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Who Needs A Negative Media When Our Own Fans Will Spread Smears About Our Players?

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The internet is a big place, and it’s almost entirely without any sense of restraint.

This much we know.

But I never cease to be amazed – and even appalled – when Celtic fans share negative stories about the private lives of our own players.

Really, the Leigh Griffiths stuff that’s doing the rounds at the moment … there’s just no need for it. Nobody wants to read that kind of nonsense. If there was something going on with Leigh above and beyond what’s in the public domain we’d learn it soon enough.

I fail to see any purpose, any reason, any rationale, for spreading vicious rumours in the meantime.

What are some of our supporters up to with this stuff? I mean, who needs a negative media in the run up to a game at Ibrox when you have people within our own ranks who are perfectly happy to libel our footballers just to seem like they’re “in the know”?

Listen, months ago, and before it was announced, myself and some of the other bloggers were well aware that Leigh was going through some bad stuff. The media was also well aware of it. Every single one of us exercised restraint.

Every single one of us understood that the man’s personal life was just that until he and the club decided to go public.

We didn’t do it to win brownie points; we did it because there’s such a thing as basic humanity, as decency, as respect for another human being. Where the Hell is the good in some of the stuff that has been spread across the internet in the past 48 hours?

Whose best interests does it serve?

Not that of the club.

Because now Lennon will be asked about this at the press conference, and the media will push him to answer questions on Leigh’s progess when he might not want to talk about that.

Not that of the player.

Does anyone think he needs to be reading this kind of crap? Does anyone think it helps him get back to doing what he does best?

Not that of this wider Family.

Because a lot of us are furious about these rumours, and that creates divisions where there are none.

There are things that our support is fully entitled to know about.

Boardroom matters, where we are (if anywhere) in the manager hunt, what the long-term plan is … these are matters that fans have a right to be informed about. But personal issues involving people within Celtic are nobody’s business until they are put in the public domain by those involved.

And in such an instance I would hope that people would react with compassion rather than ogling from the side-lines like vultures waiting for something to die.

Honestly, it’s disgusting.

Some people really need to get a grip.

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