The Scottish edition of The Times newspaper yesterday carried a trio of articles about alleged sectarian and offensive singing by supporters of Rangers football club, both at home and abroad.
The paper, which sells around 24,000 copies in Scotland, had its Scottish football correspondent, Graham Spiers, penning all three of the articles following a decision by European football's governing body, Uefa, to meet on the 28th of this month to hear a case against the Ibrox club over alleged bigoted singing by their fans. Two of the articles were on the sports pages while the third was carried on the influential OpEd page of the main paper.
Recently, Spiers claimed that the Scottish media was ignoring the issue as it might lead to a drop in the circulation of some newspapers.
In the OpEd article, while pointing out that a section of the Celtic FC support also indulge in sectarian songs, Spiers concentrates on the Rangers fans. He points out: “…the Rangers case has become a supreme embarrassment in Scotland. Uefa is now about to punish the club for a third time because of the behaviour of the club’s supporters and this time Rangers could be in real trouble …it has become a wretched state of affairs.”
A month ago, he wrote: “So you would think it might be deemed quite a news story that such songs have come back into fashion at Rangers… though the press in the main isn't touching it.”
