Ibrox’s statement is abhorrent. Celtic, it’s time to speak up.

The Ibrox club never disappoints, do they?

They have responded first with a statement on the events of Sunday, and it is exactly the sort you would expect out of the Hate Dome. It calls for an independent inquiry. It demands scrutiny of the decisions taken before the match. But it also speaks about representing their supporters robustly.

What it does not do is take any meaningful responsibility for what actually happened inside their stadium.

Yes, the statement condemns “the disorder”. That word appears early on. But notice how carefully it is used. “Disorder” is condemned in the abstract, without any acknowledgement that the violence came from their own supporters.

There is no apology to Celtic. There is no acknowledgement that their supporters invaded the pitch. Nor is there any recognition that those supporters then attacked Celtic players, staff and fans. Instead, the statement moves quickly on to safer ground. It praises stewards and emergency services. It promises cooperation with the authorities. Finally, it assures us that anyone convicted of offences may face sanctions from the club.

That last point is revealing.

The club promises action only once criminal convictions have been secured. Responsibility is therefore deferred entirely to the courts. Until then the club itself accepts no immediate accountability. What the statement does do is focus on other matters.

Broken seats. Stickers. Graffiti.

The reference to graffiti relating to the Ibrox disaster is, of course, serious and disgraceful, and no decent person would defend that behaviour. But the prominence the statement gives it tells its own story. The authors highlight property damage and offensive vandalism while barely describing the violence that unfolded on the pitch.

Then the most revealing section of the entire statement appears.

The club calls for a “fully independent review”, which sounds perfectly reasonable. Yet the club also demands that the inquiry examine the “broader context around this fixture, from the initial decisions on ticket allocations through to the sequence of incidents that followed the match”.

In other words, the Ibrox club wants investigators to ask why Celtic supporters received so many tickets in the first place. That is the pivot.

The focus moves away from violence carried out by supporters inside their stadium and towards questions about ticket allocation and “context”. Responsibility stops being something they accept and instead becomes something they spread around.

Finally we reach the closing paragraph, where the club insists that people must treat the reputation of their own supporters fairly and warns that it will not accept a narrative that ignores the “full context” of what happened.

Translated into plain English, that means something very simple.

Do not blame us for this.

For a club whose ground was the scene of the disorder, whose supporters invaded the pitch and whose supporters unleashed the violence, the refusal to acknowledge those basic facts is extraordinary. Yet there is one part of the statement that deserves agreement.

They are absolutely right that there should be an independent inquiry.

Celtic should agree to that without hesitation. In fact, Celtic should insist upon it. The investigation must be genuinely independent, conducted by people with no connection to Scottish football and no connection to Scottish politics.

Because if a truly independent inquiry takes place, the conclusions will not favour the Ibrox club. No amount of smoke, deflection or rhetorical outrage can change the basic reality of what happened on Sunday.

At least now Celtic cannot remain silent.

The club must respond, and it must respond forcefully. We cannot allow that statement to stand as the only one issued by the two clubs involved. The Ibrox club owes Celtic an apology for the conduct of its supporters and for the attacks on our players, staff and fans. Nobody realistically expects that apology, but the debt remains.

More importantly, Celtic must use this moment to drag the true nature of this entire issue into the open.

Sunday’s violence did not appear out of nowhere. It sits within decades of racist and sectarian behaviour that people have too often ignored or minimised. Too much silence has surrounded those issues. No more.

Celtic cannot keep hiding behind the idea that speaking out will endanger staff or inflame tensions. Those staff are already at risk every time they go to Ibrox Stadium and allowing their fans into our ground in a few short weeks whilst they feel the sense of entitlement and grievance which their own club just legitimised places them in ever more danger.

The events of Sunday proved that beyond any doubt.

This is the moment for leadership. Not just for Celtic’s sake, but for the sake of Scottish football and Scottish society.

If the game truly wants to confront the ugliness that still exists within it, then it must start by telling the truth about what happened on Sunday. That truth will not be found in statements like the one issued by the Ibrox club.

Choose The CelticBlog as a ‘Preferred Source’ on Google News for quick access to the news you value.