and People with Vuvuzelas

Bring it on Fifa.

Sinn Die

A former Sinn Fein councillor has been ordered to pay Celtic Football Club £48,056 over hundreds of unpaid match tickets and season books dating back to 2008. The club raised a civil action against Martin McManus after he failed to pay for tickets.

Quite right too.

It's only fair that “Money for the Cause” works both ways.