‘Is that Celtic fans?’ – Gary Neville questions Duncan Ferguson’s Rangers claim amid brassed neck ‘sectarianism’ allegation

Sectarianism is a cancer in Scottish football that Celtic fans have had to deal with for a lifetime.

For years Celtic supporters have had to deal with anti-Catholic vitriol from Rangers fans as the Scottish media turn a blind eye and deaf ear to the abuse.

This site has long highlighted the sectarianism from Rangers fans towards Celtic supporters and to this day, the Ibrox club remains the only football club to have initiatiated an anti-Catholic signing policy.

So when former Rangers striker Duncan Ferguson tried to lump Celtic into that category in a discussion about his time at Ibrox, it certainly raised our eyebrows.

Duncan Ferguson admits he had minders at Rangers but not solely because of Celtic fans

Ferguson joined Rangers from Dundee in 1991 and was a highly controversial figure in the game. To this day, he remains the only Scottish footballer to have been jailed for his antics on the football pitch after headbutting Raith Rovers’ Jock McStay.

Speaking about his move, Ferguson admits to Gary Neville the pressure playing for Rangers destroyed him.

Ferguson told The Overlap (27m), “Yeah, I felt it [the pressure of Rangers move].

Ian Wright: “Was you getting stick for it?”

Ferguson: “Terrible stick. I had minders everywhere I went. So everywhere I went, Stirling or Glasgow, everywhere I went, I had people with me.”

Gary Neville: “For what? Is that Celtic fans or is that…?”

Ferguson: “Everybody, I suppose. I was a young guy who had come good. I was in a local area, they wanted a piece of me, didn’t they? They wanted a shot at it. So that’s what happens as a local.

Wright: “What was your demeanour? If they wanted a go, you’d probably have a goal back.”

Ferguson: “Tough for me to walk away at that time. Tough for me as a kid to walk away. If only you just walked away, you know?”

Duncan Ferguson blames ‘sectarianism’ for Celtic & Rangers supporting players transfer moves

Speaking about being tapped up by Walter Smith and Richard Gough for Everton, Ferguson made a claim about Celtic and Rangers supporting players signing for either club because of ‘sectarianism’.

Ferguson continued, “Walter Smith used to tap me up, he used to come and sit in a lay-by in Stirling, and I’d go up and meet them.

“They’d be tapping me up. Richard Gough, the Everton captain, he got fined for tapping me up.

“At that time, Rangers boys went to Rangers, Celtic boys went to Celtic, and that was it. Coming back to your thing, there’s a lot of sectarianism up there, isn’t there and that’s why there’s a lot of aggression and problems up there.”

There is sectarianism in Scotland but as every football fan knows, the vast majority of it all comes from one side of Glasgow.

And as for the veiled suggestion that only Celtic supporting players signed for Celtic and not Rangers supporters, that is a complete lie. Celtic have been signing Rangers supporting players for decades in Scotland whilst Rangers, well, we all know their sordid history on that matter.

The English pundits lap this sh-t up. Their lack of knowledge about anything outside of Scotland is astonishing but I do have to wonder why certain members of the punditry panel didn’t pick Ferguson up on this comment.