Trial by TV
Robertson fears feud means Ibrox club is getting raw deal
STEWART ROBERTSON fears Rangers are being victimised by SFA compliance officer Clare Whyte because she is being influenced by Sportscene highlights.
Rangers have had a long-running
dispute with the BBC and chief executive Robertson insists they continue to refuse to send a reporter to Ibrox for interviews.
Robertson is now concerned that feud is leading to his club getting a raw deal. He claimed Alfredo Morelos was unfairly singled out when a hat-trick of incidents were highlighted following December’s Old Firm clash.
Speaking on Rangers TV, Robertson said: “I’ve heard this expression ‘trial by TV, trial by Sportscene’ and that certainly seems to be the way it’s going.
“We understand complaints come in from all sorts of avenues but the correlation between what’s shown on TV at the weekend and what’s then reviewed on the Monday and the notice of complaints that appear is very high.
“We as a club have obviously had our own issues with the BBC. They did ask to come to Ibrox but only to cover matches but they wouldn’t interview our manager or players.
“If they are treating us differently in that respect are there other areas where they are also treating Rangers differently in terms of the incidents we’re seeing highlighted?
“You only have to look at the Alfredo Morelos incident after the Old Firm game where they seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time examining Alfredo’s actions but no time at all on other actions from that game.
“Morelos was effectively vilified for about three weeks on various BBC platforms. They’ve actually written to us and admitted they’re treating us differently from other clubs in the Premiership and it’s important the compliance officer isn’t influenced unduly by Sportscene given that background.
“All we want is to be treated in a fair, balanced and accurate way by the BBC. It’s been going on for a long time and I’ve got a file that’s two inches thick of correspondence.
“Something needs to change to improve that.
“We’ve got a lot of fans who only access games through terrestrial television and it’s discriminating against them that they can’t get to hear Rangers coverage.
“We’ve had numerous discussions with senior personnel and we’re no further forward. We’re the only organisation I’m aware of who has had two public apologies from BBC Scotland in the last 12 months.
“We had the Morelos incident and the Ryan Jack incident where a picture of his decapitated head was used as an image for a discussion about ticketing.”
Robertson called for the introduction of VAR to improve decisions. He said: “We’re getting ourselves into a situation where many more incidents are being looked at and we’re effectively re-refereering the game and that’s placing intolerable pressure on the referees, compliance system and disciplinary system.
“We feel we should be looking to go back to the system where it was violent conduct and offthe-ball incidents that should be reviewed only.
“What we need is to bring all the clubs together to look at how we can improve the system. We need to look seriously at VAR to give the referees all the assistance we can.
“I heard a stat that it takes decisions from 93 per cent to 98 per cent accuracy so we won’t get 100 per cent but it’s going to help.
“We’ve had informal contact with the SFA but we wrote to them formally last week requesting a detailed review of the disciplinary system. I’m sure they’ll be in touch formally.”
“Clare came in at the start of this season and some incidents that have been reviewed wouldn’t have been reviewed last year. That is leading to confusion and much more inconsistency.