The “Celtic themed” framing of the Albion Rovers proposal has the whiff of anti-Irish racism.

Celtic fans already know better than to hope for fair or sensible reporting from our media.

Yet some reports – as I highlighted a couple of days ago – go far beyond the pale. Certain words and phrases stand out the moment you see them. They are not neutral. They are not incidental. These are selected because they shape how a story is received before the reader has even reached the second paragraph.

They frame the debate because they tell you what to think about something before you have had the chance to decide for yourself.

“Celtic-themed.” There’s one for the books.

That is how the Daily Record chose to introduce the story of a proposed takeover involving Albion Rovers. Not as a business move or a structural change. Not even as a speculative investment. The very first lens applied to it is identity. Association. Culture.

It is doing a lot of work, that phrase.

Because once you see it, you cannot unsee it. Everything that follows is filtered through it. You are not reading about a potential change in ownership. You are reading about something that is, from the outset, presented as an extension of Celtic. And in Scottish football, that is never a neutral thing.

The person quoted in that story wanted the most controversial adhesive possible attached to it. They knew what they were doing alright. They took a straightforward takeover fight and elevated it into something more.

Clubs in this country change all the time. They evolve, they merge, they rebrand, they relocate. Some do it quietly. Some act out of desperation. Others chase something bigger. When it happens, people almost always frame it in practical terms. Finance. Sustainability. Ambition.

Rarely does anyone attach anything cultural to it.

Take Inverness Caledonian Thistle. That merger reshaped the football landscape in its area. Two identities folded into one. Yes, it sparked controversy. Some people will never accept following that hybrid club.

The merger created a new badge, a new name, and a new direction. People debated it and contested it fiercely at a local level. However, they still treated it as a football story. A business story. Nobody framed it as something larger, something more loaded, something that demanded scrutiny beyond its practical implications.

Look at Livingston. That club uprooted itself, changed its name, moved location, and built a new identity from scratch. That is as radical a transformation as you will find in Scottish football. Yet people centred the conversation on viability. They asked whether it would succeed. They asked whether it could survive.

This is normal. This is how football stories unfold.

So why is this one different?

Why does this not centre on ownership, on intent, on whether the proposal benefits the club involved? Instead, why does the framing immediately turn to Celtic, to what that might represent, to how others might perceive it?

Because the guy involved in the proposed takeover wanted to call them after Shamrock Rovers and play in the Hoops. Another “Irish” upstart club in a Scottish town? Not a chance of that. There’s no way that was ever going to pass without media comment.

Celtic-themed. It’s not even accurate. But it’s there all the same.

Because, of course, Celtic are not just a football club in the Scottish context. They are, and always have been, something more than that. They carry a cultural identity that goes beyond the pitch. Irish roots. Historical associations. A sense of belonging that extends into areas of society that football does not usually reach.

Most of the time, that sits in the background. But not always.

When that identity appears to extend, even indirectly, beyond the club itself, the tone changes. The conversation shifts. It stops being purely about football and becomes something else. Something loaded. Something that feels like it needs to be examined through a different lens.

That is what this headline is doing. It is not inviting people to consider the proposal on its merits. It is inviting them to react to what it might symbolise.

And that is where the comparison with other clubs becomes unavoidable.

Because if this were almost any other team, if this were framed as a generic investment or a restructuring effort, it would be treated accordingly. It would be analysed, questioned, maybe even criticised, but it would not be introduced in a way that leans so heavily on identity from the very first word.

Attach Celtic to it, and everything changes. Attach any trace of Irishness and it taps into something visceral. The language becomes sharper. The tone becomes more suggestive. The implications feel broader, even if nothing in the substance of the story justifies that.

That is not coincidence. Scottish football has a long and complicated relationship with what Celtic represent.

It does not always express itself openly and it does not need to. Because it exists in the background, shaping narratives, influencing tone, guiding how certain stories are framed and how certain ideas are received.

It exists in the songs that are song in certain stands, too, of course.

You see it in moments like this.

To be clear, none of this is an argument that the proposal itself should be beyond scrutiny. If there are legitimate concerns about it, they should be aired. If there are questions about its impact, about its intent, about its consequences, then those questions should be asked.

That is football. That is fair.

But the starting point matters. And when the starting point is not the substance of the story, but the identity attached to it, then it is reasonable to ask why.

Scottish football accepts reinvention. It tolerates it. It often celebrates it. Clubs change, adapt and evolve all the time, and people usually ground the conversation in practical reality. However, the moment Celtic, and everything that comes with that name, enters the frame, the tone shifts.

Suddenly, it becomes something heavier. Something more loaded. Something that carries meaning beyond the obvious. And let’s be honest, it is obvious. Nobody mistakes the dog whistle for anything else, and nobody intends it to be. Instead, the people behind it expect the intended audience to understand it clearly.

They do not express it loudly. They do not always express it obviously. However, they express it clearly enough. As a result, this story stinks. It stinks because of how people frame it. It stinks because it appeals to an old tradition in this country. The one we still call Scotland’s Shame.

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