With world tennis number one Novak Djokovic the latest high profile figure to have to defend himself as top flight sport lurches into yet deeper crisis the onus on the media to take its responsibilities seriously is ever greater and that includes standing up to bullying tactics

 

Today

 

Out in the cold 

The Herald:

The BBC is boycotting Ibrox again after it re-imposed a ban on one of its reporters

 

Wrong kind of football flare 

The Herald: Fans threw flares onto the pitch

Supporters organisations call on SPFL not to over-react to crowd misbehaviour

 

Spot the ball 

The Herald:

Lothian Thistle goal-keeper somehow managed to prevent this Sean Winter effort from going in but East Kilbride were 2-0 winners in earning a Scottish Cup meeting with Celtic

 

Picture of relaxation 

The Herald:

Rangers boss Mark Warburton, who says he intends to be enjoying a glass of wine on the sofa at home on transfer deadline day, shares a training ground joke with Kenny Miller  

 

Best yest to come? 

The Herald:

Carlton Cole reckons winning a treble with Celtic would be the greatest achievement of his career

 

The chairman said what? 

The Herald:

Martin Canning has had what amounts to the dreaded vote of confidence from his chairman but it means more at Hamilton than at most places

 

One Stevenson says farewell 

The Herald:

Ryan Stevenson heads for the exit at Firhill

 

Another Stevenson says welcome with open arms 

The Herald:

Liam Stevenson claims Celtic supporters have told him their club has made a big mistake in letting Anthony Stokes return to Hibs

 

I don't believe it 

The Herald:

World number one Novak Djokovic has been forced to strenuously deny any involvement in match-fixing

 

Tennis meister in the zone 

The Herald:

The sport's greatest ever player Roger Federer is focused and ready to put Grigor Dimitrov in his place

 

In the clear 

The Herald:

Ryan Wilson is free to play on after judicial officer was "not satisfied to the required standard that the act of foul play as alleged had been committed"

 

Desert fox 

The Herald:

Rory McIlroy is aiming to re-assert himself in direct opposition to Jordan Speith in Abu Dhabi

 

Time to pay tribute 

The Herald:

Badminton Scotland boss calls for fans of the sport to visit Perth next month to give Imogen Bankier, the Scottish game's greatest ever player, a proper send-off

 

06.05 Radio Scotland sports headlines

Andy Murray through to third round at Australian Open after beating local Sam Groth 6-0,6-4,6-1 in just 90 minutes… Scottish football considering a new NFL-style draft proposal for under-20s… East Kilbride set up money-spinning clash with Celtic in Scottish Cup

 

06.35 Radio Five Live sports headlines

Andy Murray and fellow Brit Johanna Konta through to third round at Australian Open... Liverpool and Tottenham go through in FA Cup... East Kilbride to face Celtic in Scottish Cup... McIlroy edging Speith in early stages in Abu Dhabi... Eddie Jones says he has no interest in coaching British & irish Lions next year... Trescothick gives up Somerset captaincy to Australian Chris Rogers... Adam Peattie's expected Olympic rival Christian Sprenger quits ahead of Rio... Australia beat England 58-52 in opening netball Test

 

Back Pages

The Herald:

 

The Herald: The Herald:

The National leads on Celtic’s move for Croat Ljuban Crepulja and The Herald carries that too, but leads on claims from fans that Scottish football is over-reacting to the recent spate of flare-throwing incidents, while The Evening Times splashes on Carlton Cole’s claim that completing a treble with Celtic would be even better than winning the English Premiership with Chelsea.

 

Grandstanding – today’s sports comment

The Kicker offers the view that dealing with recent crowd problems can be simply solved if two sets of people, ordinary, decent fans and the sport’s disciplinarians, get their act together.

Meanwhile my weekly column in The Herald reflects on the media’s failure to put sports administrators under sufficient scrutiny as corruption crises continue to unfold. 

The Herald: ARMSTRONG: Lance Armstrong believes he has served his punishment and should be allowed to compete again

Lance Armstrong's dreadful misdemanours are increasingly looking like having been the tip of the iceberg for world sport

 

Sporting Twitterati 

Questions raised about the nature of bullying of the press 1

 

Questions raised about the nature of bullying of the press 2

 

Old romantic Mick Gannon registers his disappointment at the choice of venue for the East Kilbride v Celtic cup tie 

 

Today’s top message

When I were a lad, back in the early eighties, my first taste of covering sport was being sent up to Dens and Tannadice Parks of a lunch-time for the daily briefings with the managers and you hadn't really made it until you had suffered one of Wee Jim Mclean's bans. My breakthrough came unexpectedly one Monday morning when he demanded to know if it had been me that covered United's reserve match on the Saturday (he already knew it had been).

On my confirmation he exploded and told me that Eamonn Bannon had not suffered a knee injury (from the press box I had identified that as the part of his anatomy that appeared to be getting treated) but had actually suffered an ankle injury, told me to leave and not to darken his door again for a week.

We all put up with that sort of daftness because there was a general affection for a brilliant but flawed manager, but also because of the nature of the relationship between a local newspaper and its football clubs.

However we also knew that it was unlikely to cause a problem with our employers who probably should have stood up to him more vigorously but understood how it worked and that there was unlikely to be any long-term issue for the individual in question or the organisation.

That is far removed from the issue that apparently sees the BBC at odds with Rangers once again over the banning of its senior football reporter Chris McLaughlin from Ibrox. For a man in his position a lack of access to one of the country's major sporting institutions, one on which BBC Scotland and the rest of the Scottish media reports every day, has the potential to be a very serious matter and it is impossible to imagine that anyone at Rangers does not know that.

A few years ago I faced a similar organisation when a governing body tried to ban me from a press briefing because their executives could not handle a bit of criticism.

Naturally our sports editor backed me to the hilt and we forced the issue when I turned up at the briefing in question. Not a word was said, the bullies involved did not, predictably, have the courage to risk embarrassing themselves when they would have been required to explain their reasons in front of others.

It should never have come to that, of course and there is no excuse for this sort of behaviour on the part of administrators.

If something a journalist does is actionable then there are proper legal mechanisms in place to deal with that. If not then by all means discuss differences of opinion with him or her, but banning people will always look like a bullying tactic aimed at putting them under pressure within their organisations.

As I have written about in my column in The Herald today the scale of wrong-doing in sport is at such a level that it has never been more important that the media places those running the sport under maximum scrutiny. Too many have got away with too much for too long so if some of the questions are too difficult then too bad. 

 

Thanks for reading. Back tomorrow with another day’s sports agenda.