Celtic fans are being hit right now from two sides at once by the kind of things that have never happened before in our recent history. I look at the fixtures tomorrow and I can’t believe that Hibs-Celtic is not taking place earlier in the day.
What that means of course is that there no live option, not even on Pay Per View, which I thought was one of the best developments in the recent history of our game and the only conceivable reason for signing that latest deal with Sky. I thought because of that our fans would never need to worry about missing a game again.
And of course, I was wrong.
Because even with pay-per-view options on the table, this game isn’t going to be available anywhere but the radio, as though we were back in the 1980’s again and forced to follow our team through headphones.
The certainty of being able to watch our team away from home on TV or on PPV was the only thing that mitigated the dreadful away match ticket restrictions which our supporters are facing everywhere.
It is shocking that we don’t even have that certainty anymore. Bad enough that our allocations are cut to the bone, and now we have this as well.
Our fans – Celtic fans; I couldn’t give a toss about other supporters at the moment – aren’t being looked after worth a damn.
We’re not being considered worthy of protection or support either by the TV companies or by the league. To English based Sky bosses, we’re not even an afterthought, and I think it’s scandalous that virtually all of us have been deprived of watching our team in an important game. In the modern era that’s just ridiculous.
It’s not like the fixture list is a closely guarded secret or anything.
This was something people could have seen coming a mile away, and the game should have been moved to the earlier slot to facilitate at least the PPV showing. I don’t mind giving Hibs the money to watch the game; I’ve never objected to paying for a televised match involving our team … I do mind having to endure Radio Scotland and Kenny sodding Miller pretending to be impartial.
The problems our club is facing with away tickets is no more a secret than the fixture schedule is, and so for weeks people have known this was going to be an issue and nobody has done a damned thing to fix it.
Football without the fans is nothing, eah?
And tomorrow tens of thousands of us are going to be forced to hunt around the internet for dodgy streams or to tune in to listen to people we can’t stand.
Nothing sums up the state of our game more than this does.
It stinks to high heaven.
Watch it on Hibs tv
Can’t. The kick-off time rules that out.
A fire stick James with a not so dodgy stream works wonders ?
Now that the Board has been issuing public statements / instructions to
the Celtic support about what it can and cannot do…
surely,
the Board will now be issuing public statements / instructions to
the SPFL and Sky about what it should be doing to resolve this lack of access
for supporters…?
Just go and watch a local lower division, better still – a junior team (if not waterlogged) with your headphones on…. pretend it’s the 1930s and you have 2/6d to last you the week….. the imbeciles running the game wouldn’t know the difference between a business plan and a butt plug.
Keep an eye on the situation James and see if it repeats itself later on in the season if it’s a game sevco are involved in,especially if the league positions started to alter a bit.
Should that game involve sevco tomorrow away to Hibs with the possibility of sevco going top of the league,you bet anything you want on it being live.
Hello I have ended my sky sports subscription as I’m not happy not seeing Celtic away games .It is time all Celtic supporters ended there subscription and stop giving these millionaires our hard earned money they treat us with contempt
Bloody Hell Radio Scotland…
It might be ok to tune in if Celtic are 3-0 up after twenty minutes just to hear their pain –
Anything else is unthinkable indeed…
If I remember back 40 years on Radio Scotland Celtic games only were broadcast live in the second half only and from ten past four onwards… (Every other team selected got the full second half – it was second half only in these days)
I wonder was that just BBC Radio Scotland once again discriminating against Celtic fans…
But in these days it was either David Begg who made it sound exciting for all teams matches or David Francey “And Nicholas scores with the drive” and match reporters were the quietly spoken Ian Paul And Jim Reynolds who I think were writers for The Glasgow Herald and you’d never have known who any of them supported whatsoever…
Nowadays it seems to be an utter disgrace their unhidden love in with Sevco –
Tomorrow it’ll be Sky results (channel 403) as visiting the family away from ma bit…
Of course if Celtic are comfortably ahead then I’ll have my fulfilment of Schadenfreude by rejoicing in the pain of them all at BBC Radio Scotland (Bonner apart)…
Jeez oh – It must be a hell hole for him in that rat infested Sevco employee filled lair at BBC Radio Scotland !
The only way we can change this is to boycott all away games when they don’t get any revenue from us they will change. Hitting them in the pocket is the only option.
The kick off time does not rule it out you can watch almost any 3 pm kick off on your amazon stick
Hit them in the pocket boycott all away games and cup games they will change quickly
You can blame Sky all you want but the fault lies squaring with our own club and those fans that continue to subscribe and promote Sky contract renewals time after time. A great many of our fans have been saying for years, on this blog too, don’t watch Sky, cancel your subscriptions. They bad mouth us and shaft us repeatedly but still the club and the rest of you Celtic fans have been subscribing blindly renewing contracts in agreement for a pitiful amount, an amount our club could survive easily without.
For those including our club that think it’s for the benefit of the league clubs overall then look at how they repay us. Can’t even go to away matches now. Selfishly shafting your own supporters was the easy option, supporters that have proven once again to have principles and clearly considerably more foresight.
Does this club an those fans think they care about us or our club? What Sky, SFA, SPFL and the other Scottish clubs. Quite the reverse as should be so blatantly obvious to you all now. Take the moral high ground for once and stop folding, the option of improving and enhancing our own tv channel is the way to go. If it means less money initially then so what. We can afford that and would have stuck it right up them. We’ve been spreading our reputation world wide, tv deals particularly in the Asian market have been agreed and who’s been benefitting from that. Not bloody well us. We may well be contractually obliged now with sky, stuck and done to, maybe not legally but that’s not a forever thing. At worst that contract will come to an end and plans should be afoot.
Foresight is needed now to find a pathway forward to selfishly separate us from them all, not selfishly keep dividing us and it should be enacted.
If the rankers can have their own car deal that means they can get away with opting out of the league sponsorship deal with Cinch, who then decide enough and don’t extend the sponsorship, then so should we regarding tv coverage of OUR games. We have our own tv channel, it’s in place and has been for years.
Stop sitting helplessly by with that all to familiar and pathetic bystander approach. We need to do the same, look after our club and our fans first and foremost.
We need to be on our own side now. HH