Following a UEFA sanction and the resultant partial stadium closure last week [Rangers.co.uk], Rangers fans have been outspoken on the future direction of the club.
Yet the club continues to be let down after they notified Rangers fans they will not be accepting away tickets to their next European match after yet another UEFA charge for behaviour against Legia.
The club have made their stance clear – any kind of unacceptable behaviour, sectarian or otherwise, is not welcome at Ibrox.
The sanction has been met with universal disappointment amongst the Rangers support and almost universal agreement that things have got to change.
And for anyone thinking that simply changing the lyrics of banned songs will do the trick – Twitter user @Zeshankenzo has used precedent to explain why that simply won’t work.
In this enlightening thread, the Twitter user discusses what happened when the closely aligned Linfield got themselves into trouble with UEFA for sectarian chanting.
In a nutshell, the Northern Irish club into bother in 2016 for sectarian chanting and defended themselves to the absolute hilt.
Much of their argument – amongst claims of inaudibility – concerned a change in lyrics of the song.
It’s also worth pointing out – slightly different from the case of Rangers – Linfield had previously decried “all variations” of the song.
This was held against them by UEFA.
However, despite those claims, UEFA decried that it was in actual fact the message of the song and not the lyrics themselves which matter.
UEFA claimed, “the message linked to this song is obviously sectarian”. The document detailing the case is available on p.15 HERE.
Absolutely no variation of this song is acceptable and Rangers will be punished if supporters continue to sing it in UEFA competition.
This only ends one way.
