Rick Roberts

Good read John. The end of your article shows me what its all about. A numbers game. Knowingly influencing those on the periphery of the support - be it lapsed supporters, young fans not yet made it to a match etc. Which runs into the 10,000s. A deliberate attempt at under-mining and chipping away at our fan-base.

There's a good point. Whoever gets the "news" out there first, by default owns the audience. Pretty hard to turn that around. It probably also won over the bulk of BBC staff too ,as they'd buy into and peddle/protect "their" news (tho prehaps didnt require much persuading) . Probably helps explain why they were so keen to push guilt and punishment, as the public are then conditioned to expect that. Likewise, why they omit celtic from certain discussions and news stories.

Totally agree. Clubs positions needs clarified. Slightly off track but i was thinking about this recently. The whole Craig Whyte saga involved... Chris McLaughlin, celtic fan, mouthpiece for celtic. BBC reporter, position not unrelated for work he does for celtic. Got given goodies by RTC and was chosen to run their stories, RTC - Known haters with a sole agenda to damage RFC (with hindsight anyway). Was allowed to run with story for years. Speculate/slander etc... Imagine a world where the opposite was true. It simply wouldn't happen. Chris Jack, reading Vanguard Bears investigative work on celtic issues, on the evening news. Then discussing it for hours with other Rangers fans. That's effectively what BBC Scotland gave us.

Do we know if the question has been asked or the point raised, officially? To an outsider in London its probably something that could be explained away and "complaints" from the public probably just fall under noise.

FYI - I've been told the minutes from June have been delayed. IT issues with a computer. Could be legit. We will see....

Good listen guys. Really enjoyed the topics later on. Really hit the nail on the head in my opinion. Celtic have been ripping the piss for years with us and the "old firm" fixture. They realised its easier to undermine us and sell hate to their support i.e. no old firm, no Rangers, you cheated etc. With us conveniently out of the way it gave them easy money and trophies. Like Colin said it's been an "aggressive" tone from them. Aggressive. Dismissive. Undermining. The effigies, moon-howling and assaults are all symptoms of this. It's a worrying trend. Very divisive stuff. Not unrelated, others have followed celtics lead. Dornan just the latest doing his bit for the cause. The SNP. Press pack. As pointed out, the suspect monies and allowances thrown at parkhead recently have been obscene. They have an army of puppets lining up to out do each other for them and against us. This is bigotry is action - and for me ten times worse than a few bad words between rival fans in 90mins. This is ow actually affecting peoples real lives in the professional and political sphere. They were able to bring in new laws and then get them repealed on a whim. It's new ground way beyond on anything before in our history. Murray made some comments about spending £10 and that's about as far as we took it before. Their response is mental. Rabid. No-one will ever call out them out unless we start pointing it out. Aberdeen, Hibs, Hearts seem to willingly join in but i genuinely don't think they realise half of whats going on with celtic. Therefore, the club has to be public with this. It's politics and we'll get laughed if we try and reason our way through it with people not interested in being reasonable with us.

It would be good to see some numbers / projections on this. To compare it to old deal i.e. how soon is the £3.5m made back?

Good stuff as always ? Good discussion on transfer fees and pay offs. Waghorn and Mackay etc most would agree we sold ourselves short at the time. Giving that Wes will probably end up in England then asking price must reflect that i.e. £2-3m. The pay offs for so many of Pedros guys are pretty galling. It would be interesting to hear how we compare to other clubs on this score - Obviously Martin Bains record was shocking and i'd hope we keep well away for that type of performance.

Out of interest did BBC cover SRtRCs comments on Rogers Logan comments? Whilst Mclaughlin didn't go over board with it, he didn't ignore it either. It'll get plenty of air time from our friends at the BBC. BBC aside, the supporter left the club in an impossible position and club had no other option. Perhaps a timely reminder that a pro-active approach cannot be over-looked and with drink and sun involved it never hurts to remind folk of responsibilities.

Good listen guys. Agree with you on the strips. It's right that Rangers fans discuss these things and set our own path on them but don't get dragged into "debates" on them with others. Almost everything involving Rangers gets sensationalised and the same nutters are asking for justification on everything. It wastes time and makes issues where there aren't any. Others do not get the same scrutiny and don't have to explain their actions.

