Ian Black interview video

[the gunslinger 3,366]

I still cant see this as a big deal.

[simplythebest 0]

I still cant see this as a big deal.

It was a big deal but I think a line should be drawn now

[Zappa 0]

I'm not saying the actions are irrelevant, but he broke the rules and received punishment for it, albeit a tad harsh in my opinion.

 

How can it be a tad harsh when he essentially only received a one match suspension for each time he bet against his own team? (3 instances, 3 match suspension)

 

His punishment works out more lenient than a player who get's a red card and an automatic 2 game suspension for a stupid mistimed tackle which happens in matches across the country every single week! Kevin Thomson got a red card and 2 game ban a few weeks ago for reacting angrily to a bad tackle on him, but a player bets against his own team and gets a lesser punishment?

 

Sorry, but I think the SFA under Stewart Regan's watch are making a complete mockery of Scottish football. They've turned our disciplinary system into an utter joke!

[TheTinMan99 0]

How can it be a tad harsh when he essentially only received a one match suspension for each time he bet against his own team? (3 instances, 3 match suspension)

 

His punishment works out more lenient than a player who get's a red card and an automatic 2 game suspension for a stupid mistimed tackle which happens in matches across the country every single week! Kevin Thomson got a red card and 2 game ban a few weeks ago for reacting angrily to a bad tackle on him, but a player bets against his own team and gets a lesser punishment?

 

Sorry, but I think the SFA under Stewart Regan's watch are making a complete mockery of Scottish football. They've turned our disciplinary system into an utter joke!

 

I don't quite get your point, Zappa. Are you saying you wanted Black punished more severely, or that actual offences on the pitch are punished too harshly? I don't see the connection between the two indiscretions. If we are going to start hammering every player who has a sly fiver on the football, we might as well all give up and move to China. I've already said if he was doing it for financial gain that he should have been hammered, but he wasn't. He's just an idiot.

 

The moral indignation of some of us about this, is what annoys me. He's just a daft boy, that made a daft mistake. The case with the boy from Motherwell a while back, when he was betting about a sending off, was much more serious. This was nothing like that. If Black had gotten a 6 month ban up his hole, the forums would be flooded with, it's aw a conspiracy against us. The disciplinary system might well be a joke full of inconsistencies, but I actually think they got this one spot on.

[Zappa 0]

I don't quite get your point, Zappa. Are you saying you wanted Black punished more severely, or that actual offences on the pitch are punished too harshly?

 

It's not that I wanted Black punished more severely, but I do think he should have been because his punishment was ultimately extremely lenient. My first thought when I saw the news of his case outcome was that he'd won a watch because it could have been a hell of lot harsher.

 

I don't see the connection between the two indiscretions. If we are going to start hammering every player who has a sly fiver on the football, we might as well all give up and move to China. I've already said if he was doing it for financial gain that he should have been hammered, but he wasn't. He's just an idiot.

 

The moral indignation of some of us about this, is what annoys me. He's just a daft boy, that made a daft mistake. The case with the boy from Motherwell a while back, when he was betting about a sending off, was much more serious. This was nothing like that. If Black had gotten a 6 month ban up his hole, the forums would be flooded with, it's aw a conspiracy against us. The disciplinary system might well be a joke full of inconsistencies, but I actually think they got this one spot on.

 

My basic issue with this is that Black's lenient punishment doesn't send out the right signal to other players.

 

I actually think it stinks to high heaven that one of our players just happens to be pulled up for betting offenses this year when tons of players in Scottish football have been betting on matches for decades. It may well just be a strange coincidence that one of our players is the first to be caught and brought up on charges, but it doesn't sit right with me at all.

 

On the other hand, I don't think it's appropriate for a footballer to be placing bets on his own team. No matter whether he bets a win, draw or loss, I just don't think it's appropriate in any shape or form. The stake could be a fiver or five hundred quid, it's still the same in principal and it's still against the rules.

 

Now, regarding the rules and the disciplinary system, what sort of message does it send out to other players if you only get a 3 match ban for betting on your own team and also in some matches you participated in? The message it sends out is that it's not a problem or regarded as any sort of serious issue. If it isn't a serious issue, then it shouldn't be something written into the rule book as a serious and punishable offense if breached.

