Have the SFA broken off all forms of communications?
Three of the Scotland’s most popular newspapers have published or commented on allegations that Hugh Dallas, Head of Refereeing at the SFA, sent on an offensive email regarding the visit of the Pope in September.
The SFA are big on racism, they recently co-ordinated a Lets Kick Racism Out of Football weekend throughout the Scottish game and President George Peat condemned Scotland fans for booing the Liechtenstein anthem in the last international at Hampden.
Strangely however with accusations of sectarianism against a senior executive of the SFA the lines of communication have gone silent.
When Steven Craven exposed what went on at Tannadice there was a stampede of voices from Hampden coming to the defence of Dallas.
Dougie McDonald was even given a media tour that Dallas would have been proud of giving interviews to The Sun, the Daily Record and the BBC with Sky Sports- the SFA’s biggest single sponsor left out of the loop.
Using their own website Stewart Regan was quick to defend the honesty and integrity of Dallas despite interviews after the Tannadice incident claiming that Neil Lennon agreed with the penalty u-turn and left the ground happy!
In contrast the latest revelations, discussed by newspapers with a combined circulation approaching 1,000,000 buyers, has been met with silence.
There has been no denial, no rush to defend Dallas and as any PR operator knows mud sticks.
The SFA are a pretty successful business.
They have the sort of blue chip sponsors that any sports organisations crave- amongst those companies that associate themselves with the SFA are Adidas, IMG, Mars, McDonalds and the Bank of Scotland.
CLICK HERE for a list of SFA sponsors.
Recent indiscretions by Tiger Woods and Wayne Rooney have cost those individuals lucrative sponsorship deals.
Rightly or wrongly companies don’t like to be associated with sleaze or even the hint of sleaze.
As the SFA sit silently hoping for the fuss to blow over their partners must be getting increasingly anxious and concerned at their association with the SFA.
News of the email allegations about Dallas have hit the four corners of the globe. The story is bad enough- the failure to respond to them is a massive PR own goal.
With no statement coming from Hampden people are bound to wonder why that is the case.
Was Dallas the only employee to have found the email amusing and passed it on?
Did he receive it from another SFA employee?
How many people within the SFA received or sent the email before Dallas was outed at the weekend?
Why won’t Stewart Regan, who only last week promised a new era of transparency and accountability, not speak up to defend Dallas?
The sound of silence is deeply damaging to the SFA.
Perhaps it might take the concern of an influential sponsor or a government question to trigger a review of what’s going on within Hampden and clean the bigots out of Scottish football.
Every passing hour without comment only allows suspicions to grow.
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Total joke Joe. Radio Clyde seem to be a party to the silence now also.
Fans asking legitimate questions are being told by Jim Delahunt ” we dont really want to go there” ! shocking !
They have dallas on tape lying through his teeth and despite numerous callers asking to hear it again they refuse . the peoples programme,aye right.this is getting more sinister by the hour. Must be some size of lodge.
don revie: “must be some size of lodge”……
nail hit on head…
always was…hope it won’t be much longer…
don’t hold your breath ‘though.
and you are surprised?? it’s a brave man that can listen to clyde 1 and radio scotland. Maybe i’m too bitter, but i tuned out of the scottish media years ago!!!!
Why has Dallas not been fired yet? He is a cancer.