Gordon Waddell of the Daily Record has explained the levels of PR control exerted at Ibrox as they body-swerve any comment never mind a statement about the mis-treatment of Alfredo Morelos.
On January 13 Club 1872 waded in with an all-encompassing attack on the media treatment of the striker but faced with clear misrepresentation from Sky Sports the fans organisation has been as mute as their masters on the subject.
Club 1872 seems to be permanently at war with elements of BBC Scotland but with Morelos in club colours inside their state-of-the-art training complex not a peep of criticism has been directed at Sky Sports.
Celtic’s Ofcom complaint looks like hitting home at the heart of the matter. The agent of Morelos is highly unlikely to be involved in the problem, everything about the interview, translation and presentation shouts in-house. Any other conclusion will require incredible PR gymnastics.
Nothing is said out of turn, everything is watched and controlled. When James Tavernier or Andy Halliday are wheeled out for ‘we go again’ comments after another big match defeat the entire message is controlled. No one strays into something contentious.
Explaining the media set up inside the club Waddell tells Daily Record readers:
When they exercise this level of control over three minutes of banality from a Glen Kamara or a Steven Davis, are we honestly expected to believe they somehow relinquished it so completely and absolutely last week for Morelos?
A player Rangers have protected like the crown jewels from any Scottish media activity since the day he signed. He has played 129 games, scored 76 goals, been sent off seven times – not one single interview, beyond a club TV puff piece when they allowed a Portuguese broadcaster to speak to him after the Porto game in October.
Yet in a week when he’s front-page news, back-page news and on virtually every page in between, he does an interview with the Formula 1 reporter from the Scottish game’s biggest rights holders, inside their training ground, and there’s zero knowledge of, or control over, a single word that comes out of his mouth? Or maybe more saliently, the words that don’t come out of his mouth?
Morelos’ interview on Sky, and its subsequent “translation” from Spanish into English, has seen a stampede of vested interests kick up so many clouds in the rush to victimhood that the actual victim – Morelos himself – and the entire point he presumably wanted to make by doing the interview have been lost.
Whether Rangers sanctioned it or not, whether the player’s agent went behind the club’s back or not, who interpreted the answers, who translated the questions, why were Celtic mentioned when the player himself never even spoke their name?
Sky Sports apologised to two clubs and one footballer after presenting their racism shocker on a loop throughout Monday with Steven Gerrard picking up the baton on Tuesday.
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One club has taken the issue further, called out Sky Sports and taken the matter to Ofcom. The longer the other club stays silent the harder it is to come to any conclusion other than the whole issue was created in-house and presented to the Old Firm friendly broadcaster.
