Sky Sports reporter asks Rodgers the stupidest question of the year and gets epic answer

Mark Benstead of Sky Sports got a lot more than he bargained for when he used the phrase ‘good faith’ in a question to Brendan Rodgers.

According to his Linkedin profile he is a month short of 14 years as a presenter/producer/reporter for Sky which should give him a fairly decent grasp into both current events and historical incidents in and around Scottish football.

In the summer of 2012 Benstead was probably on the steps outside of Hampden following the updates and interviews as the SFA and SPL lost their second biggest club after they refused to pay Her Majesty or offer her an acceptable CVA, 20p in the £1 would have probably secured a deal and allowed Rangers to continue on a scaled down basis, living within their means.

Duff & Phelps handed over a list of HMRC and 275 other creditors to BDO as they started the liquidation process which will finally be concluded in the next few months.

When Benstead next visits Murray Park he might drive past the Burnbrae in Bearsden who lost £1,403.88 to Rangers, other businesses in the area were also stung despite having contracts. Good faith was laughed at in their faces.

Never the less Sky would rather gloss over those matters and tart up their O** F*** package to viewers and subscribers, pretend it is business as usual as two sporting giants go head to head for football honours.

The fact that the title count is 12 v 1 since Bensted started with Sky is best overlooked with Sky keen to have the songs of hate and racism back on the airwaves in two weeks time as Ian Crocker repeats his O** F*** blah blah blah, dividing a city, passion like nowhere else, fiercest of rivals.

Basically the same crap as we get four times last season.

After getting a fairly standard and predictable answer from Rodgers on the ticket issue Benstead came back with a follow up. The good faith issue with a club that has made a habit of breaking contracts left right and centre, even with their own fans who bought Season Tickets for Ibrox only to be shifted to Hampden for an indefinite period.

Perhaps Sky could ask Phil Clement if the lack of good faith to Season Ticket holders is contributing to the anger and abuse being directed by fans to the Belgian and his players?

BENSTEAD: For the good of the fixture, for the good of the product, could Celtic have taken it in good faith that Rangers would have had everything in place in time for the return fixture at the start of next year?

RODGERS: Well no, before hand, I think you’ve the board has made a really, really good decision in terms of it’s the club’s job to protect the support. And if they don’t have the guarantee that come the second fixture, then I think it’s only logical that you wouldn’t reciprocate.

Celtic have played their part in what they were asked to do. Again, I go back, nothing of this was Celtic’s issue when you go back to when all of this started. It’s nothing to do with Celtic.

Celtic is getting dragged into this here as being a ‘Celtic vs Rangers’ thing. It’s not a Celtic thing. This is a Rangers thing.

So, when Celtic is asked to have this agreement and have the stadium safe and everything, we plough money into that and we do the works, which started months ago. As I said, both parties haven’t agreed upon it. So, it’s not complicated. It hasn’t been done.

So ‘Good faith’ or whatever way you want to put it, there was still an agreement for both, and it’s not been done. It’s not great faith if we allow Rangers supporters in and then we get to January and our own supporters can’t get in. It’s not good faith

The agreement hasn’t been upheld, so Celtic rightly has to defend their supporters and club. Sadly, like I said, Rangers supporters have to miss out on this game and Celtic in the return game but let’s hope after that, we can find a way to get the supporters in.

Tellingly there was no follow up on that, no one dared to question the FACTS! that Rodgers had delivered on, calling out and exposing the media companies that have been avoiding the uncomfortable truths about the ‘ticket row’.

On Thursday it was announced that the club from Ibrox had gone back on their Out of Court settlement with Elite Sports. That followed paying up for breaking a seven year contract with Sports Direct.

A signed contract to play in the November 2022 Sydney Super Cup was binned, as compensation the Ibrox club will be playing three years of friendlies for the benefit TEG who staged the recent friendly at Murrayfield with Manchester United.

The Wifi firm and the company that planned a Memorial Wall at Ibrox are still out of pocket and taking court action for payment.

Only a complete idiot would apply good faith in dealings with the club founded by Charles Green in 2012.

Celtic have spent in excess of £100,000 creating a dedicated entrance and exit to Celtic Park for visiting supporters, around 2,500 angry bears were scheduled to take those seats on September 1 to watch the Champions take on Phil Clement’s Revolution!

Because their own club hasn’t even applied to carry out similar work on the Broomloan Road Stand those bears will be watching the Derby at home or spending £5 to watch from New Edmiston House with a complimentary pie.

Perhaps if Sky asked some meaningful questions at the Murray Park media conferences they wouldn’t be embarrassing themselves by going down the good faith route about the most untrustworthy club in Scotland.

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