Today, Shay Logan, in an interview with the Aberdeen Evening Express, accused Celtic fans of racism.
The snarking right back, who’s conduct has been a constant embarrassment to the club and to the city, was speaking to the paper about the start of the season and after prompting by a journalist said that in the final game he was racially abused by our fans.
Celtic were asked for a comment and refused to give one.
I read this in disbelief, and I wanted to be sure I had my facts right before I wrote this, because the allegation is pretty unbelievable.
So I emailed the paper. And as the article also quotes Nicola Hay from Show Racism The Red Card, who I have spoken to at length in the past, I also emailed her. The paper confirms that this is what Shay Logan told its reporter.
Let’s be clear; I abhor racism as any right-thinking person does.
I detest it.
Anyone who shouts racial abuse or indulges in that kind of behaviour ought to be found and subjected to the absolute limit of the law.
If there was racist abuse directed at Logan that should be dealt with and dealt with in the harshest way possible.
But I smell something foul all over this story.
Logan has never been slow about running to the media and playing the victim card. But on this occasion what? He waited for two months until a local journalist asked him the question? Why am I finding that difficult to believe? Why doesn’t it ring true?
Not one person at Aberdeen has ever labelled an allegation like that against our fans. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of such allegations labelled against any of our supporters in the last decade or more.
Racism is not tolerated inside Celtic Park, and I can say that as a guy who once got into a punch-up with one particular eejit who sat beside me for one game and decided to start dishing it out. I wasn’t the only one who was taking a swing at him.
I spoke to Evening News about this, and asked them if I was understanding the report correctly. I told them who I was and that I intended to write this. This was their reply;
“It is not our reporter making the allegations, it is Shay Logan. Think his quotes in the story make his position quite clear.”
I asked a follow up question, because the article seems to be suggesting that the reporter asked Logan, unprompted, if some of the abuse he got that day was racist.
Here is the relevant part of the piece;
When asked about the abuse he received from Hoops supporters and if it was racial, Logan said: “Listen there was, but at the end of the day I expect it now.”
The paper confirmed this version of events.
To my mind, the writer clearly went fishing for this and Logan was happy to give them their headline.
Yet curiously, the first headline the paper put on the article doesn’t mention racist abuse at all.
It read “EXCLUSIVE: Logan ‘expects’ to receive abuse from some Celtic fans and tells them ‘bring it on.”
They changed it later, to one that reads “Logan ‘expects’ to receive racial abuse from some Celtic fans and tells them ‘bring it on’”
Expects to.
But the article said that he already has.
When contacted, the SFA, like Celtic, refused to comment.
Nicola Hay, of Show Racism the Red Card, appeared to offer her own thoughts on the matter though;
“Nicola Hay, campaign manager for charity Show Racism the Red Card Scotland, said: “No player in Scottish football should be subjected to racist abuse from fans. We want Scottish football to be free from racial discrimination.”
This is clearly going to be a story.
The national titles will be running this by the end of the day.
Celtic has decided not to respond to it, and wisely, as the allegation can be neither proved nor disproved.
People are going to believe what they want, but Logan has just exploded a bomb whether he knows it or not.
I suspect he’s well aware of that and what the reaction to this is going to be.
This is the question he’ll be asked by every media outlet in the country the next time he’s on camera.
So we’re about to get trial by television folks, and we should actually welcome it because if such people do exist in our support it’s better to get them out of it, and if he’s made it up that’s going to draw the kind of response he should be used to by now.
Let’s just say he’s not made himself any more liked or respected by our fans, against whom he has today levelled an appalling, unprecedented and utterly unsubstantiated charge.