After a few years of cold
storage, that buzzphrase ‘Sporting Integrity’ reared its
ugly head recently, as espoused by Hibs CEO Leeann Dempster when the SPFL
initially announced that the final match day for the Championship run-in would
be split over the calendar weekend.
Four matches would be played on
the Saturday, including Hibs’ trip to Falkirk,
and Hearts v Rangers would be played the day after, for broadcast purposes.
This resulted in Ms Dempster’s outrage that Rangers would be afforded an
advantage by knowing what they had to do to finish second, whereas of course
all matches played simultaneously removes that factor.
Hearts happily joined in with
glee when ‘Sporting Integrity’ was conveniently retrieved from the
Scottish football archives, and disappointingly Rangers’ own Stuart McCall was
forced to side with them too.
Now before I go further – it was unfair to have Rangers play after
Hibs’ season was finished, knowing that potentially only requiring to draw
might enough, certainty which would be removed if all fixtures happened at the
same time. But it really is starting to get just a little grating to see ‘Sporting
Integrity’ rolled out every time Scotland has a problem with
something which could benefit Rangers.
As Barry Ferguson (and let us
face it, everyone else) has said, there was no sign of this ‘Sporting Integrity’
helping Rangers in 2008. Indeed, the phrase was used to crucify the Govan Club’s
chances of the League and Uefa Cup double.
And here we are, seven years
later, and Rangers’ rivals once again use that phrase to attack something which
would help Rangers.
In 2010, two years after European
competition was mercilessly ignored for Rangers by the SPL, they did the exact
opposite when Celtic needed their help for similar purposes:
“It has been confirmed this morning
that St Mirren’s first two games against Celtic this season have been
rescheduled. Due to Celtic’s involvement
in the Europa League playoffs, the SPL have confirmed that St Mirren’s upcoming
away fixture against the Glasgow
side will be put back 24 hours.” (06/08/2010)
And yet when Rangers had a Uefa
final to play, Celtic’s Peter Lawwell ensured Rangers would not have the same
privilege:
“In principle, we accept fixture
flexibility. However, the league must not be compromised by changing the rules
during the course of the competition and these decisions should not be made on
an ad-hoc basis. Therefore, we oppose the decision and feel, in fact, that it
has compromised the integrity of the competition.” (22/04/08)
By ‘in principle’ he meant ‘as
long as it does not help Rangers’.
And so here we are in 2015 and
that ‘Sporting Integrity’ phrase has arisen again.
I reiterate, I accept that
Rangers should not have had the advantage on the final day – but then, equally,
Celtic should not have had the league advantage in 2008. Rangers were punished
for European success, and Peter Lawwell made damn sure of it.
And the use of ‘Sporting
Integrity’ only ever seems to apply when Rangers are involved.