Ibrox Fans Are In Raptures Ignorant Of The Way Their Own Club Has Smeared Them.

Had BT Sport or Sky wanted to film at Celtic Park, and our club had taken the decision to deny Kris Boyd access to our ground, I would have been supportive of it.

I would have supported it because Boyd is not a pundit, he is a professional troll.

Nobody could claim that he was a journalist and try to keep a straight face.

Celtic will never ban Boyd.

Celtic will never restrict access to anybody in the media, although you could easily put together a list of undesirables who cannot mention our name without a sneer.

We simply do not do that kind of thing, although many of us have urged that action on them over Boyd and a handful of others, those who make no attempt to play with a straight bat but wear their biases openly and nakedly and without reservation.

Our club believes that to be unworthy of us.

As much as I wish I could disagree, you only have to look across the city for the results when directors and officials pander to such wishes.

I am prepared to accept that it sets a bad precedent, and sends us down a dark path.

As hard to imagine as it is that Celtic would ever refuse to credential people in the manner in which Ibrox did last night, it is unthinkable that they would choose to hide that intention behind a quite brazen slur on their own supporters, one that wreathes their club in shame.

That the directors over there are willing to tolerate, and even encourage, such disgrace so as not to appear spiteful and petty is staggering to comprehend.

They have lost their bearings entirely over there.

The message Ibrox sent out to the world last night is that the club’s supporters are volatile, dangerous yobs who are so incapable of self-control that the mere sight of two ex-Celtic men in the commentary booth could have incited them to violence.

Whatever I might think of the Ibrox fan-base – and I have made that clear on a number of occasions – even I would not have accused them of that.

Certainly, Sutton and Lennon are not popular within the confines of that ground, but to suggest that their personal safety was at risk is a disgraceful slur on tens of thousands of the club’s own supporters.

Had Celtic banned Boyd and then issued such a statement, the whole of our support would have been in uproar.

Here, another stark difference between the two fan-bases has been spelled out.

We would have been furious at the board for impinging on our reputations. Yet across the city, on their forums and on social media, their fans are overjoyed and they appear not to understand that are the victims of a despicable slander.

Their hatred for the press, and those two men in particular, has driven all sense of the implications and potential consequences of this action right out of their heads.

They don’t appear to understand, or perhaps they just don’t care, the damage it does.

Or maybe they do.

Maybe they recognise that their own behaviour in recent months means that they no longer have standards to uphold or a reputation to defend.

I find this whole thing extraordinary, but most amazing of all is the praise their supporters are lavishing on the club which has as good as called them thuggish lunatics incapable of self-restraint.

What a grotesque message to have your own directors send around Europe about you.

What a disturbing spectacle that those supporters are thanking them for it.