So as you’ve probably noticed the ‘translategate‘ fallout surrounding Alfredo Morelos’ recent interview with Sky Sports has really started to brew up a storm.
Before all that, of course, the previous attention had been on Rangers pretty horrific form since returning from their winter break.
Having beaten Celtic 2-1 at Parkhead on December 29th they went into said January window in fine fettle, only two points off the top with a game in hand and the massive psychological blow struck via winning at their biggest rivals home stadium for the first time in over nine years which had included ten previously failed attempts that saw them ship 23 goals and score only three times.
Everything was rosy for Steven Gerrard’s side and according to the clubs fans title number 55* was simply a matter of time.
But then that pesky break in January came along and upon return their captain James Tavernier was ruled out for a few weeks through injury.
They toiled to a 2-0 win over League One bottom side Stranraer at home in the Scottish Cup nearly three weeks ago and that pretty much set the tone for what has occurred on the field since.
Shorn of Tavernier and with goal machine Alfredo Morelos suspended – something he’s been no stranger to during his foul-filled time in Scotland – they struggled past lowly St.Mirren at home with 37-year-old striker Jermain Defoe getting them out of jail via the games solitary goal.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t save them though in their next match away at the league’s bottom side Hearts and despite going a goal ahead they were deservedly beaten 2-1 with Irishman Liam Boyce providing the killer strike to send them back to Govan empty-handed.
That certainly wasn’t in the script and to make matters worse they lost one of their best players, Ryan Jack, through an injury likely caused to himself via a scandalous challenge he made during the Hearts game which went largely unnoticed.
Still, the light blues kicked on and defeated Ross County 2-0 at home days later but it came at a cost that being a lengthy injury to the ageing Defoe who had just signed a new bumper contract only days before despite evidently being incapable of running the length of himself anymore.
Morelos was back but the injury crisis was mounting and the last-ditch loan singings of the little known Ianis Hagi and Hibs misfiring striker Florian Kamberi did little to quell the incredulity amongst the faithful at the teams sudden downturn in form.
A 0-0 draw at home to Aberdeen last weekend saw Rangers fall seven points behind Celtic meaning even with their game in hand there would be a minimum of four points between the two.
How the hell had this happened?
Whilst Celtic had come back refreshed and firing on all cylinders the apparent champions-elect were crumbling as they replicated their form of last seasons post-winter break with points being haemorrhaged at an alarming rate.
With the natives being understandably restless and with eyebrows beginning to be raised over the management of Steven Gerrard not to mention the ongoing question marks over the temperament of serial red mist sufferer Alfredo Morelos the cogs of the Ibrox PR machine were already grinding into motion.
In order to divert attention away from what really matters a bogus story was released to the press pertaining to Alfredo Morelos being a victim of somebody allegedly tampering with his mega-expensive supercar.
Apparently, somebody had been seen planting some sort of device under it so as you can imagine it didn’t take long for the Ibrox support to jump to the conclusion that this was the action of a typically wayward ‘Tim‘ – or words to that effect – who so despised Morelos and indeed feared his potentially title-winning goal-scoring prowess so much that they were literally trying to take him out altogether.
Of course, that was complete and utter bullshit and indeed the real story was about to surface that the ‘Tim‘ seen tampering with Alfredo’s Lambo was actually a private investigator paid by the players own pregnant wife to keep tabs on her other half obviously out of concern for his wellbeing or maybe because she believed he was playing away. And I’m not talking about away days that require the team bus.
Who knows. Either way, it had sod all to do with Celtic and their fans.
Pundit Michael Stewart pointed out the insidious nature of all of this during Monday evening’s airing of BBC’s Sportsound and also even dared to suggest the original false narrative had been fed to the press by Rangers PR guru Jim Traynor. Remember him? Fat guy. Used to be a journalist. David Murray sycophant who penned an absurd article where he salivated all over the former Ibrox owner’s penchant for fine wines and ‘the most succulent of lamb’ completely burying his alleged journalistic credentials in the process.
