Hateley Wants Celtic To Give Ibrox A European Super League Leg-Up. What A Clown.

Did you read Mark Hateley today? Wow.

That was one of the most absurd interviews I’ve come across in a long time.

His idea that Celtic and the Ibrox club should cobble together some sort of “Old Firm” presentation to the European Super League organisers could only have come from someone who wasn’t playing with a full deck.

For openers, maybe he’s missed the fact that Celtic has no interest in the promotion of the so-called “Old Firm” as the club has made plain time and time again. On top of that, Celtic’s position on this has been made crystal clear; the idea is of no interest to us whatsoever.

Finally, the relationship between the two clubs is hardly at its shining best at the moment anyway, and we wouldn’t be terribly inclined to do them any favours.

And that’s where this is most hilarious, of course, because that’s exactly what his plea comes down to. The two sides need to “work together” on this he says, but why?

The organisers have already made it clear that an invite is ours for the taking if we change our minds. This is part of the public record. He has reached out to Celtic via the media, and although we can trust very little of what these people tell us I do believe they want us.

Why wouldn’t they? Not only are we an historic club with a European Cup, but we’re also senior executive members of both UEFA and the ECA, which means that there is a huge political upside to them securing our support as much as anything else.

They also claim that they want their teams to be there on merit, which means national champions from the leading nations and top clubs from the wealthy countries. National champions. In short, us.

The reasons why they’d want Celtic are very obvious, very clear. It is just not readily apparent why they would want the club from across the city. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. If the invites are being sent out, Ibrox isn’t getting one right now.

And so Hateley wants us to give them a wee leg up. He seems to be suggesting that we get together with Ibrox and tell the European Super League that they take us as a pair or not at all. Ha! Even if the prospect of this ludicrous proposal was enticing, that certainly isn’t.

The whole thing is quite mad, and it’s no wonder he tries to cover his intentions by portraying this as a means for us to leave Scottish football (which proves he hasn’t read the proposals at all and has no idea what he’s talking about as the Super League would not open any such avenue) and thus “benefit” the whole game here, a theory which has been refuted over and over again.

But there’s no altruism here, no “for the good of everyone” motivation … just the oldest one of them all, a development which he thinks would in some way benefit his favourite club.

That, if this all came to pass, it would ruin Celtic’s good reputation, wreck its relationship with the fans, leave Scottish football a wasteland and plunge UEFA into anarchy appears not to bother him one bit.

That’s the measure of people pushing this whole sordid scheme.