Now what this mild-mannered big handed Yorkshireman knows about bigotry is beyond me, the most he has had to deal with is a Sheffield derby or his yorkshire pudding mix not rising properly.
Or was his script written by those good auld Rangers men in the shadows?
Green told BBC sports journalist Chris McLaughlin, that the decision to deny The New Rangers FC a place in the top flight was driven by bigotry, jealousy and the wrong motives.
He said: “Some of it has been driven by bigotry, some of its been driven by jealousy and some of its been driven by all the wrong motives.”
When asked to expand his comments on bigotry, Green stumbled through his answer before stating that it was down to pressure placed on clubs in the SPL by the fans not to allow the new club into the first tier of Scottish football.
He added: “One of the meetings I went to, one of the reasons why SPL chairmen were under pressure to do something with Rangers was they wouldn’t buy season tickets until Rangers were thrown out of the league. We’ve got a position whereby Rangers were thrown out of the league and these clubs are still appealing with fans to buy season tickets.”
“What’s happened with Rangers, as an outsider looking in, although I am now an insider, is absolutely incredible where it seems to me the whole of Scotland have wanted to kick this giant club while it was down. I think justice has been done. The club were fined 10 points, it received an £190,000 fine, it was then put out the SPL, it was then put down to the Third Division, it has had to pay all the Scottish club debts, which wouldn’t normally happen for a newco to be obliged to pay oldco’s debts.
“We’re also now paying European debts and there is still potential cloud hanging over the club from the SPL over EBT issues. I had meetings last week with some Uefa officials who say this is unprecedented in Europe.”
So rather than the clubs wanting justice and wanting to secure sporting integrity within the Scottish game, they wanted to kick Rangers when they were down. They were driven by bigotry, hate, jealousy and other motives.
Are the likes of Raith Rovers chairman Turnbull Hutton driven by bigotry, by hate, by jealousy? Hutton secured nationwide praise of his handling and his comments throughout the whole fiasco and for his stance. One of the few chairmen to come out of the whole mess with credibility.
Green is surely peddling to the extremists within The new Rangers football club who see anyone standing up for themselves as anti-rangers, bigoted and hate-filled. Extremists such as the Vanguard Bears – a group who turn on their own club’s fans and continue to do so – whose own views over the past few years have polarised opinion within the Rangers support. The extremists and the bigots on following the Vanguard Bears like good lil sheep and the ordinary punters on the other who care not about the bigotry, just the football.
I feel for the ordinary punters of the New Rangers football club who will be labelled just the same as the Vanguard Bears and their cohorts.
Take for example today’s match, rather than celebrating a Rangers victory or celebrating life back in Scottish football, extremists within the new Rangers support were singing songs of hate and peddling the Big Jock Knew chant once more. A chant that was deemed offensive under the old club.
Even after the club went into administration last season, the songs of hate were rolled out by the extremists in protest against the authorities and against Celtic who they saw as the main instigators behind the sanctions. Forgetting totally that they breached our country’s football rules for not 10 months as Ally McCoist claimed yesterday but since the early noughties. Securing titles by any means necessary – even if that meant financial doping.
That is the real reason why the clubs turned on The New Rangers FC, not because of bigotry, nor jealousy, nor any other motive bar sporting integrity. The clubs have looked upon a cheat and cast him to bottom of the pile – a second chance at that.
Just where these extremist Rangers fans wanted to be – not because of sporting integrity but because of their own hate and bigotry. They wanted Division Three to punish those clubs who did not kowtow to the quintessential British club’s 140 year old history, a history that lives on in The New Rangers FC museum and ended with Rangers 1872.
I wonder how long it will take the clubs to take Green to task for his comments. Maybe that’s why he stumbled through his explanation as he realised that he could not back up his comments with cold hard facts – a defence lawyers nightmare.
Some of the players may have tupe’d over, others have walked away, the assets have been bought and it seems that the extremists, the bigotry and the hate has been tupe’d over also. Charles Green is right there is bigotry, hate and wrong motives. But rather than looking to the rest of Scottish football, maybe just maybe he should be looking inward to those who claim to be Rangers fans, who claim to be REAL Rangers fans, who claim to be upholding the club’s traditions.
It won’t be long before the hate-filled repertoire that was prevalent throughout the club’s anti-catholic signing policy rears its ugly head with much more gusto, but will the Scottish football authorities do anything about it? Or will they back off in fear of putting too many sanctions on a club that has broken the rules of the Scottish game, and the rules of sporting integrity.
Over to David Longmuir and Stewart Regan, this is happening under your watch. Will you tackle the issue head on or will you just keep your blinkers on?