He also claimed that Rangers died when they were liquidated and stated it in a national newspaper in no uncertain terms. He’s backtracked on that since though. Rather spectacularly in fact. Though he’s never explained the reasoning behind his complete change of heart on the matter.
Anyway, old Jim or ‘Jabba’ as he’s come to be known has once more slimed out of his lair somewhere in the deepest darkest caverns of Ibrox and taken centre stage again. He has appeared a few times over the years usually making a complete arse of himself in the process before deciding to crawl back to his basement but this time it’s different.
Jim hasn’t been upfront and centre but recent events have the marks of his grubby little paws all over it.
With Michael Stewart coming under fire for apparently mislabeling the source of alleged brake tampering allegations during the original Morelos story the tide appeared to be turning. The thing is that The Daily Record did actually print those allegations but that’s apparently very different from making them yourself so they are up in arms over their journalistic integrity being called into question which is a riot in itself but no matter. That’s between them and Mr Stewart at this stage.
I’ve put a link to it at the bottom of the page if you haven’t’ already heard it.
Anyway with all this going on Rangers decided it was time to pull a PR masterstroke. To get the Morelos victim narrative back on track and also completely divert attention off their team’s sudden collapse in form they invited in a reporter from Sky to interview the man of the moment Alfredo up at their glorious training ground that was once called Murray park before being normalised to just its location of Auchenhowie before being renamed The Hummell Training Centre.
In this interview, Morelos discussed in his native tongue such things as being the victim of racist taunts whilst exiting the pitch at Celtic Park which not surprisingly grabbed more than a few headlines.
And that’s where the real story begins as it turned out that Sky decided to go with an interpretation of Alfredo’s words that is completely alien to anyone who actually speaks Spanish. Who’d have thought there would still be Spanish speakers in the country after January 31st? It’s as if the whole Brexit thing was all for nothing.
Once again the PR office at Rangers are coming under the spotlight as whilst Celtic released a statement burying Sky for misrepresenting an opposition player’s words their Ibrox counterparts who actually employ the player have remained strangely quiet on the matter. And let’s be honest it doesn’t take much to get Rangers to make statements these days.
http://www.celticfc.net/news/17492
It’s almost as if this whole thing hasn’t turned out the way they were hoping.
Sky have since taken the interview down from all of their platforms and released a pretty mealy-mouthed apology that takes little to no responsibility so have subsequently been reported to Ofcom by Celtic. Safe to say we haven’t heard the last of that.
http://www.celticfc.net/news/17507
Rangers meanwhile appear to have thrown Morelos’ representative Michael Gorman under the bus with the Daily Record revealing he is the apparent source of the completely inaccurate translation of his client’s own words.
He must be wondering what the hell just happened to him. There’s no way that when he took on the Colombian as a client he would’ve thought he was signing on for this. Though if it is him that’s responsible as is claimed then everyone else is wondering why the hell he ever thought he’d get away with it in the first place?
Did he genuinely think he could fake a translation that would be broadcast to the entire population of the UK and beyond and nobody would notice? Well obviously Sky didn’t but this is an organisation that gives us the embarrassing Gillette Soccer Saturday every weekend hosted by the frankly woeful Jeff Stelling and who pay imbeciles like Paul Merson and Charlie Nicholas to give an opinion.
But surely he must have realised that it would reach a wide audience and that indeed like him there are other actual Spanish speakers out there though of course, his own credentials as a translator and as a representative of any kind are well and truly in the toilet now if as alleged it is his handy work. Until proven otherwise he’s literally become Scottish football’s equivalent of the fake sign language guy from Nelson Mandela’s‘ funeral. Remember him? What an honour that must be.
No matter how you spin it it’s been a disaster for Sky, Rangers, Alfredo, his representative Mr Gorman and ultimately Traynor whose job is of course spin.
Like the journalism thing though he just isn’t very good at it.
I can only hope Rangers keep him on the books for as long as possible. For us, he’s gold dust with faux pas after faux pas. That means embarrassing or tactless in a social situation by the way. Just in case Jim and Mr Gorman think it means ‘It’s all Celtic’s fault.’
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....Always A Tim! 