Season's Cheatings!
The Chief Executive of the SFA is usually somebody that has a background in administration; after all, that's what the job is all about. You often get calls for people from a football background to be put in charge of the SFA but, really, it's a business and it needs somebody that knows what he's doing. Can you imagine somebody like John Greig, whom Jack Irvine described as being 'a bit thick', running things? Somehow, I don't think dishing out broken legs would work in the best interests of Scottish football. With the criteria that usually applied to the holders of this position, it came as something of a surprise, in 2007, when the SFA appointed Gordon Smith as Chief Executive. What the hell was he going to bring to the post?
Almost immediately, there was something of a scandal when a book came out, in which Smith maintained that there was an agenda against Rangers. He had said this before he was appointed but, having the opportunity to change his statements before the book was published, he decided to stand by what he had said. Whether or not there was 'an agenda' against Rangers, Smith's pronouncements certainly betrayed what his agenda was going to be in his role of SFA plenipotentiary.
In truth, UEFA was sick and tired of the behaviour of Rangers supporters. Not only were there constant, vile, anti-Catholic chants and songs wherever they went, they were also guilty of hooliganism and vandalism, often pissing on and defacing national monuments and even objects considered holy or sacred. Any criticism of The Peeppul in Scotland is always answered by the old cry of 'What aboot theym?' UEFA, however, was having none of it. If Celtic supporters sang songs about the IRA, then the club would be punished under the ruling about no political demonstrations. Unlike in Scotland, UEFA isn't prepared to have a wide interpretation of what constitutes a political demonstration. In Scotland, apologists for Rangers are so used to viewing 'The Billy Boys' and 'The Fields of Athenry' as equally sectarian that they can't understand when outsiders acknowledge that there's a massive difference. To such folk, UEFA coming down on Rangers isn't a sign that Rangers supporters are more guilty; it's a sign that everybody's got it in for Rangers. Such a person was Gordon Smith and it didn't augur well for his new role.
One of Smith's major concerns in his new job was looking for cheating to be stamped out. (No sniggering at the back, there!) He demanded of UEFA that Eduardo be punished retrospectively for diving to win a penalty in a match against Celtic and was an outspoken advocate for using video playback during matches. Unfortunately for him, his tenure was also mired in controversy. He refused point-blank to comment on the thuggery on display in Manchester in 2008, saying that it was a 'police matter'. He also jumped to the defence of Scottish referees, speaking of their 'integrity'. It was not long after that the story broke of Mike McCurry shagging young women in car parks.
He then suddenly, and unexpectedly, resigned in 2010, citing 'personal reasons'. More than a few folk have pointed out that it was a remarkable coincidence that he chose to go just as the story broke about HMRC chasing Rangers for the tax they'd been dodging for years! I suspect that he knew how things were going to pan out, with Rangers being accused, rightly, of cheating, not just the tax man, but Scottish football. Being obliged to be seen to be impartial as an SFA grandee, he would not be in a position to speak up for his beloved club.
About a year later Smith joined the Motherwell Billionaire's regime at Ibrox, only to be kicked out by Duff and Phelps as part of a cost-cutting exercise. When it was discovered that Whyte had been withholding PAYE in order to keep a team on the pitch, Smith professed to have had no idea what was going on. As Director of Football, effectively a liaison between the board and the manager, how the hell did he not know what was going on? Didn't he wonder where the money was coming from, when it was clear to all and sundry that Whyte was skint? Like his namesake, Walter, Gordon Smith appeared to spend his whole time at Ibrox wearing a blindfold and a sturdy pair of earplugs.
When he left Rangers, Smith was in the media constantly, with the usual shite about everything being down to Whyte, Rangers having been punished enough and how Scottish football would die without Rangers if the club were to be liquidated. This, of course, was before liquidation hit and it was accepted that such an event would mean the death of the club. Smith could get quite angry whenever he took part in any debates about Rangers; it was obvious that he still subscribed to the theory that everybody was 'oot tae get Raynjurz'. When the CVA was rejected, Smith, predictably, was all for Green's new club being allowed to march straight into the SPL. Also predictably, he bought into the Big Lie and maintained that Green's new club was 'still Rangers'. It seemed he had changed his mind about being against cheating; he was effectively condoning a club going into liquidation to shed its debts and then for a phoenix club to pretend to be the old club and carry on as if nothing had happened.
Not only did Smith support the Big Lie; he was the one that helped provide what The Peeppul saw as justification for pretending that Sevco was 'stull Raynjurz'. Who had heard of Pacific Shelf before Smith brought up the name of the company on Radio Scotland? As far as anyone was concerned, Fergus McCann had bought Celtic, lock, stock and barrel, including its debts; nobody was interested in temporary companies and the like. Now, all of a sudden, there was nothing but interest in such things. There's no point in going into what a flawed, desperate argument this is; what is more of interest is how Smith came upon it. It's not the kind of thing you'd pluck out of thin air; he must have had this story prepared well in advance. Now, I can't imagine Smith doing Google searches to find things out, or writing to different organisations making FOI requests, à-la PZJ, which only leaves one way he could have found his information; he contacted his sources in the SFA.
So Gordon Smith deserves his place on our catalogue of infamy. He was an apologist for the bigotry of Rangers supporters, refused to condemn the hooliganism of said supporters and was desperate to save Rangers, for the benefit of Scottish football as a whole, of course. He went out of his way to promote the Big Lie and was in the forefront of calls for Sevco to go straight into the SPL, pretending to be Rangers. In other words, he was a staunch supporter of cheating bastards and, thus, a cheating bastard himself.
Remember the books!
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