Whitewash in full splash

[ian1964 10,418]

On now,discussion

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/bbc_radio_scotland

[Bluedell 5,343]

The guys who run football in this country would make you weep.

 

SFA president George Peat said a "culture of innuendo and conspiracy theories" had "tarnished the image of the game" but did not have the courage to mention which club and which people were promoting such a culture.

 

He also said "we must sympathise with the grievances of the referees" but has done absolutley nothing to address the grievances and has admitted to not even discussing John reid's comments.

 

SFA chief executive Stewart Regan made some noises recently about a "respect" campaign early next year but has actually done nothing about it despite admitting that he "completely understand(s) why incessant scrutiny, criticism and questioning of their integrity has brought them to the brink of a withdrawal of labour." Rather than pulling out all the stops to address the issue, he is more concerned about selling out the referees by bringing in some from overseas.

 

SPL chief executive Neil Doncaster has just stepped back and that he expects the games to go ahead without ackniowledging that it is one of his member clubs that has created this situation. He has said that it is disappointing that the referees have gone public with this and not discussed it in private, but refuses toi condemn (or even mention) Celtic (players, manager and Chairman) for making the most public of statements on many occasions.

 

There is a refusal by the guys with the positions of responsibility in Scottish football to address who has caused this problem and they should all be shown the door now for failing so badly in their jobs and the organisations should look to recruit people who can actually get things done and are not too scared to address the cancer that is poisioning Scottish football.

[rbr 1,247]

Ref Crisis: "This would never have happened if SFA had the bottle to stand up to Celtic"

Nov 23 2010 Keith Jackson

 

One of Scotland's best Oever referees last night launched a blistering double blast at Celtic and the SFA for dragging the Scottish game to the point of crisis.

 

Former top-class whistler Brian McGinlay - rated by many as the finest official the country has produced - waded into the scandal which has engulfed football as emergency talks were being scrambled in a bid to avoid this weekend's top-flight fixtures being scrapped.

 

McGinlay blames the Parkhead club for launching a concerted campaign against the country's refs and whipping up a frenzy by calling into question their honesty and integrity.

 

And he believes cowardly top brass at Hampden are every bit as culpable for failing to stand up for their men in the face of Celtic's repeated innuendos.

 

And he insists the entire furore is rooted in the West of Scotland's culture of religious intolerance.

 

But while McGinlay has nothing but sympathy for today's under-fire officials he also insists they are wrong to threaten the strike action which looks set to bring the game to a standstill.

 

He said: "In all my years in the game I have never known anything like this. It's a complete shambles and I really have no idea how it is going to be resolved.

 

"Celtic started it but the SFA have done nothing to defend or protect their own referees. I can understand why the guys feel so angry and let down but this situation is to no one's benefit and I don't honestly think a strike is going to do it much good.

 

"In fact, I had a wry laugh when I saw the weather forecast for this weekend - minus 10 and blizzards to hit the West Coast of Scotland? Perhaps George Peat's prayers have been answered."

 

SFA president Peat finally broke cover yesterday morning as Scottish football entered its meltdown moment. By mid-afternoon, he was involved in full-scale emergency talks with chief executive Stewart Regan.

 

But as far as McGinlay is concerned it was all too little too late.

 

He said: "What must have disappointed the referees is the fact these attacks have been allowed to go on and on unchecked by anyone at Hampden.

 

"You can feel a bit of sympathy for Regan because he's only just in the job and must already be wishing he was back at his cricket club in Yorkshire.

 

"But I'm disappointed the president has sat there watching this and saying nothing. I have heard he's been ill recently but he certainly looked hale and hearty on my telly doing the Scottish Cup draw earlier today. So why has he sat back and said nothing for so long?

 

"The SFA have a responsibility to protect their referees but it's been total silence. Even Hugh Dallas - the one guy you'd expect to come out in defence of the refs - has done nothing because he's been too busy covering his own back.

 

"Now we find ourselves in this situation and I don't know how it will be resolved. It's gone too far now and these attacks have gone unchecked for too long."

 

McGinlay believes one club above all others has been guilty of relentlessly going after the men in the middle - ever since the Dougie McDonald debacle at Dundee United five weeks ago.

 

He said: "You could put Celtic up on a charge of bringing the game into disrepute but that would probably result in making the already aggrieved feel even more aggrieved.

 

"But this situation has certainly not been helped by Celtic's behaviour and their continuously demanding explanation after explanation. I'm very surprised the chairman Dr John Reid - a man who spent a career working at the heart of British society in the House of Commons - has said what he's said.

 

"He didn't quite go all the way but he came as near as to saying that Celtic are discriminated against and that his club has had decisions made against it all through the years.

 

"That does nothing to help the majority of Celtic fans who had already convinced themselves this was true in the first place. One of my next door neighbours and best friends is a Celtic fan. He's totally sane and sensible until it comes to two o'clock on a Saturday. He's one of the few people in the country who still thinks it was a penalty at Tannadice and can't be convinced otherwise.

 

"That's the problem we face in the West of Scotland. It's a deeply ingrained thing. You can kid on to yourself that religion isn't a deep-rooted part of all this but it is. It's a West of Scotland problem more than it is a football problem. It always has been.

 

"There is no doubt about it. Celtic believe there is an institutionalised bias against their club but I can honestly say I have never seen any kind of evidence that would back this up.

 

"Never in my life have I seen anything as vociferous as what is coming out of Celtic Park at the moment. The ultimate insult for any referee is to have his integrity questioned or to suggest there is a sinister reason behind his decisions. I'd have been very annoyed had anyone levelled that at me so I can see why the referees are angry enough to go on strike.

 

"These are terrible accusations that are being made and the people at the SFA should have done something about it long before now."

