Ongoing issues with UEFA (two sanctions and counting)

[craig 5,199]

40 minutes ago, Gonzo79 said:

Question authority.  

 

The likes of Lawwell and Powar will be rubbing their hands, with glee, today.  And they won't ever stop coming after us.

Questioning authority is exactly what we should be doing.  But do it from a position of strength.

 

we can both question authority AND clean up our act to protect the club.

[917 191]

50 minutes ago, Gonzo79 said:

Question authority.  

 

The likes of Lawwell and Powar will be rubbing their hands, with glee, today.  And they won't ever stop coming after us.

I thought this at first, but it seems there has been a lot going on behind the scenes. ITK posters on FF (posting before this news was announced) say that FARE actually reported us 7 times last season, but the club persuaded Uefa not to charge us. Whether it was insufficient evidence or the club proving they had did all they could to prevent the singing I don’t know, nor do I know why these reports by FARE weren’t made public but maybe Uefa couldn’t be seen to condone sectarianism if they publicly found us not guilty (as they initially did in 2006). So it seems the club have known about & been fighting these charges for some time, but at the St Josephs game FARE finally obtained enough evidence to get us charged.

 

So the club are fighting these charges, & Uefa don’t find in favour of FARE every time. But it is all happening behind closed doors, apparently. Either way having the singing section led by a wee guy with a megaphone belting out TBB, songs about the UVF & Bobby Sands during European matches at Ibrox is clearly a bad idea. And if it happens again we will indeed be playing behind closed doors.

[ian1964 10,724]

Rangers will always be attacked by Scottish football & the SFA ably led by Separate Entity FC & Scottish government. They all wanted us dead and buried in 2012 and when we never allowed that to happen the witch hunt has increased, more so now when we look like challenging for the title and it will continue to increase as long as we keep winning, strap yourselves in for this season.

[der Berliner 3,744]

BTW - similar to our "stand-off" with the BBC, who writes half-truths and half-facts about us, our club, and the support ... or uses our name or pictures of Ibrox or the Bears in specific articles that suggests we are the main offenders there - this vague announcement by UEFA citing racism and sectarianism without giving any sort of detail ... or indeed let the public know WHAT EXACTLY was offending and to whom.

 

For as it stands, it was "racism" and wooosh, the German broadcasting companies teletext sides say that we have "to close a stand because of racism". Aha ... now, that gives away no clues whatsoever, Over to USland and what you get is:

Quote

 

UEFA punishes Rangers for sectarian chants by fans

NYON, Switzerland (AP) — UEFA has punished Rangers for fans' sectarian chants by ordering part of the stadium closed for a Europa League playoff next week. UEFA says its disciplinary panel found the Scottish club guilty of a charge of "racist behavior" during a Europa League game against St Joseph's of Gibraltar last month.

 

August 23, 2019

Rangers must close a 3,000-seat section of Ibrox Stadium when Legia Warsaw visits for a second-leg game on Thursday. The first leg was a 0-0 draw in Poland. UEFA has regularly prosecuted Rangers, and its Glasgow city rival Celtic, over the years for chants that have their roots in the clubs' religious history. Rangers fans typically identify with the Protestant faith and Celtic with Roman Catholicism.

 

More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/apf-Soccer 

 

That`s puts us into the same bracket of some lowlife guys hating black people, Asians and whatnot. Mission accomplished by the victim-card brigade.

 

And what for? A concerted campaign and propaganda that F*enian is now a word for Irish-Catholics (neither the Irish nor the Catholics are "a race", AFAIK) instead of what the Rangers support implies: followers, supporters and members of the terrorist organisation I.R.A.  - outlawed as per Terrorism Act 2000 and 2006.

 

Now how can that be? Why not make the E.T.A. or the German R.A.F. a race then? People shall try to sing supportive songs and have banners with their names and glorify their deeds in public and look what happens! I would assume the authoritzies would act swiftly and hard. Not so in Britain it seems.

 

It would be fundamentally important to check out UEFA and the guys responsible and clarify the situation, preferrably face to face. And ask them about the FARE chaps who turn blind eye after blind eye on the IRAokes at the Scumhut ... you know, political songs are likewise unwelcomed at CL and EL venures.

