Ally McCoist hurt by lack of BBC reply to complaint

ALLY McCoist has criticised the failure of BBC Scotland to respond directly to Rangers’ complaint about their Sportscene programme on Wednesday, decribing it as probably more disapointing than the original perceived offence.

• Rangers lodge official complaint to BBC over ‘Mad Men’ opening sequence which depicted Ally McCoist falling to ground

• Club statement also slams Off the Ball’s ‘Super Ally or Fat Sally’ sketch

The club complained that the introduction to the broadcast of their League Cup tie with Motherwell was “tasteless”, as it showed a figure – clearly McCoist, they said – falling from an office window. It was based on the American show Mad Men, but featured a broken Rangers crest and had a voiceover of recent news stories about the club.

• Inside Sport podcast: Scottish football analysis

The BBC responded on Thursday with a brief statement issued through the Press Association, stopping short of an apology but accepting that the “creative animation . . . may not have appealed to everyone”.

McCoist did not say he expected an apology, but made it plain he thought a direct reply from the company would have been more appropriate than their public statement. “I am probably even more disappointed that we haven’t heard anything back from BBC Scotland since we emailed them 24 hours ago,” the Ibrox manager said.

He also suggested that the graphic of the plummeting figure was particularly insensitive in a week which has seen widespread publicity given to the suicides of two Scottish teenagers. “I thought in the current climate it would have to be, at the very, very best, tasteless and inappropriate,” he said. “Especially when you look at the front pages of national newspapers in the last couple of days and the stories about the two young girls. I was very, very disappointed.”

Speaking at a press briefing at Murray Park, McCoist refused to discuss the issue further, preferring to talk about Rangers’ Scottish Cup second-round match at Forres Mechanics this afternoon. “All of my attention is 100 per cent focused on this Scottish Cup tie,” he added.