Gordon Smith, the chief executive of the SFA, has entered the debate about sectarianism in Scottish football and claimed that there is “an agenda against Rangers” in a widespread interview which is shortly to be published.

Smith, who has made a number of controversial statements since taking over the reins at the SFA in June, has also claimed that, in terms of Old Firm supporters’ chanting, Rangers are given a harder time than Celtic in the current debate about sectarianism in the game.

The SFA chief, who played for Rangers for three season in the late 1970s, makes his comments in a chapter he has contributed to a new book about Rangers, entitled It’s Rangers For Me?, which is shortly to go on sale.

In the book, Smith discusses his Ayrshire upbringing, and how much he deplores bigotry of any sort, but goes on to explain why he feels there is a current intellectual climate in which Rangers suffer more than Celtic. “Rangers are going through a hard time at the moment and to a certain degree there is an agenda against them,” Smith says. “Celtic have always thought that people were against them, but now Rangers are starting to feel the same.”

Smith doesn’t clearly specify whose “agenda” it is against Rangers, though he seems to hint heavily in Uefa’s direction, and cites the European governing body’s recent case against his old club when Rangers were censured and fined for bigoted chanting.

“It is not a media bias, it is just that reports about chants and what have you [at Ibrox] reached Uefa and they took action,” he says. “But people are trying to portray Rangers as the only club that has bigots. I just think they should be more evenhanded about it.”

Holding up Celtic as a contrast to Rangers, Smith goes on to expand on his belief that the Celtic Park club are given an easier ride than Rangers in the whole debate about football clubs, history and tradition.

“Celtic make a point of extolling their background and tradition,” Smith says. “They are quite happy to say that they have a tradition of Irish Catholicism, and that they are a club founded by Brother Walfrid and immigrants to this country. And I am very comfortable with that.

“But why is there a problem when Rangers come out and say similar things? Why is it a problem when Rangers come out and say they were set up by people from a Church of Scotland upbringing and that they have a Unionist background?”

In terms of sectarianism in football, Smith goes on to argue that there is an “oversensitivity” on some people’s part towards singing from the stands, though he does condemn The Billy Boys, the song which some Rangers supporters’ groups fought in vain to save during the Uefa investigation of Ibrox.

“The issue of sectarianism is topical again but we have to be careful we don’t become oversensitive to it all,” he says. “You simply can’t make laws or rules just because people say they are offended. Rangers fans sing God Save The Queen and Celtic fans boo it: does that mean the national anthem is offensive?

“Everyone should be offended about ‘being up to our knees in Fenian blood’ or about hearing IRA songs. If those sorts of songs are sung then action should be taken, but just to say that everything is offensive seems to me a dangerous road to go down.”

In the forthcoming book, Smith claims that he was more exposed to bigoted abuse once he became a media pundit with BBC Scotland, rather than when he was a Rangers player.

“I found that people disliked me just because of my Rangers background,” he says. “People e-mailed the BBC about me and I was called ‘an Orange bastard’ a few times, but that doesn’t bother me. Saying something like that doesn’t demean me, it demeans them.

“I always try to be objective and the most frustrating thing is that people can’t see that.”