Michael Stewart Sees ‘Toxic’ Rangers Traits Rear Their Head As His Sympathy Stops Over Stance On Willie Collum

 

Stewart believes response to handball decision is an unwelcome return to an Ibrox stance of previous era.

Michael Stewart has claimed a “toxic” side of Rangers he thought had been left in the past has returned in the wake of penaltygate.

The Ibrox club and Scottish FA have traded statements like boxers punches as the fallout from Alistair Johnston’s non-handball decision last weekend. Gers chiefs met with Hampden decision maker on Wednesday to hear the VAR audio, and made it known indirectly that they had requested Willie Collum be kept away from their games going forward.

That was immediately booted out by the SFA, who rebuked the Rangers hierarchy and demanded they show more “responsibility” in regard to sharing information, and accused them of jeopardising Collums’ safety. BBC pundit Stewart reckons it’s the wrong approach from Ibrox after they made things personal with the VAR official. And it’s an approach he thought the Light Blues had ditched in recent years when playing politics with governing bodies.

Speaking on Sportsound, he said: “It brings me back to when Rangers were up in arms with Neil Doncaster the SPFL over their handling of the Coronavirus when they cancelled the season. To a certain extent, I had sympathy with some of the questions that were being asked. But as soon as they became so vitriolic towards Neil Doncaster, I thought it was too far. This has a little bit of that as well.

“Personally, I think Rangers have moved on from those days. Without the likes of Jim Traynor and David Graham, I don’t think they are as toxic and aggressive and their messaging is better. But this has slipped back to that. They’ve personalised it with Willie Collum and I thought they’d moved on from that. It’s not great to see.

“I go back to what happened after the game. It was the right decision, but the way they got to it was the wrong way and they tried to cover it up. So I can understand that Rangers had grievances about that. But it’s caveated by the fact that the right decision was given. It wasn’t penalty.

“Something was going on behind the scenes that they deserved an explanation for. But a lot of that should have been done a lot more privately than it was.”