Can you believe the number of people in the media who think that the game at Celtic Park should be called off? Can you believe those who think that would be in our interests, or the wider interests of the game?
For God’s sake, what planet are they on?
Do you know how many times in the past few years, even before the global health crisis, I’ve heard suggestions that football matches be cancelled because of the “possibility” of trouble? None ever has been, and none ever should be.
This is not some tin-pot banana republic with armed gangs roaming the streets and enforcing their own versions of “law and order”; this is what we have a police force for.
This is why clubs hire stewards and other security staff.
Are we really suggesting that we should allow the behaviour of a few thousand rampaging Peepul to dictate whether games go ahead?
That’s a slippery slope you don’t even want to put a toe on and the people who are suggesting that we should cancel this game aren’t thinking longer than the next five minutes.
What sort of shadow would it cast on our sport from now onwards? What happens during the next title race if the Peepul threaten pitch invasions and battles on the streets?
Are we going to cancel games then too?
The police are more than capable of dealing with this situation.
Read their statements and their long litany of excuses from the weekend past; this wasn’t a failure of policing; this was a decision not to do any.
They decided on a hands-off approach to enforcing the law, which the last time I checked was the reason we have a police force in the first place.
I wrote earlier in the week about how none of our own fans should even be considering “defending Celtic Park” or any such other dangerous foolishness; it’s the spectre of this nightmare scenario which has led to these calls for the suspension of the match.
This is the start of us all being dragged into their cesspit.
Mark my words, if Celtic fans do turn up the coverage will be almost entirely skewed against our club. Anyone still thinking about this should know that they will damage Celtic in service of their own egos.
In the meantime, the show must go on, for the sake of the game itself and its dwindling reputation. If the police do their jobs this time there will be nothing to worry about.
[snack-countdown title=”Celtic’s Countdown To Champions League Disaster” date=”06/20/2021″ time=”00:00:00″ colour=”#000″ textColour=”#FFF”]