The news that Celtic has, for two years, been conducting an independent investigation into historic abuse claims came as no surprise to me and should have come as no surprise to readers of this blog and a handful of others who’ve tackled this matter.
I’ve maintained for a while that “legal proceedings” were ongoing which prejudiced any further announcement, and I said that the position of any PLC was to rightly resist outside pressures until facts could be presented to its directors and its shareholders.
This has been self-evident for a long time.
When the club says nothing it is pilloried, even though the club and blogs like this have repeated over and over again that the legal position compels us not to react with tub-thumping or commentary which blurs these issues even further.
There are enough publicity seeking individuals and bandwagon jumpers out there without us adding to the white noise.
James Dornan ought to be ashamed of his public preening and posturing of the last few weeks. Those in the media who leaped to assume the worst ought to be ashamed of theirs. They really did believe that Celtic was ducking in the hope that all these matters went away.
Don’t even get me started on Adam “WATP” Tomkins.
They really did simply presume that our board were more interested in covering their backs than with the rights and the plight of the victims; how dare they level such ghastly allegations without knowing the full facts? When this is done a lot of people should never be allowed to set foot inside Parkhead again.
Those agendas were all about us.
These people owe us an apology, and I sincerely hope they have the good grace to now admit that and offer it.
But I don’t believe they will.
They will shift their position from one where they demanded statements to a policy of “wait and see.”
I have no doubt that whatever the outcome, these people will still be hollering.
Find no fault with the club’s actions and they will scream white-wash.
Admit this “moral responsibility” they were placing such store in not that long ago and pay victims settlements, and they will scream cover-up.
Accept legal responsibility and liability and they will still demand investigations and reparations and SFA inquiries and title stripping for God alone knows what offences under the regulations of football.
Nothing will be enough to silence their hollering for “justice.”
There are people who will never be satisfied, no matter what Celtic does.
They will never be sated because their hatred of Celtic is all that matters to them.
They will forever believe we are guilty of every crime they can conceive of and it does not matter that there is not a shred of evidence for their more outlandish theories. No restitution we make will ever come close to giving them their own version of closure.
The only closure they are interested in is the closure of Celtic Park.
Shame on every one of them.