From the outside looking it, it would probably seem absurd that Rangers have announced their withdrawal of co-operation with the BBC. On Tuesday, before a documentary produced by the BBC about new Rangers owner Craig Whyte was shown, the club released a statement on their official website stating “The Club believes that the BBC has on a number of occasions now demonstrated a pre-determined negative attitude towards Rangers and its fans its journalism has fallen well short of acceptable standards”.
To anyone not following recent issues between the club and the BBC, this would look like an over-reaction, but in the last few months, the club has had several legitimate complaints about the BBC. Rangers fans have long held the belief that BBC Scotland has an anti-Rangers bias, but that perceived bias appeared to have spread south, when Five Live held a debate about Scottish football following the attack on Celtic manager Neil Lennon by a Hearts fan last season. Celtic were leading when a Hearts fan jumped out of the stands near the dugouts, attempting to punch Lennon. He appeared to slip as he did so, allowing assistant manager Alan Thompson to restrain him.
The following day on Five Live, presenter Nicky Campbell absurdly wondered aloud if the fan could have been a Rangers fan. This was despite the match being held in Edinburgh, and the fan clearly wearing an old Hearts away shirt beneath his jacket. The club responded by refusing to permit interviews to the BBC before a game against Kilmarnock, and Campbell was forced to apologise for his line of questioning.
Rangers and the BBC then clashed again as the new season began. After Lennon received death threats and suspect parcels addressed to him were intercepted last season, BBC Scotland ran a news piece discussing sectarianism and violence in and around the Old Firm.
Rangers manager Ally McCoist was furious after footage of a press conference made it appear as if he was smirking while being questioned about what Lennon had gone through the previous season. Rangers again refused to co-operate with the BBC until an apology was issued shortly before Rangers Champions League qualifier against Malmo.
But things really came to a head in the last week or so. BBC reporter Mark Daly was working on a documentary, investigating Craig Whyte’s past, and questioning his suitability as owner of Rangers. Whyte refused to be interviewed for the program, and no-one else currently employed by Rangers contributed to it. Instead, Daly interviewed journalist Graham Spiers, who has regularly angered Rangers fans with his reports of sectarian elements in the support, and two former Rangers board members, ex-chairman Alistair Johnston and director Paul Murray.
If the documentary “did nothing more than portray Whyte as a businessman who had previously had failed ventures before arriving at Ibrox” then why have Rangers halted cooperation with the BBC? Explain.
That’s the only point they made that was factual. The rest was hearsay, rumour and conjecture brought up to suggest that Whyte has a dodgy past.
The BBC documentary produced no facts, instead it made allegations that Whyte is correct to act upon.
It was also made with the aide of people who lets just say dont support Rangers and have an open agenda against Rangers. One is a failed social worker who for years has had his blog spout anti Rangers rantings.
If even some of the points are unfounded, Rangers have every right to sue them, which they have said they will. It will be interesting to see what points they are challenging though. Whyte was banned from company directorship by the ‘UK Government’s Insolvency Service’ according to them though, which is a big deal and not up for debate.
Maybe it’s the culmination of a series of incidents and RFC have had enough.
Many years ago Mark Daly attempted to portray a non-football supporting racist as a Rangers fan in the programme “The Secret Policeman”.Daly is a member of Anton Rogan Celtic Supporters Club in Clydebank.Spiers hatred of Rangers knows no bounds.He labelled Jock Wallace a bigot and a bully days after Wallace died.
Read Robin Aitkens book on reporting bias within the BBC.If he is to be believed then Rangers are an easy target.
Its not hard to see why Rangers have had enough
Dry your eyes and belt up. What a truly pathetic excuse for a justification. For a support which perpetually accuses the Celtic support – rightly – of paranoia on occasion e irony in this nonsense is staggering. The ability of writers like this to jump on the moral high horse over sectarianism is staggering on a day when the rangers support chanted ‘one John wilson’ and ‘cheer up Neil lennon’ at tynecastle. I think we all know the second part of that paryicular charming ditty. It would serve the rangers support to ask questions about the track record of their new owner rather than adopting a pitiful siege mentality. The man flat refuses to answer questions about his business record and is about to take the club into administration. The BBC are merely asking the questions the ostriches in the Rangers support won’t.
‘is about to take the club into administration’. Well, Rangers might go into administration, but it won’t be Craig Whyte’s fault if that happens. The issues with the taxman stem from the David Murray era.
Why does Craig Whyte have to answer to a BBC journalist with a collection of rumours?
Every set of fans, particularly in Britain, has at one time or another sung offensive songs. I’d love for you to explain how Rangers fans singing ‘There’s only one John Wilson’ is sectarian.
Whose fault would it be? Whyte has bought the club and assumed all its debts and liabilities. If the club goes into administration it can only be the current owners’ fault. They saw the books and convinced Sir David Murray they would be the right “peepel” to act as custodians of the club.
