Celtic cannot count on the BBC and the Scotsman
Then again, it seems the Beeb and the Scotsman cannot count at all!
“Mathematics is a difficult thing
I never understood what was the missing link
And by the time I calculated the correct solution
The question had escaped me and so did the conclusion”
It’s fair to say that a few people struggle with mathematics and sums, that’s fine, we’ve all got different strengths and weaknesses.
Us, well, we have a scary dependence on Excel for most decisions in life and some folk won’t do their sums without a calculator being involved.
Rest at ease though as it seems we aren’t the only ones unable to add up or do multiplication.
The Scotsman ran with this heading:
Rangers earn £12.5m more than Celtic from Europe
The Scotsman reasons this out with Rangers earning a top line of almost £14m, which in their sums is made up of:
£5.8m for reaching the group stages
£7.5m from the TV pool and
£653,000 for the two away draws against Stuttgart and Uniera
Which yep, just comes to under £14m give or take a bit of rounding so that’s all good.
They then say that Celtic earned just over £1.5m for participation in the Group stages….which is obviously the difference of £12.5m.
Except that in the same paragraph, they then state; “By reaching the final play-off round, where they were eliminated by Arsenal, Celtic picked up a Uefa bonus of just over £1.7 million.”
So Celtic actually earned £3.2m and the Scotsman headline was a lie….proven by themselves in one paragraph?
Wow….that is shoddy work!
The BBC were in equally triumphant mood when the mathematically challenged organisation stated:
“Scottish champions Rangers earned almost 10 times as much as Glasgow rivals Celtic for their participation in European football last season.”
With Celtic picking up £3.2m from Uefa, Rangers fans can sit back safe in the knowledge that their cheque from Uefa, according to the BBC, for a figure of nearly £32m will wipe the clubs debt completely out!!!
Let’s face it, it’s not hard to put the boot into Celtic, the club have given ample ammunition to friend and foe over the past two seasons to get tore into them. Which makes it all the more puzzling why these stories are brought up and peddled as the truth. Or FACT as the kids that are no longer with it are saying these days.
You could say as The Scotsman is a privately owned paper they can print whatever they want and use any angle, if you don’t agree with it, don’t read it. And that is fair enough. As for the Beeb though…their output is getting shoddier and shoddier and for the role it is meant to perform, is falling well short.
These sums do not include gate receipts or merchandising so the actual money banked by either club will be very different but the fact that two seemingly very well respected organisations can be so wayward in their reporting is abysmal.
The pundits are quick to criticise the quality of Scottish footballers but the quality of Scottish football journalism and punditry is at its lowest ebb when blatant lies are easily peddled.
We’re now in the era of shock jocks and village idiots being put up to cause anger and resentment on the airwaves and in papers….why, because it gets a reaction and it gets people listening in or commenting on the shows.
Celtic fans cant rant enough about Hugh Keevins, Graham Speirs has really got under the skin of Rangers fans and everyone hates Jim Traynor – and the three of them all love it, being the pantomime villain keeps them in mortgage payments.
In a way we don’t mind them…because there is almost an honesty about their roles, they are out there to whip up controversy. It’s the stories and articles that masquerade as genuine or believable articles but instead peddle lies and mistruths that cause the real damage.
It’s an easy thing to say don’t listen to them but clearly thousands do each day and it obviously feeds into their way of thinking. We’re not going to say ditch all the traditional methods of sports reporting but there are some good Scottish writers and sites online.
Not this site, its not a thinly veiled plug for ourselves, we’re short on time and too long on half-baked opinions to be at the top of anyone’s list but we hope we play a part. However, there have been some sites and articles which provide analysis, tactics, genuine insight or real breaking rumours in the Scottish game…that you should be looking towards.
We’ve dissed the Scotsman and the BBC……so let’s use the comments section to get some links and praise to other sites that you like or enjoy reading. If you’ve got a favourite site that you think football fans in Scotland can trust….let us know.
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For starters, we think the Inverness Reds site is a good place to go for from the heart opinion about the Dons….whilst providing a smattering of round the ground news too:
http://www.invernessreds.co.uk/
Well I am biased but I do think that http://www.scotzine.com is a top site
although some class us as the amateurish equivalent to Keevins, Traynor and Speirs put together.
Haha, at least we had the good grace to rule ourselves out of contention!
You cant spell humbled without humble!!
Guys this love in with Scotzine has to stop. You are getting nearly as paranoidical (as Charlie Nick would say) as young Andy over on the ‘Zine! Journo’s, subs and Editors will publish anything they can to get mugs to buy the papers and the more you guys repeat the bullocks the more papers they buy and the more people think it’s true. Don’t take too much the papers say to be true and concentrate on the good stuff you so on this blog (Andy at the ‘Zine take note!)
P.S love the T-shirts, got the ‘conspiracy’ one last week
Cheers Gordy – its a thin line – you’re right, these papers thrive on the interest and sales they bring so all publicity is good publicity for them…so in that sense, we are helping them out (more fool us!!)
Equally though, you hope that by highlighting some other good sites and places, you can maybe give people an alternative and let them discover other things. Which is why we’re asking for links and recommendations.
We don’t really have any strong links with many of the other sites – theres no animosity (We think, at least not from our side) but we are the snot nosed youngsters (in terms of the site…not in real life!!) creeping on more established sites toes!!
The predictor stuff on the Scottish Football Forums is good though: http://www.scottishfootballforums.co.uk/predictor.php
But you know….we heartily endorse no site apart from our own!!!!!
What about yourself Gordy – what sites do you like?
Ha, the conspiracy is a good tongue in cheek one isn’t it? Some hit the spot….sometimes it’s difficult to come up with the goods every time!
Well, I’ll go in for a bit of self promotion as well then: http://www,scottishfootballblog.co.uk
On the financial shenanigans, think it’s probably as simple as a Scotsman sub not reading the article properly. The reporter actually gives the facts. The Scotsman has become one long “spot the error” competition recently, not just in the sport pages. The BBC is just bad reporting,
You can trust everything you see on Pravd…, sorry, Celticfc.net, it’s nothing but the truth.
Hoho…cos only one football team has released statements and comments to favour their business viewpoint.
Still, theres not enough references to Pravda in this day and age, good work Pedro.
The dominance of the big two in Scotland and the thirst for stories concerning them, masquerades the absolute drivel we have to put up with from our written and visual media. The amount of ‘stories’ i have seen lifted from websites such as follow follow and kerrydale street and then passed off as their ‘own’ is unbelievable.
Keevins used to be good, he went seriously down in my estimation when he started the whole Nuremberg Rally pish about Rangers having the audacity to fly a Saltire and Union Flag before the players come out the tunnel at Ibrox.
Speirs is a parody of himself now, the self proclaimed top journalist in Scotland is now shunned by all his peers, mainly due to the match report he gave at Ibrox for his newspaper, whilst managing not to even be at the game the toss pot.
Keith Jackson just wants to cover himself in chocolate and eat himself.
Jim Traynor & Bill Leckie are two cheeks of the same arsehole, happy to slaughter both sides of the old firm divide whilst milking their existence for a living for the past how many years.
I could go on and on, there really isn’t a single journalist or broadcaster in Scotland that does their job properly.
Did Speirs do that? Haha, daftie!
Saw him once on Queen Margaret Drive wearing a Bayern Munich tracksuit top. Rather at odds with the image he would present on TV.
When you consider the output of men like Ian Archer or Hugh McIlvanney, the current crop is a tad depressing.