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.
James, I don’t think it was violence they were scared of, I reckon I was the racist and sectetarian abuse that was about to be delivered to the guest’s of BTsport. That was their real worry all under the banner of the watching eufa.
Spot on mate.
I’d say that’s exactly what it was. There’s no way they could’ve resisted to have a go at Lennon, he’s the red rag to their hoof-dragging bull! Though it makes me wonder if maybe someone at BT Sport was actually hoping for that to happen…why else would you send two Tims to their midden when Celtic aren’t there? Maybe it was Sutty’s suggestion!
These hun scum abuse everyone because deep down they have an inferiority complex. They know they aren’t really following Rangers anymore, but Sevco and it’s killing them. This uber-racism/bigotry is them lashing out in frustration that they’re not ra peepul any more…and their pain is sweet nectar for those of us that suffered through their years of cheating.
Agree with all you say. However, in Boyd’s case, I fail to understand how anybody who obviously never graduated from primary school or even mastered joined-up writing – for God’s sake he can hardly string a sentence together – gets a gig like his (OK I do). I think we’re entitled to expect a modicum of intelligence from these “pundits”. Nosferatu’s another one by the way.
A club and fan base steeped in hatred since their biirth in 2012 now follow on from the dregs of the implosion of Skint Rangers this excuse of a club Sevco are the laughing stock of Europe and beyond.
BT should have withdrawn the cameras and refused to show the game.
The fact that no one is willing to say enough is enough will embolden the Ibrox club all the more.
The media really need to grow a set.
These morons don’t realise that there own club are branding them as lunatics and bigoted extremists it’s not to often the truth comes from ibrokes hail hail
Robertson told the World what we’ve All known for decades, that within the confines of the bigot-dome anything IS possible because their fans simply cannot be trusted to behave like decent supporters/human beings
So if they can’t guarantee safety for television pundits uefa should make them play future games at a neutral ground
Absolutely ridiculous decision by Robertson but he knew the fans would let them down with EUFA present. However, before we get all virtuous, we need to clean our own nest and stop the continual criticism which sometimes gets offensive to a great servant to our club, Neil Francis Lennon.