I say “owners”, plural, because no-one seems to be sure where the money is coming from and what exactly has happened to the debt. It’s not been paid off as I understand, just moved somewhere else. If that’s the case then the most worrying thing for Rangers that I could see in the program is not the implication about Whyte’s shady past, which Wyhte is taking exception to, but his track record of becoming the main secured creditor and then taking the lion’s share of the assets on bankruptcy and leaving all the real suppliers and employees out of pocket.
If that was to happen, well that would not be very dignified…
David, the real point of my comment was not to point score. The point was this; there are far bigger issues with which rangers fans should be concerned right now than what the BBC has to say about Craig Whyte. Namely Mr Whyte himself. Seems to me that people are so pleased to have got rid of David Murray that they will back anyone who is different. Even a man whose record during past enterprises gives good grounds allegedly for fearing what his true intentions are for a huge Scottish football club.
And by the way, I didn’t mean the John Wilson song was
sectarian, merely offensive. And Rangers fans – rightly – take a pretty strong line on non sectarian ‘offensive’ songs, right?
Supporters of any club will have doubts over any new owners. The club was on its knees before Craig Whyte came along, because David Murray had gotten things horribly wrong. Few Rangers fans are 100% convinced that Craig Whyte has the right intentions for the club. But the simple truth is that it will not be his fault should the club go into administration.
There’s nothing in it for Craig Whyte to see Rangers go out of business, and if his intentions are to right the clubs finances, then sell for a profit (like Fergus McCann did for Celtic), why is that a problem?
No-one else was willing to put the money up to buy Rangers. Paul Murray and Alistair Johnston did little to attempt to save the club while they were on the board (the board that almost broke the club).
As I highlighted in my article, the BBC has recently shown a lack of fair and impartial reporting when it comes to Rangers.
The problem with Whyte’s ban is that it overshadows the fact that the fans have concerns about the portrayal of the club and the support by BBC Scotland.
By backing the ban it looks like we are rallying behind Whyte when in reality we don’t know enough about him to do so at this stage to do so.
Any Rangers fan who has watched the BBC Scotland’s output closely regarding Rangers and Celtic can see why we’re concerned.
As a small example –
Last year, as a nutter was throwing grenades at the Police in the west end of Glasgow, Reporting Scotland were showing footage of Rangers fans being stationed at Wigan prior to the Man Utd game as the lead story! The story was weeks old and the same arrangements were in place prior to the trouble in Manchester a few years previous. The story only seemed to serve as an excuse to show the morons rioting in Manchester and yet again show Rangers in a bad light.
Contrast this with recent picture of a Celtic supporting murderer on the same show with his Celtic top digitally edited to not clearly show the strip and you get an idea of why our fans are concerned.
Countless other examples have been highlighted by supporter sites and it’s not before time that this lot were banned.
Relevance, Cruch of Ladrup, relevance. Was the football team this criminal supported relevant to the crime or conviction? If not there was no reason to draw attention to it. What team did Fred West support? No-one cares, that’s not the story. The fact that you would try and draw that into a debate about perceived editorial bias shows that you guys are indeed paranoid.
BBC Scotland is no friend of Celtic’s either – look at their editorial stance when it comes to Sectarian singing. Maybe this is just their way to show that they’ll have a go at both of us?
Actually Wendy Alexander questioned the “removal” of the Celtic top image a few days afterwards in a politics show on the radio.
Paranoia in football is the sole ownership of Celtic and their fans.Despite statistics to show otherwise e.g. NIAR 1966-1974 ,more penalties than Rangers,less yellow and red cards than Rangers ,they will not let it go.There has been books written on the subject by Celtic fans and it still thrives in the CFC mindset to this day.
What did you think when Peter Lawwell pulled the plug on Radio Clyde’s coverage of Celtic v Barcelona all because Peter Martin criticized Strachan’s team selections.
Now that WAS embarrassing !
Hold on. I think you must have missed my question regarding “Was the football team this criminal supported relevant to the crime or conviction?”.
How is us winning 9iar proof there is no bias? I didn’t play then and neither did you, let’s hear from someone who did? Billy McNeill.
“Celtic have been suffering referee injustices against Rangers for 50 years. I felt that way as a player, during two spells as manager and now as a spectator… I believe when it has to come to players being red carded and booked, Rangers have been treated more favourably than Celtic. I think the majority of big decisions have gone against my club.”
Ever the honest man Cesar went on to say “Don’t get me wrong, Rangers have also had to endure a fair few bad calls from referees and linesmen, but not as many as Celtic.”
What did I think about whit? I have no recollection of that. What I would say though is that WGS won 3iar (first since Stein) and got Celtic further in the new format Champions League than ANY Scottish team in history. On that basis you’d have to say Peter Martin didn’t know what he was talking about.
