Rangers pull out of friendly with Celtic in Boston

[Gazza_8 233]

From the BBC.

 

Rangers have pulled out of a potential summer friendly with Celtic in Boston - and may travel to Australia instead.

 

The Ibrox side were scheduled to tour the United States in late July with games in Washington and Dallas before a clash with their Old Firm rivals.

 

But a row broke out when a Boston newspaper criticised the behaviour of Rangers fans away from Scotland.

 

"We have decided not to pursue that [match]," said Rangers chief executive Martin Bain.

 

More to follow

 

No surprise really.

[Zappa 0]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sport/glasgow-rangers-target-sydney-in-down-under-tour/story-e6frg7mf-1225864255949

 

GLASGOW giants Rangers have turned down the chance to play bitter city rival Celtic in a friendly in Boston and instead will play A-League champion Sydney in July.

 

Walter Smith's Scottish Premier League champion will tackle the Sky Blues, as well as Blackburn Rovers and South American powerhouse Boca Juniors at the Sydney Football Stadium.

 

The round-robin tournament -- was confirmed yesterday by Sydney FC chief Edwin Lugt.

 

"July promises to be an exciting month for Sydney FC supporters," Lugt said.

 

"We've already agreed to play Everton at the SFS on July 10.

 

"The tournament featuring Rangers, Blackburn and Boca is set down for the end of the month.

 

"The plan is to stage a big tournament annually just before the kick-off to the new season. That is the club's stated aim. This will be huge."

[maineflyer 0]

Very wise.

[rbr 1,247]

You should see what the discredited journalists take is on this , in fact I'm going to do something I very rarely do and post one of his articles , talk about deluded , well here goes

 

 

Yet again, Rangers have shifted their policy to avoid any bad publicity

 

Graham Spiers

 

How influential are newspapers when it comes to decision-making by football clubs? Surprisingly so, it would seem, given events of recent times.

 

The latest case of Rangers suffering due to unflattering editorial comment comes from across the Atlantic, and more specifically in Boston, where the club had been planning to play an Old Firm pre-season friendly against Celtic at the iconic Fenway Park, the 37,000-seater home of the Boston Red Sox.

 

That is, until the Boston Globe, quite a renowned newspaper, weighed in and put the kibosh on the idea.

 

The Globe, in its wisdom, decided it didn’t fancy having Rangers fans marauding around its city in the height of summer, and ran an article ten days ago in which it chose to cite a list of delinquent or unsavoury incidents by travelling Rangers fans down the years. In compiling such a list, with the Manchester riots at the heart of its findings, the Globe found it an almost effortless business compiling its damning evidence.

 

Now what do we find? Rangers, as a consequence, are pulling out of the trip. The club was embarrassed and annoyed by the newspaper coverage — so what’s new? — and have decided to change tack.

 

“We have decided not to pursue it,” Martin Bain, the club’s chief executive, said of the Boston match. “Instead, there is the possibility of matches in Australia and an announcement on that will be made in the next couple of days.”

 

In fairness to Rangers, one important aspect about the Globe article has to be pointed out. The author made confusing and downright erroneous claims about the Ibrox disaster of January 2, 1971, which did not enhance the piece at all. Moreover, it only whetted the appetite of those usual suspects among the Rangers support who are perennially offended, and who got straight on to poor Bain by letter or e-mail to haver indignantly about the article.

 

But the upshot of it all is quite amazing. Yet again, a newspaper article has contributed to a Rangers shift in policy, due to the unwanted publicity.

 

This episode caught my eye, because I have had experience with others in the past of writing things which, while seeming to be no more than tomorrow’s fish-and-chip paper, suddenly appeared to have a bit of political muscle.

 

Most infamously, in the case of the Rangers fine and reprimand by Uefa for bigotry in 2006, it wasn’t anything the club did, or the SFA did, which brought Ibrox to heel. On the contrary, it was newspaper articles that triggered Uefa’s wrath.

 

I know this to be a fact, because of one startling incident. I was lolling around Uefa’s headquarters, supposedly working at a European club draw in December 2006, when a Uefa delegate whom I knew called me into the organisation’s disciplinary department and, before my eyes, opened a drawer full of newspaper cuttings. To my utter amazement, stuffed into this drawer were various pieces I and other reporters had written, about the Old Firm and the bigotry problem.

 

It genuinely flabbergasted me that columns written in The Herald or The Times or elsewhere should have such an impact on Uefa, yet there was the evidence before me. It seems, just as this latest Boston case testifies, that there is nothing worse than bad publicity for Rangers, Celtic or anyone else.

 

Indeed, after that Uefa case, Rangers went into a PR overdrive, hiring a firm to try to ensure “nicer” coverage for the club in the papers, whereupon various characters began to appear hovering over reporters’ shoulders, politely asking what they might be writing about the club the next day. Simultaneously, Mr Bain, whom I’ve always found quite likeable and conscientious, commenced a serious of meetings with newspaper writers and editors, asking if coverage of the Rangers problem might be toned down while the club set about tackling it itself.

 

If you were a sports columnist, your ego might be hugely inflated by all this, though I suspect that aspect can be greatly exaggerated. Yet the fact remains, rightly or wrongly, that big football clubs are very wary of what the media are saying about them. Rangers have clearly been embarrassed by wrongs that were highlighted in the press, and, from what I can detect, they don’t fancy a further dose of it over the summer.

 

I have to confess I had always been cynical about the so-called “power of the pen” or, in the modern world, the “power of the microphone”. But this latest incident from Boston proves otherwise.

 

The main pity of it all is that Rangers and Celtic, for the meantime, will not now meet on American soil. I hope it happens one day soon, because it would be quite a spectacle.

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/col...icle7121286.ece

[craig 5,195]

Simultaneously, Mr Bain, whom I�ve always found quite likeable and conscientious, commenced a serious of meetings with newspaper writers and editors, asking if coverage of the Rangers problem might be toned down while the club set about tackling it itself.

 

 

That would be a "series of meetings" then Graham ? But then... how dare one of the unintelligible Rangers-supporting knuckledraggers like myself point out your grammattical failings

 

Spiers wants us vs Celtic on US soil ? Really ? This is the same Spiers who continually suggests that a match between the OF is merely a meeting of the knuckledraggers, perenial bigots and neanderthals.... why then would Mr Spiers want such a meeting ? One can only suggest that he comes to this conclusion because the match wont actually happen.

[Danny 0]

Who the fuck gives a cunt, pardon my french, about what Spiers has to say?

 

Re: the OP - quite right. It would have been good money but the sheer tim hot bed of Boston plus that dreadful article suggests we were better off keeping well out this thing.