That is the dream. A pro-active, full-time group, independent from the club, tying all the fans factions together and sorting out all the bullshit whilst setting the agenda.

Agreed. I think club have a duty to pick up these threads. The bheast quotes in that BBC story are pretty menacing with hindsight. Another angle is that these changes were meant to "improve" refereeing in this country. Giving this season (RFC and other games tbf) i think we have an even bigger problem with referees.

Agreed. There are a few higher profile incidents which back that up, but not enough to nail them. They'd probably point to one or two celtic suspensions and claim balance. From that point of view its difficult to capture or prove the "feel" of the CO, in that there's literally hundreds of incidents that get over-looked and never commented on, even when they should. Part of the problem is that incidents which are noteworthy to us seldom make the headlines and match reports, as we're seeing with Allan, it never happened. Likewise, Browns kicks and stamps etc are presented in soft focus. I've had a quick look but never found any stats or reports on charges etc .

Compliance - the action or fact of complying with a wish or command. Corruption - dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power. Cronyism - the appointment of friends and associates to positions of authority, without proper regard to their qualifications. OK guys. First things first. Since its inception the compliance officer and his behaviour has been suspect to say the least. We have a system which is completely lacking in transparency and more importantly consistency. It’s a black box with random outputs. We have a press refusing to review or address failings of the system, which usually means one thing these days. So based on what I’m looking at the CO position and the people in the position who create the rules and drive the system are not fit for purpose. Beyond that, the formation of the position is more than suspicious. I have put a rough timeline together below – any comment or feedback would be appreciated. Let’s be honest here, it is the brain child of celtic. Either the referee strike was staged to enable it or it was used as a springboard to engineer the CO position. Regan, Reid, McBride, Lunny, McGlennan is not a line up any Rangers fan would have faith in fair hearing with. So there’s some points straight away. Why is this system, who latest act and its timing does appear to be directed to damage Rangers or at least cause hassle and embarrassment, only open to celtic supporters? There’s apparent cultural discrimination going on here both in recruitment and in professional conduct. Rangers could do worse than point this out and I would hope they drive this point home and ensure balance is enforced. In the days when Tom English could actually make the occasional fair call he said “Lennon and his contemporaries don’t want consistency from referees, they want decisions, good or bad, in their favour.” He was right, of course. And it’s not limited to referees. They want control of every aspect concerning football. From media, to the rulebook, to deciding what is offensive behaviour. And at the SFA they hold the reigns on how the law is applied. So again, we are the story with this latest charge. The coup and corrupting of a governing body to hinder a rival club? Sounds like a kind of a big deal to me. 2007 June: Gordon Smith was Chief Executive of SFA. Officially he resigned due to personal reason, however from memory he was given a tough time from the press and it would be more accurate to say he was eventually hounded out of the job. 2010 July 28: Stewart Regan appointed as CE of SFA replacing Gordon Smith. The sourcing and subsequent conduct of Regan is something that Rangers fan are rightfully sceptical about. 2010 October 17: Celtic make complaint on Dougie McDonald over penalty decision in game against Dundee utd. 2010 November: John Reid, then celtic chairman calls for McDonald’s resignation. 2010 November 27/28: Referee strike is forced following celtics behaviour and SFAs lack of support for referees. 2010 November 29: Dallas and McDonald resigned/removed. Although Celtic made no official comment, Paul McBride, a QC closely linked to the Celtic board of directors, commented that the club felt vindicated by the departures of Dallas and McDonald. McBride says Celtic believe Regan is "someone with whom they can do business". http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/scot_prem/9240281.stm 2011 May: Craig Whye takes over Rangers. My thoughts are clear on this one. His behaviour benefited himself and another party greatly. Legacy issues popping up even now seem a bit too convenient. 2011 October 25: SFA appoint Vincent Lunny as compliance officer. In my opinion, consistency and application of rules is suspect to say the least. 2012 February 12: Whyte takes Rangers into administration. 2013 June 27: SPFL forms as merger between SPL and SFL. This is one where I would like to hear some expert input. What was actually changed with this merger? Why the rush and panic at the time? If anyone cares to look I’m certain something that will a) protect celtic or b) harm Rangers has been implemented. 2014 June: Lunny quits as CO. 2014 August: Anthony McGlennan is instated as CO. As per his predecessor his consistency and application of rules appear suspect.

