This is a day when I really didn’t want to cover Dubai; the issue should be settled.
But two bubbling pro-Ibrox commentators won’t shut up about it, and Peter Grant has intervened in a way which I am sure he thought was helpful, but in fact was just plain dumb.
Grant says other clubs would have loved to have done it. He droned on about frozen pitches and players being unable to train. He said that it was none of anyone’s business.
Let’s start with the first one. Other clubs would have done it if they could.
Well, it’s not true. Most clubs are more interested in getting their fixtures played. And most clubs are well aware that the “look” is just wrong. Clubs should not be taking advantage of lax regulations to do things that ordinary people are unable to do.
Secondly, frozen pitches weren’t the reason the trip was booked.
The trip was booked because it’s become an annual thing for everyone at Celtic and nobody was going to miss it.
Prior to the lockdown nobody at Parkhead made any bones about this being a warm weather camp for rest and relaxation; there was training to keep players at their peak but nobody kidded on that people were sweating it on the assault course.
Celtic has a very expensively assembled training complex at Lennoxtown, where frozen training pitches are not an issue. And even if they were, the team was away for less than a week.
The journey itself would have trimmed another day off the trip.
It’s not done a lot of good in that regard has it, especially not when the players have returned to snow?
Lastly, the idea that it’s nobody’s business is frankly insulting to the Celtic fans who’ve paid for this reward for abject failure and to everyone in Scotland who has missed out on a holiday this year, and who presently can’t leave the house even to see family … by law.
These comments are typical of the attitude in football’s bubble; special exemptions have been made for the sport itself, so those inside believe they are special.
Did Grant really think these kind of remarks were going to make people go “Oh you know what? I didn’t think of it that way.”
His attitude towards this is all too typical of how those in football look this crisis.
No wonder the politicians are raging at them.