When Kilmarnock came out with a simple but straight forward statement last week on the video showing their striker Kyle Lafferty shout sectarian/anti-Irish racist abuse at a Celtic fan, it looked to me and most people that they were taking the matter very seriously.
Here is a reminder of their statement in full:
Kilmarnock Football Club are aware of a video circulating online which appears to show a member of our playing staff using language of a sectarian nature.
The club finds all forms of discriminatory behaviour completely unacceptable. The matter will be investigated by the club.
Lafferty was immediately sent back to Kilmarnock from Northern Ireland international duty and their manager says there is an inquiry into the situation, whether he is referring to Kilmarnock’s inquiry or whether they have their own one is unclear, but there does seem real fear from their media that his international career could be over.
But I will focus on Kilmarnock here as they are in the same league as Celtic and of course it was a Celtic fan who was abused by Lafferty.
According to the statement they have already seen the video, and the Northern Ireland manager has already admitted that the video was taken after a team bonding dinner last week, and the video is very clear to make out what he said.
It’s a closed and shut case.
All Kilmarnock need to do is decide the sanctions they will impose on the player and to release a statement confirming what sanctions they will impose and make sure Lafferty releases a statement to apologise, which would most likely be done on the club’s website.
But no, they still haven’t done either of these a week later.
Are they hoping that it all gets forgotten about and he can play on as usual and help the team?
I will keep the faith with them just now that they won’t try and do that, but they do play on Saturday afternoon and the manager will be speaking with the media on Friday and will no doubt get asked about this, so time is ticking if they want to show that they are serious about tackling sectarian/racism at their club.