 

One other thing ... and there is UEFA's footing rather strong. It is a feature of our songs that we sing "against" other people, TTB can easily described as a song of hate. Maybe, at least for the time being, we should go and sing songs "in support" of our team (first and foremost) and beliefs. There are loads of them, including loyalist ones.

 

[917 191]

I think I’ll give up Rangers twitter for a while. Apparently these charges are all - get this - Kilmarnock’s fault as some ex-Killie player works for Uefa and these charges are out of spite for us wrecking their disabled shelter the other week. Boycotting Rugby Park is the agreed way to deal with this, not banning the UBs who are the only reason we all go to Ibrox, apparently. Honestly it’s hard to defend these people when they can’t put together a coherent argument in the English language..

[der Berliner 3,744]

EDIT: Maybe the Supporters Liason Officer and some "big guns" from the support - be that David Edgar, Mark Dingwall, Craig Houston or anyone else that springs to mind - should get together, meet up with some relevant UEFA and discuss the thing face to face.

 

After this fiasco it is fundamentally important that we organize and gather all information and details, so we have something to work with. Who knows what FARE deems racist and sectarian? What does UEFA know about our songs? What is actually unacceptable?

 

As it stands, the keyboard warriors run amok, yet know-one knows any details nor are we able to react in a concerted manner.

Edited August 24, 2019 by der Berliner

[Walterbear 557]

1 hour ago, craig said:

Does that really matter ?  The “what about them” excuse is childish.  We have  words being sung that we know aren’t allowed - yet we have fans acting like 5 yr olds, pointing their fingers everywhere else instead of at themselves.

 

FARE aren’t impartial, we know that.  But give them nothing to report us for and we then can make that complaint from a position of strength.  Make the complaint now and it’s from a position of weakness.

 

So tiring listening to some of our support being stupidly defiant.  Defiance is great but in this instance it’s misplaced because the ONLY thing it will do is have the stadium closed in its entirety and see the club lose at least £1 million.  Those same fans will complain when we can’t afford to spend £1 million on a player and lack all sense of self awareness that it would have been their fault.

Exactly. If folk want to defend freedom of speech (I’m giving them too much credit for philosophical principles here) go and sing about ******s and popes in george Square.  Don’t damage Rangers. I don’t like the Catholic Church or popes or any religious cult but I’m not going to destroy my football club to get the point across. No one is listening except FARE and the fact these numskulls still want clarification is breathtaking. 

[craig 5,199]

10 minutes ago, der Berliner said:

EDIT: Maybe the Supporters Liason Officer and some "big guns" from the support - be that David Edgar, Mark Dingwall, Craig Houston or anyone else that springs to mind - should get together, meet up with some relevant UEFA and discuss the thing face to face.

 

After this fiasco it is fundamentally important that we organize and gather all information and details, so we have something to work with. Who knows what FARE deems racist and sectarian? What does UEFA know about our songs? What is actually unacceptable?

 

As it stands, the keyboard warriors run amok, yet know-one knows any details nor are we able to react in a concerted manner.

We don’t need face to face meetings to determine which words shouldn’t be used.  It’s self explanatory.

[917 191]

13 minutes ago, der Berliner said:

neither the Irish nor the Catholics are "a race", AFAIK

 

Irish is a legally defined race. I don’t know if you’re based in the UK, but if you fill in eg an application form for a job you will be asked to state your race, & Irish is one of the options. ****** is nowadays generally regarded as a derogatory term for the Irish, whether we like it or not. You might not class it as racism, but then again the people hating blacks, Asians and whatnot probably wouldn’t class words like ‘nigger’ and ‘paki’ as racist either.

 

The point about religion is more valid as you could justify criticising eg the Pope and the Vatican, however singing songs about burning chapels isn’t really part of a theological debate. That argument just won’t work in 2019.

 

[compo 7,044]

And all this news has taken the heat off the other mob for the numerous first fights at Parkhead the other night between both sets of fans my next door neighbour who was there said it was quite bad