 

McGinlay is adamant there is no basis to the conspiracy theories which hang over our game like a bad smell. But he believes Celtic won't let up until both McDonald and Dallas are out of work.

 

He said: "In my time I was never accused by anyone of being part of a conspiracy. But the climate has changed recently and I honestly don't know why.

 

"It obviously all stems from the incident in the Dundee United-Celtic game. But at the end of the day the correct decision was made. Only in Scotland could we reach the point of meltdown because a referee got a decision right!

 

"The problem was the referee and the linesman were trying to come up with an explanation which would have been deemed acceptable by the assessor.

 

"But when you watch the replays you can clearly see Dougie McDonald saying, 'It's my mistake'. He knew he'd got it wrong and changed his decision. But from that moment the whole saga has gone on and on.

 

"I can't understand why Celtic can get so upset about what you might call a white lie. Football is full of lies. Managers lie about team selections and injuries on a day-to-day basis.

 

"Over the years clubs have lied about attendances. I'd referee games and think there were about 80,000 in the stadium then go home and find out there were only 31,000. It's gone on for years and years.

 

"So I can't see why Celtic have taken such offence at this supposed lie. I watched them against St Mirren the other week and then heard Neil The Manchild calling his team world-beaters.

 

"He must have been the only bloke on the planet who thought his team were world-beaters that day. Or was that a lie to try to appease the Celtic support? "The fact Celtic have kept this going for so long has made life hard for everybody. I don't think there will be satisfaction in the east end of the city until both McDonald and Dallas are gone. It's not one head they want - it's two.

 

"So how on earth this is going to be resolved I do not know."

[rbr 1,247]

http://leggoland2.blogspot.com/

 

Monday, 22 November 2010

 

CELTIC, REFS AND ALEX BARR

 

DOES the name Alex Barr ring any bells? If not, let me refresh memories. Barr was the subject of my attention a few years ago when he was employed by both Celtic and the Scottish Football Association.

 

Astonishing as it may seem, that was the case at the time. The fact that I wrote about him in my then Sunday newspaper column, exposing his peculiar position, clearly irked him, and he once approached me as I was on my way into Hampden for a Scotland game.

 

Barr was dressed in that strange mixture of a refugee from the White Heather Club and the sojers who terrified the Duke of Wellington before Waterloo ,which is favoured by the Tartan Army.

 

At the time he worked for a PR company called The Big Partnership as a master of the dark art of spin on behalf of the Scottish Football Association and Celtic.

 

It was also a time when Celtic were involved in a row with the SFA. The more things change the more they stay the same.

 

Therefore it was clear there was a conflict of interest. That conflict of interest was an open secret within the media, but nobody appeared to wish to cut off any of the nods and winks they may been getting from Barr, by exposing it.

 

That was until I decided enough was enough. After it appeared in print, Barr faded from the SFA picture.

 

So, what is Alex Barr up to these days? Is he still operating in the shadows? Never pictured? Never quoted? But always available? Always able to spin and leak?

 

A sort of Mandleson-type figure for Scottish football, if you like? Only more reclusive?

 

In fact Barr is still answering his masters voice from Celtic and is still spinning on behalf of Celtic.

 

Which leads us nicely to the topic of the day, referees in general, Hugh Dallas in particular, and the remarkably well informed website, Celtic Quick News.

 

The story so far is that a Celtic supporter made a complaint to Assistant Chief Constable, Campbell Corrigan of Strathclyde Police ,claiming the joke email sent by Dallas was a hate crime.

 

Newspapers up and down Scotland carried the story. But it faded quickly. The remarkably well informed Celtic Quick News then stepped in and accused Strathclyde Police of some sort of conspiratorial cover up.

 

Frankly, when the original story broke, two things struck me. First, the nature of what Corrigan was being asked to use police time, manpower and taxpayers' money to investigate.

 

The other, was why was Corrigan chosen? Was there a belief that this Ayr-born senior policeman had some sort of extra qualification for such a task?

 

He is certainly a well qualified man. He holds diplomas and degrees from the John F Kennedy school at Harvard, and has completed a Masters at University College, Dublin ,is a former head of Strathclyde CID and has completed both UK and Irish police strategic command courses.

Perhaps that gave rise to a belief he was a better choice than the Chief Constable.

 

Those questions became irrelevant as the story was seen - as we say in the inky trade - to have no legs.

 

Referees in general though is a story which will not go away, and that was obvious in the Sunday Mail, with another great exclusive from Mark Guidi, the man who broke the two major stories about Steven Craven.

 

It would appear that leak was the straw which broke the camel's back and has triggered the strike threat from Scotland's grade one officials.

 

There has been no official statement from the Referees' Association, but I think we can take it that their views have been expressed by Kenny Clark and Stuart Dougal - recently retired refs - in the Sun and the Record.

 

It's a shrewd move by the refs, for it isolates their tormenters, clearly identified by them as Celtic.

 

The call for a review and overhaul of refereeing in Scotland has been coming from Celtic, with the more strident voices belonging to their supporters.

 

The other 11 Scottish Premier League clubs appear to have no appetite for this. If they had - even as few as one, two or three of them - Celtic would surely have formed an alliance which would have been hard for the SFA to ignore.

 

As it is, the siren calls are all coming from just one club and its fans. Celtic and their supporters now appear even more isolated, as any refereeing strike would hit the revenue of all the clubs SPL.

 

What part - if indeed any - Alex Barr may be playing in all of this, with perhaps a word in the ear of as many journalists as he can, will soon become evident.

 

At least this time nobody can accuse this clever user of the dark arts of spin, of serving two masters.

[craig 5,199]

"Neil the Manchild" - LOVE IT !!!!!!