Gordon Waddell’s article in The Sunday Mail today is atrocious. It is disgusting. As someone with a share certificate on my wall, I believe that it might be actionable.
It explicitly accuses Celtic of having an explicit link with the Boys Club scandal in spite of our legal position to the contrary.
I’ve said before that this issue is going all the way to court; it has to.
Until then, every word clowns like this write in their newspapers prejudices our shot at a fair hearing.
The article reeks in every way possible. It is an end of season two fingered salute, calling into question our integrity, whether or not kids and their parents can trust us – a shameful, disgusting allegation right out of the sewers of the worst Ibrox forums – and if this is not the piece where Celtic draws the line and bans everyone at that paper from the building then I have to question the people in charge of our club and ask if they’ve got a yard of guts between them.
They’ve banned individual journalists of course, but that makes this all the more absurd.
Because saying nasty things about Peter Lawwell is clearly considered more worthy of action than an article like this which seeks to slander the entire institution.
At one point he compares Celtic’s expressions of regret and sorrow to Trump talking about gun crime victims in the United States. There is no question that Waddell and his rag should be banned from our ground for that. It simply has to happen.
“As a current board, obviously no-one is attaching blame, they’re generations removed from the sins of their forebears, but they have an obligation to their roots as well as their shareholders,” he writes at one point.
Well, as I pointed out the other day for the current board of Celtic to accept legal responsibility for something that happened well before they were at Parkhead would require shareholder support. They’ve actually fulfilled their obligation to the shareholders by resisting the drum banging of anti-Celtic voices and ambulance chasers.
Waddell has demanded a full public inquiry into this matter.
That is a clarion call right from the sub-basements of Follow Follow and RangersMedia, the latter being the site which I highlighted as perfectly fine with running an entire thread dedicated to slandering the memory of Billy McNeill upon his death. You wonder where Waddell got the idea, eah?
Indeed, the article stinks of its agenda; it’s there, it’s open, out on the page.
This inquiry has to be “backed by the government and football authorities” he says.
And if you’re asking “why the football authorities?” you’re not the only one. Because the SFA, the organisation that couldn’t organise its shit into the pan without whiteboard instructions is clearly capable of taking on such a monumental task, aren’t they?
Presumably at the same time as they are running football into the ground.
But you see, the involvement of the football authorities is essential if you’re going to use this as an excuse to strip titles from Celtic at some point, although someone’s going to have to point me in the direction of the regulations which would make that possible, even if everything Waddell says came to pass in court and our moral and legal “guilt” were established.
“Celtic should be front and centre in demanding its instigation, irrespective of the consequences for them,” he writes.
What consequences do you reckon he has in mind?
I told you, this is transparent … and it is absolutely beyond belief that they would attack us in a football sense via this avenue.
I expect this from the deranged filth at certain clubs … this is a national newspaper and if Celtic lets it reporters in the building after this it’s giving them license to get away with anything.
The reference in the piece to our “vast cash reserves” is not an accident either, of course, because if those cash reserves are being given over to victims – and a not immodest chunk to the lawyers, let’s not forget the lawyers who aren’t working for free but who won’t actually get paid unless or until we write those cheques – then it’s not being used for the playing squad.
This call for an inquiry is a new one too.
Up until now, Celtic was being told it should pay compensation, but I always said that would never satisfy people and it never will. Certain people wouldn’t be happy until Celtic Park itself was shuttered and sold off to Tesco, and that ultimately is what these people want from this.
That’s the outcome they desire.
And it’s for those reasons that our club ought to revoke the credentials of every single tabloid hack who writes for that rag of a newspaper. It’s not simply due, it is overdue and we could have done it for a multitude of reasons already, but this one above all.