The best comedians say timing is … what is it, again? Something? Nothing?
Riiiight - it’s everything. Maybe the SFA and their compliance officer should do a class.
Because their sense of it stinks.
Friday afternoon’s 19-day-late – and in the case of the Hibs game, 28-days-later – announcement of sanctions against Rangers was a masterclass in the moronic, a clarion call to conspiracy theorists everywhere.
Quite how the SFA didn’t think their ‘justice in instalments’ approach to the Old Firm game wouldn’t give them a field day, or invite another ‘they’re out to get us’ Rangers statement, is anyone’s guess.
Where do you start? The mysterious ‘extra’ yellow card for Alfredo Morelos?
Twelve days on from Ryan Christie being banned on the fast track and a hint that the Colombian could yet follow, and nearly three weeks after the game itself, it suddenly emerges that Kevin Clancy actually dealt with the striker’s throat-slitting gesture post-match?
That in itself wouldn’t be unusual, to be fair. Plenty examples of refs summoning players to their room, usually with a staffer to administer yellows and reds for ‘afters’.
When they do, though, information usually makes its way into the press room before the door has even slammed behind the recipient.
And on the odd occasion it doesn’t, the manager of said recipient is usually so frustrated by it he mentions it and questions it when he comes up.
Nineteen days though? It took about two seconds for the words ‘carve’ and ‘up’ to start trending in the unhinged world of Scottish football Twitter.
And whether you think the gesture was a big deal, little deal or no deal at all, the lack of transparency and the timing reeks of a complete cop-out.
It’s like trying to slip a night out with the lads into the family calendar at three hours’ notice.
“Oh, did I not mention it? I’m sure I did… remember that conversation we had? At 3.15 the other morning when you opened half an eyelid to look at the clock? I definitely told you. No? Oh well…”
Yeah, he was definitely booked. No further action needed. Can’t re-referee something already refereed. No fast track. Case closed.
Then there’s the bizarre Ryan Kent mention. The player’s celebration of his goal, the whole gun-to-the-head gangsta pose, might have looked ridiculous, it might have been in poor taste in an already febrile environment and his explanation of what it represented – a homage to American hip hop duo Smif-N-Wessun – might have been lost on those of us who don’t ‘Insta’.
But if he’s adjudged to have done something wrong, cite him or don’t. Tell us exactly what rule he has broken or don’t.
Otherwise his inclusion in the generality of the Rule 204 charge sheet just looks like pandering. Same as Morelos.
Listen, the bottom line is Rangers deserve to be hauled up for the dugout boorishness, as do Hibs.
No one can dispute that, although obviously Gers’ statement yesterday suggests they do. John Potter, Michael Beale and Tom Culshaw are bang to rights and contrary to the poor-us protests, they’re being held to a perfectly reasonable standard of conduct.
What code do Rangers think they’re being held to that no one else is?
They’re well within their rights to question why it has taken so long, mind. Even allowing for a little slippage around Christmas and New Year, football doesn’t stop.
And if you’re going to play your most incendiary fixture every year in the last few days of December – and we’ve done it for a century – then surely by now you’re prepared to deal with the consequences of it?
If you sat Clare Whyte down and asked her to explain everything, the compliance offer would no doubt have a path of logic that was perfectly valid and justifiable in her own head.
Out in the real world, though, the perception is killing her employers.
She’s been on mute for months but then not only did the announcement take a pair of steel toecaps to the nads of the biggest weekend in their own fixture calendar, she must have known she was taking an AK-47 to the windows of an already broken justice system just to get a response.
The thing is, it’s coming up for a year since the first meeting of a working group set up by SFA chief Ian Maxwell to deal with exactly that.
Credit where it’s due, at least he acknowledged there was a problem and brought together a group from all corners of the game, including Whyte, to look at its dysfunction, particularly the Judicial Panel Protocols.
But where is its outcome? Where’s the order to replace the chaos?
Our two biggest clubs are still spitting out whingeing statements like deranged Pez dispensers, claiming the system’s out to get them and only them, and demanding justice not for all, just for themselves.
Rangers did it yesterday – “…the governing body is seeking to hold Rangers to a different and more stringent code of conduct than that applied to others”.
Celtic’s effort after Christie’s ban was equally nauseating – “Given the recent treatment of Celtic players and the lack of sanctions being imposed on those responsible… the incident in question demonstrates a worrying lack of consistency in the Scottish FA fast track process”.
They might be right but the system’s burst for everyone, not just them.
It’s why the SFA now need someone in charge who has more experience of the Hague than Hampden.
Instead of issuing butt-hurt statements, though, why don’t our establishment clubs DO something?
It’s THEIR organisation, THEIR system, and therefore it’s THEIR responsibility to see that it’s fixed.
They all employ the chief exec and by extension the compliance officer. They create the rules and governance she works with.
If they want them fixed, they know where the answer lies.
