Ibrox Looks Enviously On As Celtic Set Up Blockbuster Summer Tour Games.

The details of Celtic’s summer tour were published today and they are … well, impressive. I will post a piece tonight which will not be quite so complimentary of the club and those who run it, but it would take someone of a particularly cynical disposition not to be thrilled by the names we’ve got lined up for the pre-season games in America.

DC United are a good side, and that should draw a good crowd. Chelsea and Manchester City are on another level. By the time we face the light blues they could be two-time Champions of Europe and the undisputed biggest club on the planet. If we win the title, it could be a Battle of Britain, and a potential warm-up for a match in the big cup itself.

All incredibly exciting, even for someone who doesn’t usually care that much about pre-season, and who certainly is not currently looking forward to the coming one. These games will be brilliant though and there’s just no denying that fact, and it speaks volumes that we can arrange these sorts of matches. You wonder what they must think across town.

If they find it difficult, that’s their own hard lines.

The Australia tour event and the shocking way they behaved fundamentally altered how some of these organisations see their club.

Call these people crazy, but they all believe that a signed contract has significance and means something and they are leery of dealing with Peepul who don’t see things the same way.

Their decision to tear that contract up will have repercussions for that club which will literally last for years. Don’t forget, this was at the start of last season.

This is not a hundred years ago, and the memory of it is still fresh in the minds of the sort of people who work in that industry, and don’t think for one minute that they accept Ibrox’s nonsensical justification for this, because they just make the club look even worse.

For openers, everyone knows they did it to appease a fan-base which is absolutely rabid.

That they pander to their craziest element to that extent would worry these companies enough, but that they then made all sorts of spurious claims that the organisers changed the terms and conditions on them paints a dreadful picture; they actually looked for the flimsiest pretext they could find to bin the whole thing, and that’s something nobody in that business will ignore.

Celtic is seen as far more professional, far more flexible and easier to deal with. We also don’t come with the appalling baggage that fan-base brings everywhere with it; I doubt they are getting invited to Boston any time soon, and they are never, ever, ever getting invited to Notre Dame. Imagine doing the whole “up to our knees in fenian blood” there.

Celtic fans, on the other hand, will feel right at home on that tour. The cities are friendly places for us, and there are plenty of Celtic clubs spread across the geographical area, so anyone who is there will have a blast and see some great football teams.

It’s great for our club and for our fans. Whatever Ibrox throws together, I very much doubt it is going to have anything like the cachet of what we’re doing here.

But they can always follow Chelsea if they want, although they might not find the London club being particularly interested in having their own name dragged through the mud by this shower, not in America and not in those particular cities where there will be an especial intolerance of their chants and songs.

It’s good news for us, and although it doesn’t affect them directly their fans are entitled to wonder if they’re going to pull their own rabbit out of the hat.

They will have a job on their hands doing that, and if those fans want someone to blame … they can look in the mirror.