Ex-Ibrox Player’s Comments About A Celtic Points Deduction Are Absolutely Ridiculous.

On Friday, someone sent me the latest stupid remarks from the pro-Ibrox punditry. They were from Graham Dorrans, with an equally bizarre amplification from Andy Walker.

The subject of the piece was The Green Brigade. And somewhere in their discussion they raised the issue of how, if this drags on, Celtic could suffer a points deduction.

“I think in general any club, if there is rules and guidelines to follow and a club feels that a section of supporters are not following them then they are going to take action if there is evidence there,” he said.

“Any club whether it is (the Ibrox one), Celtic, Aberdeen or whoever it is if they are not abiding by the rule and causing trouble when getting into away games, fighting stewards or whatever is it is that they are accused of then there is going to be action taken.

“Whether that goes to a points deduction from the SFA I don’t know, but this has dragged on for far too long now and I think we need to get together and draw a line under it.”

He mentions Aberdeen and the Ibrox club in there only for the sake of trying to appear balanced; it’s pretty obvious what his point is though, as he’s mentioned incidents very specific to Celtic’s dossier on The Green Brigade in suggesting it.

Needless to say, the point is ridiculous and it would still be ridiculous even if we weren’t conspiring to deduct ourselves points with insipid displays like that one today.

There are no regulations in place which would justify points deductions; even if there were, there are numerous punishments which would come into force way before that happened.

And what is it, exactly, he thinks has “dragged on for too long”?

Dorrans wouldn’t have a clue any of this had even happened at all if it wasn’t for Celtic publicising it.

The media has written about a handful of incidents, it is Celtic itself, in the act of actually banning its own fans, who put forth the reasons why in a public forum. So, if he’s suggesting we’ve done nothing or not done enough he’s clearly not playing with a full deck because he only knows of these incidents because – surprise! – Celtic isn’t prepared to tolerate them.

The SFA has not, in my lifetime, imposed point deduction style sanctions on any club for the behaviour of fans. None. Never. Not once.

Not even when the Ibrox fans are up to their knees in fenian blood every other week.

When Ibrox fans quite literally rioted at the Scottish Cup Final against Hibs the media was too busy making excuses for them to condemn them in the language that they should have.

What sanction was there? None.

And by the way, Dorrans actually sounds smart next to Walker’s contribution to this debate, which was not to tell Dorrans to stop talking guff, or to ask him to point out where in the regulations there is any sort of Strict Liability clause of the kind that it would take for a points deduction even to be on the table … no, that joker fired back with the suggestion that it would be an SPFL decision, not an SFA one, which shows how much he actually knows about the subject.

The current regulations, as they stand, which don’t even come with a proper list of sanctions, only require that a club demonstrates that it has taken all the steps it can to combat a problem.

For years I’ve argued that this is a pitifully weak get-out clause which has been continually exploited by the club across the city and others … but even if it were ten times more aggressive, and actually enforced, nobody could stand, with hand on heart, and claim that Celtic has not robustly met its requirements.

We’ve not simply accepted it, we’ve not made excuses for it, we’ve actually banned our most vocal supporters’ group first from away games and then from matches at home, so what exactly do these two clowns think merits this discussion?

You know, there are times when I do long for some form of strict liability. I think it’s the only way we’re getting pyro out of grounds for a start.

But if we’re going to introduce it, then let’s have it all.

Let’s have a UEFA version of it, which punishes accordingly because for years we’ve heard racist dirge poured out of Ibrox supporters at home and away and nothing has ever been done about it.

When these muppets are ready to address some of the real issues, the persistent ones, the one, in fact, that’s been semi-permanent for as long as I’ve been alive then I’ll take the suggestion seriously. No version of Strict Liability will ever win our support otherwise and nor should it.