The village idiot

When I took the decision to start writing this blog my intention was to share my love and passion of Rangers and football with like minded people.  It was to be an outlet for my thoughts on how Rangers were performing on the field and I would try to steer clear of 'off field' issues.  Unfortunately with the blog only a couple of weeks hold I'm going to break my self styled rules and make comment on a situation which has nothing to do with the playing side of Rangers FC.

It is however an issue that cannot be ignored and which came to a head on BBC Scotland's Sportsound programme on Monday evening.  Earlier in the day Sky Sports had carried an exclusive interview with Alfredo Morelos.  The interview touched on many areas including his charity work in his home town and how he is trying to address his disciplinary record.  In the interview Morelos also touched on the regular abuse he receives both on and off the field. He described how he has had to listen to his mother being abused and in what should be a wake up call for the SPFL and the SFA, he has been subject to racist abuse.

Sportsound is BBC Scotland's flagship sports programme and given the context of what Morelos had said earlier in the day it would be fair to expect that a discussion of how Scottish football could begin to deal with the issue of racism in the game would take place that evening.  Instead we were subjected to what can only be described as a diatribe of incoherent rambling from 'pundit' Michael Stewart. In the small number of segments where it was possible to understand what Stewart was trying to say he claimed there was no evidence of racist behaviour towards Morelos (fans-charged-for-racist-remarks-at-aberdeen-v-rangers) and that recent press stories about Morelos had been 'planted' by Rangers PR department. The monologue that Stewart gave was embarrassing, bizarre, incoherent and not befitting of a national broadcaster.

However Michael Stewart is not the problem here because remember, every village has it's idiot. The problem is that this particular idiot is being given a national platform to express his views. And when a 'pundit' on a football talk show refuses to discuss the serious issue of racism in a controlled, sensible and intelligent manner the BBC have serious questions to answer. When a young black player has admitted that he has been the subject of racist abuse in Scotland, why was it was ignored? For a national broadcaster to ignore such a serious issue is a dereliction of duty and one they must be taken to task for.  Racism is a stain on modern society and pretending the problem doesn't exist in Scotland is unacceptable.

Sportsound was the ideal platform for the subject of racism in the Scottish game to be addressed yet it failed to do so. Questions have to be asked on why this was the case.  Do they not acknowledge that the problem exists within the Scottish game? Why are they afraid of discussing such an important issue?  What sort of message does avoiding the issue send to other players who have been the subject of racist abuse? Did the white middle aged panel feel uncomfortable discussing the issue? Perhaps the problem for BBC Scotland was that the individual who made this damming indictment on the Scottish game, happens to play for Rangers...

WDTCR 💙