Celtic’s “official” response to Sunday was gutless and makes us look weak.

Last night we got Celtic’s statement. Sort of. We also got an accompanying video from our very own Joe Biden who, for three full minutes, tiptoed through his words like a man walking down a hallway in slippers hoping not to wake the rest of the house.

I have seen some pitiful performances in my time. Watching him try to find a form of words that would hint at Celtic’s displeasure without actually uttering a word of condemnation ranks among the most pathetic.

At the very moment when this club ought to be standing strong, it reeks of weakness.

It would not surprise me in the slightest if Martin O’Neill eventually ends up in front of the media saying the words nobody else at the club seems capable of saying. Our fans celebrated. Their fans retaliated. Our fans enjoyed a moment of joy. Their fans intended to cause grievous bodily harm.

No one wishes for moments like this. Sunday’s events do not serve the Scottish game. Celtic certainly should not want any association with scenes like that.

Yet the media’s instinct in this country never changes. They frame the story as a joint problem. They spread responsibility around and blame both sides. That pattern continues because people let them get away with it.

Nobody at Celtic says what needs to be said.

The only way to turn a moment like this into something positive would involve forcing real change. Instead, we received a mealy-mouthed effort at diplomacy.

This is what some of us mean when we say that results improving will not change anything. It is what we mean when we say that signing a few new players will not change anything. There is no vision at this club.

Everyone knows that is true. The scramble for easy answers has defined the way Celtic operates for years. Those shortcuts have poisoned much of what the club does because they are substitutes for leadership.

That failure is not limited to football matters.

It extends to corporate governance and to the way the club interacts with the wider game. It is visible in our failure to push for refereeing reform. We see it in our failure to push for meaningful financial sustainability rules in Scotland that would protect every club in the league.

Additionally, it is visible in our refusal to show leadership on issues where leadership is desperately needed. Above all, it is visible in the club’s refusal to fight the battle that may be the most important of all. The battle to protect Celtic and the values the club was founded on from those who wish us harm.

In practical terms there is little difference between the newspaper columnists whose job seems to be attacking Celtic every day and the supporters in the stands at Ibrox singing about being up to their knees in our blood.

This is not an equivalence between the two. It describes a continuum. One sits at the extreme end of the other. Both wish this club harm. Both will inflict that harm if they get the opportunity.

The moment I read the corporate statement released last night I knew the club would offer nothing meaningful on any of this. Brian Wilson confirmed that suspicion when he delivered the real message.

If you wanted someone to go out and show strength, show teeth and make a point on behalf of Celtic, you would not choose him. He is feeble. He is weak and he avoids conflict. This club should have abandoned that conflict avoidance long ago.

Earlier this week I quoted one of my own lines when I wrote that hatred will not be defeated by politeness. Too many people at the top of Celtic appear to believe that it will. Those same people show no hesitation when they stand against their own supporters. That is easy. An entire anti-Celtic media infrastructure stands ready to applaud them every step of the way.

Elsewhere people in positions of power will not hesitate to kick this club and its supporters whenever the opportunity arises. In that moment they find common cause.

When the fight demands real confrontation, when it demands people risk their comfort or their reputation, the people running Celtic suddenly lose their appetite for the battle. Brian Wilson recently appeared on Newsnight where the programme clearly set up an ambush. He either failed to recognise it or he wanted the spotlight too much to turn it down.

His ego would never allow him to refuse that kind of invitation. It gave him the opportunity to play the role of authority figure again, something he does not really get to do at Celtic. Everyone knows where the real power at our club sits. Dermot Desmond holds the real authority at the club, with Wilson in one pocket and Michael Nicholson in another, where he’s perfectly content to hide away unnoticed.

Faced with a choice between defending Celtic aggressively and risking his media appearances, or taking the path of least resistance, Brian Wilson will choose the path of least resistance every time. I believe that completely.

Watching that video, I did not feel like I watching someone prepared to stand up for supporters. It felt like watching a slippery operator who used the moment to play off one Celtic supporter group against another (oh yes, watch it and you’ll see it) while pretending to represent the interests of the club as a whole.

As I said on Twitter, it might actually have been better if the club had said nothing at all. If it had made no statement whatsoever. It would have been accused of cowardice. But the accusation is better than offering confirmation of it, which is what they did. Silence would at least have left some ambiguity about where Celtic stood.

Instead, we got a statement so soft, so fuzzy and so gutless that it removed any doubt.

Celtic looks weak because the people running the club are weak. From this pygmy who sat shrunk in that seat like a wee boy in man’s chair, to the gutless wonder who hides in Ireland and sends his son to speak for him and insult supporters, to the invisible chief executive who barely seems to exist, this remains a great club run by very small men.

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