Earlier today, Chris Sutton joined the ranks of people who think it’s a good idea to publicise the Celtic team hours in advance of a game.
This has become depressingly, infuriatingly, regular. I do not blame Sutton – well, I do, but he’s not the problem – I blame whoever it is inside Celtic who has decided that showing off about how “in the know” they are takes precedence over the wellbeing of the side. It is shameful.
The person or persons responsible for these leaks has to be found and silenced. That person is a threat to our general health. That person, depending on who it is, might decide to leak something serious in time. That person cannot be trusted with sensitive information of any kind.
The team sheet is a sacrosanct thing, and for very good reasons.
They frequently contain surprises for one thing; tonight’s team was probably the very last that Leipzig would have expected. Any hope we had of making that count for us went by the boards when Sutton decided, in his attention seeking wisdom, to tweet the details of it.
And the BBC of course followed suit.
When the media published details of how England were going to line up against Panama during the World Cup everyone involved in their camp was furious, and that leak didn’t come from any person blabbing the information but from a long-lens photo of tactics scribbled down on a piece of paper that one of the staff was walking around holding in his hand.
That was the media’s fault.
The fault here lies with the mouthy sod who decided to tell tales out of class. It has happened a few times in Scotland; this is the first time it has happened on a European trip, but that should make it easier for the club to identify the culprit.
This is not a small matter.
Somebody inside the walls has breached the trust of the manager and his coaching team.
That is a big deal. This has got to stop.
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