JELAVIC'S INJURY

DO YOU remember when Kyle Lafferty cheated against Aberdeen to get Charlie Mulgrew sent off? And do you remember too, the number of times the incident was replayed on television?

Can you also remember  when Lafferty was sent off against Hibernian this season, and the amazing amount of airtime on television this incident was given ?

Then, can you remember when Kevin Thomson was sent off against Hearts at Tynecastle last season, and the number of times his silly sideways lunge was repeated on the box?

Now hit the fast forward button and let's return to Tynecastle and highlight the moment when a terrible tackle from behind - outlawed by FIFA - by Ian Black on Nikica Jelavic, injured the striker so badly  he had to fly home for surgery and is not expected to play again for anything up to four months.

But where have all the television replays been of the tackle from a match shown live on ESPN?

That's a tricky one, for it has been hard to catch up with them, as on Monday and Tuesday night's Reporting Scotland - the licence fee funded national broadcaster - it appears we are in the midst of some old fashioned height of the Cold War Kremlin-style cover up.

And as far as that modern phenomenon, which has fast become an old reliable, YouTube? Well, anyone trying to find the Black tackle which crippled Jelavic there will draw a blank, and be met with the message....

"The clip of the Black tackle on Jelavic has been removed from YouTube due to a copyright claim by the Scottish Premier League."

That will be the same Scottish Premier League who have ensured  Rangers must face five away matches on the weekends following their six Champions League ties.

Does anyone detect a pattern here?

Rangers player sins, his sin is missed by the referee, but caught on camera and his sin is shown over and over and over, again and again and again.

Or, Rangers player sins, is caught by the referee and punished by him with a red card, and the sin, again caught on camera, is repeated on television over and over and over, again and again and again.

As opposed to Rangers player is the victim of a bad tackle -  one which many believe merited a red card ,but which was dealt with by a yellow - and is badly injured. And the result???

Blank screens!

People are therefore robbed of their right as licence payers to see the clip again and again and again, over and over and over on BBC Scotland's Reporting Scotland at the peak tea time viewing hour, in order that they can form their own judgement.

Rangers supporters though must be indebted to Keith Jackson of the Daily Record and Scott Burns of the Scottish Daily Express, for their interviews with Jelavic.

It's taken Black long enough to issue a public apology claiming it was an accident, and that the Rangers man was too quick for him.

 But Jelavic, as quoted in the Record and Express, is having none of it.

 If the public were given the opportuinity by the BBC, the state funded broadcaster, to view the incident from all the angles - as was the case when Lafferty and Thomson sinned - then a judgement could be formed on whether Black was unlucky, and Jelavic even more unlucky.

 Or not!

That would be justice. For Black, and for Jelavic. For, as I have often stated, for justice to be done, it must be seen to be done.

One reporter, who has the inside track at Ibrox, says that senior Rangers sources are seething with anger. The speculation is one senior source is Walter Smith.

He spent over £4m of the meagre transfer budget afforded him by the club's Lloyds Bank paymasters on Jelavic, and the striker was showing every sign of forming an intelligent and lethal partnership with Kenny Miller.

There was also - in a sort of perverse way - the bonus of the fact  he is ineligble for Europe, meaning Rangers were hoping to look to Jelavic as an injection of fresh legs to the team for the next four away matches they have been ordered by the SPL to play immediately after Champions League ties.

His loss in the Champions League - a tournament Rangers cannot possibly hope to win - was therefore balanced by the rest he would have ahead of SPL games, as the champions bid to retain their domestic crown.

That benefit would have been seen next when the first Old Firm game of the season takes place at Parkhead a few days after Rangers must face the team settling Spain alight right now, Valencia.

Now Jelavic - as a result of the injury he suffered following the tackle by Black, - will not only miss that match, but may still be sidelined when Celtic visit Ibrox on January 2.

His injury may turn out to be a Marco Negri moment for Rangers.

Whether that proves to be the case or not, in the interest of justice - for Black as well as Jelavice for it would give the Hearts man a chance to prove his claim of his lack of malice - the incident in which the Rangers man is the injured party should be given the same television prominence as those occasions when it has been the Rangers player who has been the sinner.

Over and over and over, again and again and again.