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Once Again, A Decision Benefiting Celtic Has Provoked A National Debate.

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In a game where nobody ever wants to talk about problems, it has become one of the most common traits of all; to discuss any issue, in detail, when a controversial decision benefits Celtic in some way. Even if it’s not a controversial decision. Even if it doesn’t benefit us in any real way. We saw a sterling example of this just yesterday.

Everybody wants to talk about ticket allocations now. Everyone wants to talk about fixture congestion. The last time people wanted to talk about fixture congestion like this was back when Ibrox was moaning about it last. Forget that we have nine games in December – nine of them; today the game wants to sing a song of woe for Hibs.

We’ve played Champions League qualifiers. Europa League qualifiers. Group stage games.

We’re now in a cup final. It’s a full card.

We are guaranteed more European games after Christmas, and we still have a Scottish Cup schedule to find it in somewhere.

Suddenly everyone wants to talk about how much of a joke the SPFL are.

You know what though? As much as I agree this isn’t one of those times.

To cancel games and shuffle them around makes sense only if the governing body does the same for us, otherwise it’s favouritism. Hibs aren’t playing any more games than we are. Help them and we want the same, and then the floodgates are open. Anyway, doing it now creates further fixture congestion down the road.

The real nonsense here is having the first cup competition played so early in the season.

It’s as if nobody noticed all those European games when they were putting together the fixture list. If it was to disadvantage the big clubs then it hasn’t worked very well, because we’ve been in the semi-finals every year since they did it bar one and we’ve reached five of the last six finals. All it does is turns the whole month of December into a mess.

The ticketing issue is another complete non-story, blown up massively into something more than it is because we’re getting more tickets than Hibs.

The League Cup Final has always worked like this; it’s the Scottish Cup that guarantees an equal allocation, and even then one of the sides invariably can’t sell all of its briefs.

The press wants to make a big deal out of this one because it’s us who are in it.

Alan Hutton ridiculously claimed that it wouldn’t have happened had his favourite club beat Hibs; no shit, but if St Johnstone had beaten us and they won and then been the beneficiaries Hutton wouldn’t have given a damn what St Johnstone thought about it.

The bitterness and spite from these people is obvious, and nauseating. They aren’t kidding us, only themselves. If Ross and his club really feel hard done by, propose some reforms.

The Celtic fans will back them and the club might even decide to.

But if all this is going to be is a bitch-fest about the injustice of two situations which have been handled exactly right then everyone involved should shut it.

If this wasn’t Celtic then not a one of them would even care.

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