There has been so much said and written this past week over the troubles in George Square but never have I heard such a frank and honest admission from two media reporters from both north and south of the border.
Speaking on his Talk Media podcast, Stuart Cosgrove and his guest, London reporter Steve Richards were discussing the deep rooted anti catholic and sectarian element by the Rangers fans and Cosgrove called for the end of tying Celtic to Rangers sectarian issues and also called out the media ignorance on this. “Because things that we see in Scotland that we take, almost as if they’re facts. So the colloquial term that’s used is “Two cheeks of the same erse” that’s the colloquial term that somehow Celtic and Rangers are bound together in that badness.
“But in a way that can kind of obscure, a more salient point which was that this was actually two incidents, separated by a couple of weeks in which Rangers fans were involved.
“And I think that if you want to get out of the kind of world of false equivalence, or, you know, as, as you said, whataboutery, you have to stop deflecting to Celtic at the point when Rangers engage in doing something wrong.”
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Steve Richards, who at the start of the podcast said that the events of George Square received plenty of coverage from the English media, after listening to Cosgrove, then interrupted to make this stunning admission “Sorry, can I just interrupt and say, I’ve now got to completely qualify my opening comments. Where I said it’s had a fair amount of coverage in England, having heard what you have said, it’s had nowhere near enough coverage in England. I mean there are columns about it, and you both described it as a tipping point.
“And so multi layered in terms of anti Catholicism, the union versus independence, as well as a sort of the familiar, football, anger, that is around, and also a debate about the equivalence, which is always dangerous whenever apply.
“And as it is interesting now hearing what both of you have said I now think the English media haven’t given it enough coverage. I mean there are columns in the London based newspapers about it, for example.
“So, I apologise for saying at the beginning, it’s had quite a lot of coverage in England, the reactions of sturgeon and so on of course have, as well as the pictures in Glasgow, and so on, but but not the kind of sense of it being a tipping point, the way you describe.”
The lack of media coverage on this subject in Scotland is nothing new to Celtic supporters. Often anti Catholic abuse and singing is brushed off by broadcasters, phone in shows and the written media as a West of Scotland problem. It is not. It is a problem in one club, and one club only.
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