Yep. Its an opportunity to address any issues and take initiative on this. Basically, grab the spotlight from Daly and shine it where he refuses to look.

I hope so Walterbear. The concern is that the celtic-minded are shameless about these things and will take some shifting. Like you say, hopefully SG is the sledgehammer to take it on.

Great podcast guys. Part of my weekly listening now. One key turning point for me was that first Hibs match. It set the music for lots of aspects of our season. - Even taking into account Pedro having limited ability, this threw him up against it from the off. It wrecked momentum and confidence (which these players more than others seem to rely on) and the subsequent draw against Hearts was a hangover from this. 5 points gone straight away. OK, a better manager and better players would've overcome this quicker but this lot never did. - It showed that refs would apply to 2 sets of standards. Alarm bells should've been ringing here. Whilst stopping short of calling it a conspiracy, if refereeing can be influenced by external (or internal via SFA) factors, then its effectively the same thing. The fans, investors, sponsors put in money, the club spend £30-40 million a season to compete - its big business and its all geared to competing. If we get another season of refereeing like that (sub-consciously or not) then we wont be winning anything, its that simple. The club has a duty to protect all influences towards winning football matches be it our manager, facilities, players etc and the refereeing team is a significant factor in that. The recent 1st half against Aberdeen is the perfect example of refereeing influencing a game; suspect penalty, gradual build up of 50/50s going one way and one set of players start of lose discipline. Ironically, Goss wasn't booked for his lash out, but that's the influence a ref can have on a game - even with no major calls 2 or 3 points can be spirited away . - It showed players seemed confident in pushing the limits against us. This was something we got through the lower leagues and were told to accept because it was the lower leagues (and it was Ian Black getting booted) but Hibs and Motherwell in particular were willing to jump into straight red card behaviour against us in plain sight. Their confidence was rewarded by our players spending months on the treatment table and them not even receiving cards, in many cases. I think we can rule out the CO picking up our complaints too and don't even start me on "it was a yellow so cant be reviewed" fob. Compare coverage of Naismith on brown, compare column inches, narratives and end result - a ban for Naismith and puff pieces for the lego muncher. So, extremely saddened club hasn't recognised and highlighted all of the incidents this year. There's clearly a trend and its clearly a significant influence on our performances and points tally. I expect rivals to look after their interests, I don't expect Rangers (including ex-players/pundits) to roll over and let it happen.

Think i'm leaning towards Yes. The profile part is something that makes sense. Big club, big names etc. And if we want to be considered a big club then at some stage we need to start acting like a big club, or at least thinking big. Add with the right team around him, it reduces the risk. Who knows...

Always interested to hear opinions on the media. How to we get a foothold back in the Scottish media? Why are we (club) so bad at setting narratives etc. Likewise as others have said Club1872. With hindsight, was probably mistake with merger. How best to move forward and repair any damage? Would be good to hear about options on area around Ibrox, what is possible and what would any barriers be?

w.r.t NBM, i get the feeling they know who butters their bread. It fairly obvious press requests are one sided and being abused tbh. But he refuses to concede that or answer fairly simple questions on it.

Prehaps. Deliberately offensive etc. But really anything any different from any another ultra group?

From their side, there lots of benefits from involving us in their politics. Dividing our support is another one that can be added to point scoring, entrenching their voters, damaging our brand etc...

What would be handy is a council building full of workers with a remit to work on this for a few years.

It certainly seems that way. If so. we need to build our own dice.

Boabie. Here's where i think it shows how politically naive and disorganised we are as a support in general (not a bad thing btw, as it should be football and not a tribal dog fight, but that now the environment we exist in). There's plenty of guys wanting to help out and do something but no way of making a real difference or anything happen. For example, look at the recent referee displays, we cant even muster a story in the press putting forward our point of view and setting a narrative. My thoughts is that somewhere out there is a Bear who has access to a smoking gun and wouldn't even know it e.g. proof of certain people meeting up. The next question is would we know how to use that information?