Rangers have hit back at claims that Steven Gerrard refused to speak to a reporter because he anticipated questions about Neil Lennon and sectarianism in Scottish football.
Channel 4 reporter Ciaran Jenkins has gone on a lengthy Twitter tirade venting his frustration about being stood up for an interview with Gerrard on Tuesday afternoon.
Jenkins arrived to speak to the Rangers manager ahead of the release of an Amazon Prime documentary about Gerrard and his Liverpool career but was left with nobody to talk to after the Scottish club expressed concerns about the interview.
Jenkins had hoped to bring up the subject of Neil Lennon’s recent comments about sectarianism in Scotland after the Hibernian boss was hit with a coin during the Edinburgh derby last week.
Lennon insists he is regularly targeted with abuse from terraces in Scotland for the simple reason that he is an Irish Catholic who used to play for Celtic.
Jenkins wanted to tie the ongoing Lennon situation into the abuse Gerrard used to get from rival supporters but the interview never took place.
Steven Gerrard just pulled out of #C4News interview.
Told by personal staffer- not Rangers- we couldn’t ask certain questions including about Neil Lennon and sectarianism. Then she disappeared.
Been waiting for him here for hours. Nobody even told us in person it was off. pic.twitter.com/RYsbNjFxXE
— Ciaran Jenkins (@C4Ciaran) November 6, 2018
We agreed interview would mostly be about issues featured in the film.
I said I’d like to explore what Steven Gerrard’s wife says about him being an emotional person.
I was told not to reference his wife directly and instead say ‘in the film it says you’re an emotional person.’
— Ciaran Jenkins (@C4Ciaran) November 6, 2018
In a recent press conference Hibs manager Neil Lennon, who receives torrents of abuse said:
‘In Scotland you call it sectarianism, I call it racism..I’m just one person so I need more people to come out and call it what it really is.’
— Ciaran Jenkins (@C4Ciaran) November 6, 2018
So I hung about the Rangers training ground most of the day. I was told he wanted a chat before the interview.
But he didn’t show. Nobody came to explain or apologise.
(At least a few of the players said hello.) pic.twitter.com/rkrOQ58gWk
— Ciaran Jenkins (@C4Ciaran) November 6, 2018
Rangers have hit back at Jenkins’ version of events by claiming that the interviewer changed the direction of the line of questioning on the day of the scheduled sit-down.
A club spokesperson told The Scottish Sun: “It is simple – it was agreed that any interview around the Steven Gerrard documentary would be predominantly film focused.
“There was an interview scheduled for today but it became clear the journalist’s questions were not in keeping with this agreement, so the interview did not go ahead.
“Steven Gerrard is accommodating and wide ranging in his dealings with the media and it is not true to suggest today’s interview was cancelled because of questions relating to another manager.”
It was also claimed that the Glasgow club had been expecting a different journalist to interview Gerrard before Jenkins showed up as a late replacement but Jenkins has refuted the claims made in Rangers’ statement.
The latest false claim is that Gerrard interview was supposed to be with another reporter who ‘couldn’t make it’ at late notice.
This is 100% false and actually quite amusing someone would bother to make this stuff up! https://t.co/SBzN2UciMu
— Ciaran Jenkins (@C4Ciaran) November 7, 2018
Rangers claim there was advance agreement that questions would be predominantly about the film.
This is untrue.
However, my questions *were* predominantly about the film anyway.
So if there had been an agreement, I would have been adhering to it.
— Ciaran Jenkins (@C4Ciaran) November 6, 2018
