The conduct of Craig Levein the past 24 hours isn’t just poor, it’s exploitative and in dreadful taste.

Levein claims John Souttar ‘only’ joined Rangers because he has a seriously ill family member and the defender didn’t want to leave Scotland.

And frankly, this is disgusting.

To actually go public with this story, as a backhanded smear at Rangers, using Souttar’s suffering relative as ammo against the club is some of the lowest behaviour we’ve seen in a long time in Scottish football, and we’ve seen some absolute scrapes of the barrel around here.

Levein said that he asked Souttar if it was ok to talk about it:

Why the f*ck did he NEED to?

Souttar’s private life is his own – his situation is his and his family’s – it is NOT fodder for a bitter football manager to use as public material to attack Souttar’s choice of club.

He justifies it, saying Souttar’s moved for the money as well, and frankly we do wonder how much lower Levein wants to go.

There was literally zero reason for him to use such a sensitive subject publicly at all. Why on earth would you want to go to the media to discuss a fellow pro’s sufferings and private issues?

It’s disgusting.

We’ve seen some rotten behaviour in this country over the years, but this somehow hits a new low.

Well done Levein, well done on using such a subject to attack Rangers and defend Souttar.

Poor, beyond words.