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UEFA’s June Games Scenario Conjures Up A Dark Possibility For Sevco. That We Might Finish The Season.

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This morning, The Daily Record wrote a piece on what every club in the league’s “ideal outcome” was.

They got most of it right. In one count they were more right than they knew.

In another they were absolutely 100% wrong.

Their 100% wrong scenario – as they knew themselves, as they knew full well – was to say that the ideal outcome, for Celtic, was that the league stops now and that the title is awarded “as is.”

But that is not our optimal scenario. Nobody at Celtic wants it. If there is a way to complete this campaign, where nobody is put at risk, and with UEFA’s seal of approval, we’ll grab it with both hands, hold on tight to it and not let it go.

Because Celtic has nothing to fear from completing the season. Nothing at all. We have the firepower and the talent and the double digit lead and so we would prefer to do it in a way that shuts down the clownish commentary from across the city.

The one aspect of this that The Record read 100% right is that, for Sevco, the only optimal scenario is one where the season ends early and is voided. Because these desperados have nothing left to play for and no other way to convince themselves that they’ve secured even a modest triumph.

This season has been a colossal failure for them.

Of all the clubs, I reckon they probably have the least interest in getting this campaign up and running again. Their demand last night that it be completed, but that the games take place in front of full stands, was so fraudulent it was breath-taking. It’s the unlikeliest scenario there is, and they are well aware of that fact.

Today UEFA has made the decision to cancel the Euros. It needed to be done. Frankly, it’s ridiculous that it took them this long to get there. But now that they have, they think they’ve got an open shot at a solution to the larger problem; play the seasons out in the summer.

I’ll be honest, I reckon the strategy is doomed to failure.

Their gamble – that this thing has run its course by then – appears optimistic at best, and the idea that every national league with games still to play can complete them in a window of weeks, all at the same time, seems grossly at odds with the reality of this as we know it right now.

But you just never know.

A virus like this goes through random mutations every month or so, and in the case of SARS we got lucky because one of them greatly reduced its potential to spread. SARS is the precursor to this, so it may well be that this thing does start to recede as quickly as it has emerged.

It’s also possible that our current social distancing measures might mitigate the spread enough that we bring this under control.

For that to happen, the government has to do more and put more measures in place, but they are likely coming.

So UEFA’s scenario, whilst unlikely, is not impossible.

And you know what?

At Sevco they dread the possibility that we can get this back up and running, and they are especially fearful that we can do it and then head straight into the next campaign. They aren’t built for that. Their squad isn’t large enough or good enough for it and they have no money to rebuild it, no matter what fantasies about “Paisley born billionaires” are in the papers today.

The continuation of this campaign is their worst nightmare.

Aside from the dressing room being in anarchy, and in spite of needing the money, there is a greater need over there; the continual suspension of reality. They had turned the possibility of the season being ended early into a scenario where they could see a win for themselves. Their statement last night makes it clear just how desperate they are for anything that can cast a shadow over Celtic and what we’ve built; a club that is ten times what theirs is.

This is how they intended to build a “feel-good factor” amongst their fans.

Whatever happens here, that club is the home of the losers. Celtic’s power in Scotland will be undimmed whether we win this league by playing eight more games or football is suspended and we get it by dint of the 30 we’ve already played.

Their club is in the midst of an existential crisis and that will remain the case whether games are played or not.

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