Billy McNeill, the voice of reason. Ahem.
‘Celtic have been suffering referee injustices against Rangers for 50 years’.
Of course they have, but they’ve managed to become Scotland’s second most successful team despite Scottish football doing everything it can to keep them down.
Correctamundo – it’s a phenomenal achievement. And all achieved without the “financial doping” (c. M. Platini) used over in Mordor.
🙂
AMS it wasnt the questions you muppet it was false allegations do you like it if some one says something about you thats lies ????
AMS you stink of celtic and of being a bigot
Whatever the truth of things the media like to stir up allthings Celtic and Rangers. The sad thing is that many people both inside and outside the clubs latch onto this.
I mean take Man U v Liverpool, Spurs v arsenal etc and there is as much unsavoury stuff going about. However it is Celtic and Rangers that supporters of these clubs will take the high moral ground over.
Granted Manchester, UEFA sanctions and the campaign against Neil Lennon really put Rangers in the spotlight but society in general needs to waken up and stop taking media so seriously. Many of the things that people are taking issue with would not be making the news if people stopped getting wound up so easily.
G, what ‘campaign against Neil Lennon’ really put Rangers in the spotlight?
We all know what you are fishing for there David – the reality is that G didn’t say anything about Rangers fans participating in “the campaign against Neil Lennon” – though obviously they did take part in the Manchster riot the the sectarian singing that brought the UEFA sanctions – just that it put Rangers in the spotlight.
There is no doubt that comments on Rangers fansites relating to the campaign would have contributed to that, after all that Birrell guy that got convicted of “internet hate” against Lennon and Celtic posted a phrase that Rangers former Chairman identifed as one of Rangers’ own catchphrases…
Correct jocky bhoy and thanks for pointing that out.
Look I am not trying to implicate anyone, just stating the things that you would see on the national news and the way public perception works.
While I dont follow either club I dont get offended by them either, in fact I would love to see both playing in the English Premiership to lighten it up a bit.
I was lucky enough to be in Prague 7-8 years ago when Celtic fans were visiting for a game against Teplice and they were a real happy-go-lucky set of supporters.
Likewise, I dont know what happened in Manchester but friends who were there and out and about in the early part of that day said that they met many Rangers fans who were enjoying a drink but were friendly and in good spirits and did not seem like people who were looking for trouble.
Nicky Campbells Grandad, was a member of the IRA so, anything this scumbag says about Rangers will obviously be biased. How can anyone associated with The IRA get a job with the BBC after they tried to blow the BBC’s HQ up? What a joke.
That’s pure dead brulliant. Nick Campbell’s granda’? Seriously?
And I suppose the move of the bulk of BBC personnel to Manchester was an attempt to influence them to be even further anti-Rangers by meeting people who sdaw Rangers fans try to dismantle that city brick by brick, which then then threw at the Police!
You are soooo right!
Just a couple of points.
David Dougan – you state that ‘There’s nothing in it for Craig Whyte to see Rangers go out of business’. Nobody has suggested that this is his aim. What has been put forward is that he appears content to let the club go into administration, which is a different kettle of fish entirely. If this happens, as the only secured creditor, there is plenty in it for him, but very few Rangers fans seem to want to question him on this.
True Blue – you referred to ‘false allegations’ in one of your posts. Can you expand on what in particular you suggest has been alleged, and in what way these are false?
True blue, you, sadly, are all too typical of the kind of bury the head in the sand naysayer who currently follows football. You call me a muppet and a bigot, yet expect to have any point you make after that taken seriously? Grow up man. You haven’t the foggiest slightest idea if these allegations are ‘lies’ or not. Not a clue. So long as Craig Whyte uses a London law firm to try and stop people delving into his past and asking questions, however, then any rational, intelligent person will conclude he has something to hide. Sadly youbdon’tbfit any of the above descriptions. Shame. Do yourself a favour, go back go school and get an education. Maybe then you’ll be able to put up a decent coherent argument instead of playing fhe Neanderthal Internet hardman.
The source of information that BBC investigator Mark Daly had is clearly from the previous board members prior to Whyte’s takeover, Alastair Johnstone & co hired their own private investigators to research the then prospective owner of Glasgow Rangers, the suspicion about Whyte and his ability to deal with Rangers huge financial problems in the very near future all comes from senior close Rangers connections, has David Murray gave a public endorsement of the man who bought his shares for £1? The BBC were perfectly entitled to make that programme, considering two ex Rangers FC chairmen have now resigned with no confidence in Whyte!!
The levels of paranoia being displayed by certain sections of the Rangers support are beyond belief, it would serve you well to as AJ said keep a close eye on Mr Whyte
whyte sueing the bbc my erse,more chance of him sueing me for calling him a chancer,in fact more chance of the vangaurd bears realising hes delboy without the sheepskin.move along timmy nothing to see here…priceless.
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