hackwatching

Media campaign to make Naismith a Ger - the last word honest!

The Laptop Loyal showed little sign of consigning their schizophrenic coverage of the Stevie Naismith transfer bore to the dustbin last month. The inevitable spin to show the Gers in a positive light was still as prominent as ever -

2nd July The Sun (Robert Grieve) "Gers set to snap up Naisy RANGERS hope to have Stevie Naismith signed up within the next 24 hours after finally missing out on French star Julien Faubert... SunSport understands Gers have tabled a third [ thirty third??] offer for the 20-year-old.
That would see a fee of £1m in instalments..." -

A fee in instalments is an illogical contradiction. A fee is a fee. Instalments are instalments. Mind you "a fee of £1m in instalments" sounds a lot better than "three instalments of £333,333"
"...with appearance-related add ons worth a further £200,000 to Killie" -
Any appearance related component of the deal would not be guaranteed, so to state with certainty that this would be worth a further £200,000 or any other amount to Kilmarnock is misleading. The player could suffer an injury, lose form or Rangers, in their financial difficulties, may do another Michael Ball.

Fast forward to Thurs 5th July -

Daily Record (James Traynor) - "NAI DEAL Rangers pull plug on move for Killie striker RANGERS last night pulled the plug on their bid to sign Steven Naismith and accused Kilmarnock of reneging on a deal..."

Surely all the water from the Killie bath must have drained away the first time that Rangers "pulled the plug on the deal".

"... The Ibrox club are furious and claim that they are being used by Killie to draw others into an auction for the striker"

What disgraceful and reprehensible behaviour. Refusing to sell their most valuable asset to a richer rival club for well below market value. Sheer greed.

Don't Kilmarnock realise that the press have launched a "Let's make Stevie Naismith a Ger as soon as possible" campaign and stubbornly holding out for a reasonable transfer fee is really getting up their noses?

"But Rangers, who offered £1.5million for the 20-year-old..."

Should that not be "offered 270 instalments of £5555.56" ?

"...decided to last night to withdraw from the transfer saga, insisting they will not be making any further calls to Rugby Park"

Or more accurately... "Rangers decided to withdraw their offer after being told to "Get tae f..."

So Rangers withdrew their offer and pulled the plug, bottom line, end of story, full stop.

Except that on 25th July the Daily Record ran a banner headline "KILLIE MAKING NAISY ILL". Again, the Record demonstrated it's penchant for running stories only from impeccable sources - in this case Naismith's agent, who in no way has any vested interest in a transfer being agreed, such as a large commission of thousands of pounds, and who only has the player's interests at heart.

This propaganda is also reproduced verbatim on the BBC website. Why the headline is not "GERS MAKING NAISY ILL BY FAILING TO COME UP WITH A DECENT BID" would have to be explained by the Sports editor at the Record.

The parasite... sorry player's agent (Andrew McCormick) is given the freedom of the Rectum's back pages to attack Kilmarnock in general and the chairman in particular -

"Steven's reached the end of his tether and needs to leave. Steven's father has expressed concern over his son's health because his head is in such a mess he can't sleep. Steven is disillusioned with the treatment he's received from a chairman whose handling of this saga has been quite incredible"

Ironically this accusation could more accurately be levelled at President Moonbeam

"Steven is being denied an opportunity to better himself and increase his earnings 10-fold. I defy anybody not to become frustrated in those circumstances."

And Rangers are blameless in all this because....??

"It's like having a winning lottery ticket in your hand but Kilmarnock's chairman wants to rip it up and deny him the chance to cash it in. It's impacting hard on Steven and his family. They can all see his pain and it's distressing for everyone"

Not content with using the player's family for some emotional blackmail, the snake... sorry agent, turns to the downtrodden Kilmarnock manager as well -

"I also believe Jim Jefferies - who has been terrific with Steven throughout this whole episode - has questions he needs answered"

After several weeks of extensive negotiations with Rangers over the player's possible transfer, I would hazard a guess that they would be along these lines -

"Does the newsagent doon the road take ginger bottles?"

"Can ye get cash for milk tokens?"

"Who is this guy with the forked tongue and hooves who keeps trying to give me funny handshakes?"

To draw a line, let me try and paraphrase the whole sorry and tedious episode -

Kilmarnock said all along that their valuation was £2 million. Rangers offered £450k. Killie said £2 million, Rangers said £750k, but only half up front, the rest in milk tokens, empty irn bru bottles, and a Rangers shirt signed by Filip Sebo. And on it went.

After running a few headlines stating that he was set to be a Rangers player very soon, the press and Rangers realised a new tack was needed.

Next, they have Ferguson and Boyd, in the tabloids and BBC website telling Naismith "not to worry, hold onto your dreams, you'll be a Rangers player soon". After all this fails, great prominence is given to some lower than crocodile shite agent's patter about how "the poor lad can't sleep at night" portraying Killie, and specifically their chairman, as the bully. Rangers come out as the victims too.

Do you think this would be the same scenario if Celtic were the club trying to sign a player contracted to another club for a fifty pence piece, two buttons and a milk bottle lid?

Incidentally, if a player is contracted to a club, and a fee has not been agreed for the sale of that player, then approaches to the player are considered "tapping" and would normally be dealt with severely by the SFA. Here however, the media are practically "tapping" the player on Rangers behalf.

He finally got his wish in one of Dave’s carefully staged last-minute dashes on transfer deadline day. The only thing missing was the private jet.

End of story. Thank the Lord.

TONY BANANAS

 

More paranoid ranting available at www.celticparanoia.blogspot.com

 

TONY BANANAS & HACKWATCHER