When Bolingoli broke protocols in the most scandalous fashion, Celtic made it clear to him that his career at the club was over. He was loaned out of the club and there’s not much prospect of his ever coming back. Most fans will view that as a positive.
The media has always questioned what would we have done had the breach been by some other player, some first team regular and fan favourite. We’ll never know. None of them was stupid enough to have done anything remotely like it.
Griffiths was involved in an incident which nobody took particularly seriously. Not Celtic, not the government, not the police and not the football authorities. I can only surmise that the incident itself was spectacularly overblown by those who tried to paint it as some kind of scandal; nevertheless, I thought it an act of gross stupidity for which the club should have bade him farewell. Those who know more than I do disagreed. Fair enough.
Had a more senior player committed a breach of the sort Bolingoli did – a gross violation, for which there was no excuse and no mitigation – I do, however, believe that Celtic would have transfer listed that player at once and I would have been one of the many on social media who would have supported that move and wanted that individual out of Parkhead.
I believe that in spite of the shambles and the disgrace that was Dubai, our club has been a leader on these matters and shown itself as being willing to take a stand. Throughout all of this we have been scrupulously honest in all of our dealings with the government, football and the health services. The proof of that is the momentous price we’ve paid for it.
Across the city, it’s hard to believe that they’ve emerged from this relatively unscathed, bearing in mind how reckless they have been at various points in this crisis. Over the next week or so we’re going to find out how seriously they take these matters.
We already know how seriously the media takes them.
Already, in the press corps, and starting with Alex Rae on Radio Clyde, there are people pleading that the Ibrox careers of these players not be cut short. What a joke that is when these same voices were hollering for Celtic to take robust measures against its own player.
It was in the same month as Bolingoli effectively ended his own Celtic career that the Ibrox club allowed a friendly match to go ahead without having the results of squad testing available to them; it was Bolingoli’s sin on a bigger scale, potentially exposing their opponents, officials and others to the virus.
They barely got press criticism for it far less sanctions, although it remains far and away the most serious protocol breach of them all so far, and not the act of a single individual of group of players; these were the actions of the club itself. The Scottish Government, which cancelled two Celtic games because one player had broken rules, did nothing.
Then, not two months later, two of their players were caught at a “house party”. Not a single one of us believes the cover story which still passes for the “truth” today on that one. Still, the club acted in a manner which drew praise from the media and Holyrood’s ruling party both … praise which at the time was ridiculously overblown.
Celtic had also acted immediately over our player’s breach. We moved fast with the censures. It didn’t stop the heavy hand from coming down and cancelling games.
This is where the story starts to get interesting, because their club acted much as ours had; both players were pretty much given their matching orders and told to beat it. They’ve been loaned out and few think either will ever return.
The thing is, neither of those players is a great loss to their side, and Gerrard and their fans know that full well. Edmundson looked like what he was; a lower league footballer. Jones had on-and-off issues with their fans and the club itself. Cutting them loose was easy. The tantalising question which had stalked Celtic now stalked Ibrox; but what if these guys had been first team footballers, worth a lot of money, the sort you can’t just readily jettison?
To answer that question we don’t even need to look at the health crisis; just look at how they’ve wrapped a protective bubble around Morelos, one of the most neddish footballers ever to play in Scotland. Their club protects him and weaves a narrative of victimhood around him when other clubs would have tired of his indiscipline and binned him by now.
They fantasise about getting a fee in the tens of millions for him; it was always ludicrous, now not even the media writes this rot anymore. Still, the club hangs onto him as a “valued asset” although he has caused them endless troubles with the SFA.
As I said yesterday, none of the Ibrox Five are exactly what we’d call superstars; but then it was pointed out to me that, in fact, all five are valued inside the club because of the role they play within it. That’s when the calls for leniency and understanding began to make sense.
Bear in mind, Ibrox’s policy is to try to ape what Celtic has done in the transfer market. They think it’s as easy as “holding out for the right fee” and that if you do that the money comes to you. It’s one of the reasons I don’t credit Lawwell with having all that much to do with the cash we’ve raked in from transfers. These players were worth the money; indeed, on at least two occasions, with Tierney and Van Dijk, I think we should have got more.
This is about market value, not what some idiot inside their training ground thinks.
Yet, look at the world through their eyes for a moment and you’ll understand why Gerrard is not likely to wield the axe this time, and how the hypocrisy of the media is being revealed. It should also be apparent why their appeasement strategy is dangerous.
They believe they will, at some point, and probably soon, have to sell top stars. I think that’s certain in the summer. Amongst those most likely to go will be one of the midfielders – their hope is that some side is blown away by the hype over Glen Kamara – Barisic and Tavernier because they think these guys are world beaters.
For just a moment forget that nobody will pay premium prices for any of these guys. Their club believes that the offers will come in.
Zuniga is seen as a first team player with potential. He’s Kamara’s replacement, and someone they can polish and sell on later. If he’s half as good as the media loves to tell you. That’s not been clear in his performances, which have been mostly dire.
Patterson is seen as the understudy to Simpson, who they’ve just signed. He’s Tavernier’s long-term replacement, as they reckon the big money bids for the captain are bound to come in now he’s re-established his reputation as Scotland’s king of penalty kicks.
Calvin Bassey might be the most talented of the three, and they all have high hopes for him playing at left back once Barisic nets them a fortune.
All fantasy you might say … but inside Ibrox they believe it. These guys aren’t as easy to get rid of, then, as the likes of Edmundson and Jones, and there is no way that the club is simply going to tear their contracts up and send them packing.
These guys are all seen as first team footballers when the big players depart; it’s succession planning, which Rodgers wanted well underway at Celtic and which Lawwell scuppered in the space of one transfer window, and which certainly contributed to the manager’s departure. Lennon is a first rate idiot in this regard; the complete absence of succession planning in his transfer strategy has set us up for one Hell of a long, and fraught, summer.
What you have to remember here is that this a second offence involving Ibrox’s squad. The first time, they handed out heavy penalties and chased both players. Now, in normal circumstances you’d think that having warned players once that they would adopt a zero tolerance policy towards any future breaches. Wait and see if that’s what happens here.
The chances are that the second offence will be handled completely differently, and less aggressively, than the first one was. That’s telling. It’s also not great for discipline because imagine the message it sends out to other members of the squad, those who are even more important to the club because they are the very people they expect to get big bucks for.
The press will not write that. They should though, because it’s a self-evident truth. Our media are such charlatans that it blows your mind at times. The Ibrox club are the same. They are about to hand at least of those five players Get Out Of Jail Free cards which the players in October didn’t get, and for no other reason than these guys are more important to their plans.
Our performances on and off the field this season are making this mob look good; in fact, this is the same old slapdash Ibrox operation as it’s always been, capable of rationalising anything and doing things in a way that no other club would get away with.