Boyd Has Privately Apologised To Celtic’s Captain. He Must Now Do It In Public.

At the pre-match Celtic presser today, Callum McGregor confirmed that he has had a personal apology from Kris Boyd over the newspaper article which suggested that an Ibrox player should have “(tested) his face mask.”

Those comments provoked widespread fury from the Celtic supporters, and the club itself responded to them.

According to the captain, the matter is now resolved. Boyd personally reached out to him, and whilst Callum wants to keep the details of the conversation private – as you’d expect – he is satisfied with the outcome.

But it does pose one burning question, as well as offering an insight into Boyd’s general character.

Why didn’t he apologise publicly?

Instead, Boyd issued a scandalous, mealy-mouthed non-apology in which he suggested that the anger over this existed in the minds of only a small number of Celtic fans.

But we can now see that Boyd realised that he was out of order, or perhaps was spooked into that realisation by the backlash.

Either way, he could – and should – have made that clear in his “clarification” column, where, instead, he flatly denied that he had done anything wrong.

The simple fact of it is that Boyd is putting his ego before doing the right thing.

He is happy to apologise in private but not in public, and that’s the mark of someone utterly gutless because as happy as Callum is to accept that apology, the comments were made in a national newspaper; that’s the very definition of public.

The apology for them ought to have been made the same way.

It is atrocious that this small, spiteful man thinks that it’s acceptable to do what he has done without issuing a proper response to it. His employers continue to be subjected to embarrassment for hiring him and paying him a wage.

And the thing of it is, you know that it’s just a matter of time before he says something just as offensive.

Already this season, Celtic has publicly expressed its concern about his conduct, and that comes after Dundee did it – because of a column about Leigh Griffiths – for another disgraceful piece of trash with his name on it.

A public apology not only shows contrition but acts as a punishment. And a punishment acts, or should act, as a deterrent against future aberrant behaviour.

I see no evidence that Boyd has learned any lesson from this, which makes another outrage a certainty.