A HOT favourite has emerged in the race for the Most Disingenuous Statement of the Year award. The Herald reports today that UEFA is investigating Rangers fans for alleged bigoted chanting during the Champions League matches against Villareal. The piece features a quite staggeringly shameless response from Mark Dingwall, editor of the Rangers fanzine Follow Follow. Rather than display any contrition or suggest - reasonably - that we should wait for the findings of the investigation, Mr Dingwall has this to say:
"I have no idea what a discriminatory song is or which part of the Rangers repertoire could possibly be viewed as such. For over 20 years, the behaviour of Rangers fans home and away has been second to none and Ibrox Stadium has a wonderful reputation as a safe place to watch football in a family atmosphere. Hysteria over one alleged incident should not be allowed to obscure that marvellous record.”
To which I would respond with that old anthem of international brotherhood and spiritual understanding: "We’re up to our knees in Fenian blood, surrender or you’ll die".
We live in a country obsessed by a single sport, resulting in saturation coverage. Yet sectarianism, the single greatest affliction of Scottish football, is scarcely mentioned by sports journalists. On the rare occasions that it is debated, many scuttle for the safety of the old cliché that it’s only a "mindless minority", even as the massed ranks belt out "F**k the Pope and the IRA" to a Tina Turner tune. Pundits actually reassert bigotry in the mainstream each time Rangers and Celtic play each other, when they slaver about the "biggest derby in the world" but ignore the bilious fuel that creates that unique Old Firm atmosphere.
And there are other guilty parties – me and the thousands of Scottish fans who rail against bigotry yet resign ourselves to its inevitability. UEFA’s action should prompt us to write to Lennart Johansson next time we hear Rangers fans glorying in the slaughter of Catholics; let them know we don’t accept it either, before any more damage is done to the reputation of Scottish supporters.
By progressing to the last 16 of the Champions League, Rangers opened up the behaviour of its supporters to wider international scrutiny. They're already finding out that the sensibilities of continental Europe, whose populace knows all about the perils of unchecked extremism, are somewhat different to our insular little nation.