The Ibrox PR machine has fallen silent over the claim in the Daily Record that nine players started a friendly against Dundee United that didn’t have a relevant negative virus test.
In normal circumstances a furious statement would be issued nodding in the direction of some grand conspiracy against the clubs for their social media messengers to run with.
Others such as Jim White would be contacted to use TalkSPORT or Twitter to deflect from the story, to muddy the waters and ensure that the impact was diluted. This time there has been no attempt to deny or deflect.
The release of the St Mirren story and a statement from the Joint Response Committee did that job to an extent but by lunchtime on Friday the truth emerged, seven positive test results were reduced to one. How convenient.
After the Record ran with the story it was picked up by The Sun. BBC Scotland came on board alongwith the Herald and what is now known as the Glasgow (Evening) Times.
Nothing came out of Ibrox. Not a thing, nothing to deflect. It seems that being caught bang to rights has resulted in a policy of silence, hoping to see it out.
Apparently the SFA have decided to write to the club with Hibs and Motherwell also contacted.
There shouldn’t be any need to write to anyone. After continual contact with the Scottish Government the SFA should be in possession of every detail and document. When the players were tested and when the results were known.
All of Gerrard’s squad would have been tested before flying to Lyon where they played on Thursday and Sunday. According to the Record they were tested again on Tuesday with the results unknown when they kicked off against Dundee United. The evening match at Ibrox against Motherwell was delayed by two hours.
Rather than invest in their own testing equipment the Ibrox club have added Jon McLaughlin and Calvin Bassey to the wage bill.
On past form the SFA will do everything to avoid taking any action, Ian Maxwell is of the same ilk as Stewart Regan. The elephant in the room is questions from the Scottish Government but after delaying Lockdown to accommodate money spinning matches against Bayer Leverkusen and Celtic they too have form for applying Dominic Cummings Exception Rules.
