Former Premier League referee Jeff Winter appears to have taken a swipe at Celtic and the Catholic Church in a scarcely believable post on his personal website.
Winter, a self professed Middlesbrough and Rangers fan and a man who always had a ridiculously high opinion of himself in his days as a referee and as a media pundit, posted a blog on his site on December 30, documenting his Christmas spent Down Under.
The website, jeffwinter.co.uk, has since been suspended by web-hosting company 123-reg.co.uk, but the rant against Celtic and the Catholic Church has been circulated widely on the interweb and reads as follows:
“Into Napier and a tour of the town, neighbouring Hastings and the Hawkes Bay area. Real NZ, clean, fresh air, fields and fruit, strawberries the size of apples.
“Star man is once again the bearer of bad tidings. Celtic are top of the league!! Now the football implications are obvious, but what does it mean for the altar boys?
“Do they get abused in celebration? Would it have been worse in the anger of defeat? Or would they just get abused anyway?
“What’s this got to do with football, nothing, but anyone who backs the Catholic Church that is fronted by a dress wearing, Nazi, kiddy fiddling protector deserves all the vitriol it gets. FTP!!”
Naturally, Winter’s comments provoked widespread outrage amongst Celtic fans and Catholics. The man who actually believed that he was given a standing ovation in his final game of a referee was never a universally popular figure anyway, but if the Twitter hashtag #arrestjeffwinter is anything to go by, his popularity will soon be at an all-time low.
Because the remarks were so inflammatory, however, it has been suggested that the 56-year old could have been hacked.
Gabrielle Marcotti, a respected football journalist who writes for The Times amongst other media outlets, contacted Winter about the matter and tweeted the following message last night:
“OK, got a reply from Jeff Winter. He says he has contacted his website manager to look into the matter.”
Marcotti’s reply would suggest we are none the wiser on the matter, but if the comments are proven to be attributed to Winter, his media career and days on the after-dinner circuit would surely be numbered.
Winter published an autobiography in 2006 which was entitled ‘Who’s the B*stard in the Black?’ He’ll be lucky if that’s the worst thing he’s called in the near future.
