Leigh Griffiths was forced, this evening, to issue an impassioned plea on Twitter on behalf of his family after being targeted by a series of vile, disturbing and wholly evil comments from an individual who is clearly disturbed and running on high-octane hate.
Griffiths, who opened the scoring in Celtic’s game against East Kilbride this afternoon, issued a tweet an hour ago asking that people, whatever they might think of him, leave his children out of the matter, after a sick individual on the social network site sent him a serious of highly offensive tweets.
His heartfelt plea resulted in an outpouring of support from the online Celtic community, and beyond, as well as expressions of outrage and disgust directed at the perpetrator.
I have decided not to publicise the appalling slurs that were directed at our player and his family; believe me when I say that they are disgraceful beyond measure and amongst the most loathsome that I’ve ever seen sent to a public figure.
The media, which, it seems, takes enormous pleasure in reporting what goes on in Celtic chat-rooms these days, has a duty to deal with this matter appropriately, in the hope that the person responsible is subject to full public exposure for his remarks.
To call them offensive doesn’t quite cut it.
To call them reprehensible is an understatement.
Griffiths, who has been in the form of his life lately, was clearly upset, first asking if the original tweet was a joke and then, when the perpetrator repeated the comments and made it clear that it wasn’t (guess what? This individual now claims that it was), Leigh posted his emotional plea to the rest of the Twittersphere.
There are moments in Scottish football that take my breath away, and this is one of them.
Said individual is clearly flapping – more than one person sent photos of his tweet and his disgusting reply to Griffiths to the police – and has tried to apologise and pass this off as a disgusting attempt at humour. But it wasn’t, and it’s not.
There are people in our society who are seriously unbalanced and operate solely on hate.
Tonight our striker has come into contact with one of them.
As an additional point, I think we ought to know the names of the people who “liked” and retweeted this as well, because there’s something wrong with those folk too.
Society needs to be rid of these people once and for all.
Leigh, all the best to you and yours tonight.
The entire Celtic Family – indeed, all of civilised Scotland and millions more around the world – are right behind you.
You’ll Never Walk Alone.