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Report: Police drop probe into Alex Thomson threats

By Andrew Pugh

Strathclyde Police has dropped its investigation into claims Channel 4 correspondent Alex Thomson was physically threatened by a Scottish journalists after he arrived in Glasgow to investigate the financial affairs of Rangers FC, according to reports.

The Daily Telegraph has reported a police source claiming the allegation was “laughable”.

Thomson’s outspoken views on the state of Scotland’s football journalism sparked controversy in the country after he branded some journalists in Glasgow ‘too lazy, sycophantic and incapable of asking awkward questions”.

In one blog Thomson said: ‘I’d expected the paranoia, insults, spin etc – hey – this is ‘fitba’ after all and I welcome it good, bad and ugly, from fans within and without Glasgow.

‘Indeed I’ve gone out and asked for it. What I didn’t expect were the insults (and in at least one case a direct physical threat) not from fans but from Scottish journalists.

‘Sarajevo, Mogadishu, Kabul, Islamabad, Tripoli, Baghdad…I could bore you with more – in none of these places have I ever got this interesting reaction from local journalists.

‘Only in Glasgow. So something’s up. Something’s different. Something about asking questions about RFC clearly angers some in the Glasgow media in a way I’ve never seen in 25 years of global reporting.”

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