BBC Coverage Lead The Attack On Celtic Fans

There was a real determination in the mainstream media to nip Celtic’s title celebrations in the bud on Saturday. Led by the state broadcaster, the all reaching BBC Scotland

The great Jambo fairytale was over and it didn’t go down well with the media, especially the staunch types at the BBC.

Surprise, surprise.

Alan Preston, Ryan Stevenson and Tom English didn’t hang around long after the final whistle to get the ball rolling with the fabricated allegations of Celtic fans assaulting Hearts players. Five days later the evidence remains elusive.

“Liam was saying there was an incident with Lawrence Shankland,” English informed listeners.

Liam McLeod perhaps?

It’s difficult to get to the root of the lies but it must be from a very trusted source given how many “journalists” were prepared to run with it.

“They’re all going after Shankland as you can imagine” pint sized former Jambo Preston chipped in.

“There were Celtic fans in and around bullying Shankland all over the place, he was almost fighting with them at one point. Clair Cowan runs on, the sports scientist runs on and it was just carnage.

“What I have seen there today is absolutely and utterly disgusting”.

THE SPORTSOUND AGENDA

With the stage set it was time for another former Jambo, Ryan Stevenson to deliver the big lie.

“For a player to be attacked by fans is absolutely outrageous” Stevenson claimed.

Incident becomes carnage, then disgusting and finally players were attacked.

“We saw scenes at Ibrox, Celtic fans came on, Rangers fans came on, Celtic tried to apportion blame to Rangers because they were the greater number of fans on the pitch,” English claimed.

That is an absolute whopper even by his rock bottom standards.

I’m sure if the events on the Ibrox pitch in the cup quarter final ever end up in court the judge won’t be apportioning blame based on how many fans from each side were on the pitch. As English and the BBC did.

He will be more interested in who was responsible for launching a flare into a packed stand, who threw the punch that knocked out a steward, who attacked a Celtic coach and who tripped the police officer.

Not something English bothers himself with, it’s just a numbers game. Retaining a profile on X/Twitter then mouthing off about how social media is a cesspit. The Chief Sports Writer for BBC Scotland is Exhibit A.

TAG TEAM- BBC IN ALL OUT ATTACK ON CELTIC

Next into the fray from the BBC staunch rota was the biggest Rangers fan in the Motherwell squad, Andy Halliday.

“For the third time in as many months that there are fans again entering the pitch and we’re now lead to believe that a couple of opposition players, Hearts players, have been struck.”

So now it’s more than just Shankland. It’s “players”, plural.

Not to be outdone, Hearts themselves released a statement after the game claiming “Reports of serious physical and verbal abuse towards our players and staff, both on the pitch and elsewhere, are deeply disturbing.”

What’s striking about the official club statement is that they refer to “reports” of abuse when they are the one and only organisation in Scotland with complete exclusive access to all the alleged victims of the “abuse”.

Why would they have to rely on reports when they can speak to everyone involved, collect evidence and take photographs of any injuries?

The answer of course is that there were no assaults or physical abuse, well not from Celtic fans anyway.

FIVE DAYS ON AND STILL NO EVIDENCE

As the videos emerged what we seen was Hearts players behaving disgracefully, pushing Celtic fans, stamping on cameras and inviting fans out of the stands for a fight.

Sky Sports were there, as were BBC Scotland. Almost every reporter in the media area had a smart phone. Shankland finished the match 30 yards in front of them.

The exact opposite of everything the media claimed in the immediate aftermath of the game happened.

Perhaps the fever pitch was reached on Monday morning with the BBC Scottish Football Podcast.

Speaking about possible punishments for pitch invasions, the Scotsman’s head of Sport Mark Atkinson claimed: “But if you do have a partial stand closure that puts a line in the stand.

“We’ve never had that before, we have seen UEFA threaten clubs in Scotland with partial stand closures for fan behaviour that I would say has not been as strong as what we saw at Celtic Park on Saturday.”

And there you have it. The head of sport at a national newspaper airbrushing out Ibrox having to leave 3,000 seats empty in 2019 for their game against Legia Warsaw as punishment for racist and discriminatory chanting. Not the sort of content to bring up if you are angling for a career at the BBC. Just ask English.

The mainstream media coverage of our title win on Saturday has been nothing short of disgraceful. It was predictable to an extent but they have excelled themselves. And some.

Tomorrow Celtic will provide tea, biscuits and access to the vultures as they preview the Saturday’s Scottish Cup Final.

It is long beyond time for the club to take action, make a stance. But when you are led by Michael Nicholson you will always be a pushover.