 

I think the truth of the matter here though, is that the SFA have tried to sweep this under the rug because they know that their case against Black opened up a very big can of worms.

 

If Black had been hammered for his betting offenses a lot of pressure would have been applied to the SFA to start cases against other players betting on football and breaching the rules, but by letting him off really lightly as they've done there really isn't much point in charging other players because the lenient punishments won't be a deterrent anyway.

 

The SFA will now be hoping that this all just goes away and gets forgotten about, nothing to see here stylee. Meanwhile, someone or some people will be sitting laughing their asses off because a Rangers player has been done for betting offenses and backed/supported by the club, which all further blackens the good name of Rangers (pun intended!).

[andy steel 0]

There's some fairly major leaping to conclusions going on here, the biggest of which is that Ian Black was just daft, silly, a typical dumb footballer.

 

In that interview he avoided answering the question about betting against his own team to win by repeating a line he's plainly been fed by some PR person, I committed the crime & will now serve my sentence. Forgive me for not swallowing that one whole, because frankly it is as big as a whale.

 

The refusal to answer the only question that matters - wtf were you doing not backing The Rangers to win 100% - is suspicious and can't be swept away with the cover all excuse that Ian Black is a tit. In that case, Scottish football, which has more tits than Springwatch, might as well just do away with rules altogether. Unless and until he comes out with a good reason for that action, a cloud remains over him.

 

Other aspects, too, of this tale don't add up: we are told it was a bet which somehow, without his brain becoming involved, managed to be placed. Despite his whole adult life, it seems, containing regular punts on this and that (170 odd bets over 6 years or whatever it is), the main bet he's placed - one of the only three which are worth commenting on imo - slipped past the feeble cabbage that is Ian Black's bonce and just somehow got on his line.

 

East Stirling to get a draw against us is not the sort of box many would tick. Consider this set up. The odds would be good. The circumstances (league won, a few dodgy results in the bank already) would mean altho surprising, it would not have been an unbelievable result. The player was in a position to try to affect the result. Given his form of last year, he could have scored a hat trick of own goals without arousing much suspicion.

 

There's far too many grey areas in this fantasy to just say, ach well, daft boy. All the suspicion in the world could easily be wrong, but it needs Ian Black to explain why. The more he avoids doing so, the more I think he was at it and got caught. I've nothing against betting but this is beyond gambling or morality - I need to be convinced Black is not a rat.

 

Oh, and btw, he says the fans are backing him. Well, this one certainly isn't. Not yet.

[forlanssister 3,114]

I think the fact that Black wasn't immediately shown the door is symptomatic of just how far removed we now are from the not too distant bygone days of yore.

 

Whilst I'm certainly no puritan it's hard to get my head round an act of such great stupidity. I think he's treated both the club and the fans with sheer and utter contempt, what happens tonight if we're 1 nil down in the 89th minute and Black steps up to take a penalty and skys it, the first question everybody's going to ask themselves is did he have QOTS down for a win?

[chilledbear 16]

Should have been shown the door.

 

Wonder what Bobby Brown, Johnny Hubbard and Doddie think, slipping standards, no a landslide.

[der Berliner 3,815]

He bet on us not to win. That doesn't wash with me. Unprofessional, illegal and downright wrong on so many counts.

 

No need to wonder why our club is in a mess.

 

You do give many of/at the club quite a bit of unnecessary flak.

 

On a sidenote ... any news about the SFA looking to hare after all the other footballers openly placing bets?

[Dragonfly Trumpeter 50]

You do give many of/at the club quite a bit of unnecessary flak.

 

On a sidenote ... any news about the SFA looking to hare after all the other footballers openly placing bets?

 

Bog standard response is it - but look at them, they do it as well? The SFA hauled up Black, unless you missed it. Whatever anybody else does is totally irrelevant. Black was wrong, on many counts.

 

Does every car that speeds down the road get fined? Does plod let you off when you ask 'did you see the prick overtake me 2 mins ago at 150mph?' Don't think so.

 

You may think it is unnecessary flak, but the facts do not lie - Black broke the rules, breached his contract by doing so and bet against his own team to win a game. The Rangers, in case you missed that as well.

 

Did you like what he did to Jelavic as well? He got off virtually scot free for that assault as well - way less than he got for the latest breach of rules.