Celtic will decide our own title race, not lie down for someone else’s.

So Sky Sports News has finally asked the question that is not on everyone’s lips, but which some people clearly want floated anyway: would Celtic fans, Ibrox fans or Hearts fans want their team to lose if it stopped a rival winning the title?

I think you can safely say Hearts fans don’t care much if it is not them. If they come to Celtic Park already out of the race, I don’t think they will be terribly inclined to worry about doing anyone a favour. I don’t think they would care whether it was us or the Ibrox club that won it. I think they would play to win regardless of the circumstances.

So, the question really comes down to two clubs.

In point of fact, it only really comes down to one.

The idea of taking a defeat to stop a rival winning the title sounds, on the surface, like a simple tribal question. But I don’t care who wins the title if it is not us. I want Celtic to win every single game we can. I want every single point we can get.

The difference between finishing second and third might not matter if we win the Scottish Cup in terms of which European competition we enter next season. But that does not mean finishing third does not matter.

We are the biggest and richest club in this country.

A third-place finish would be a catastrophe. It would be a public relations disaster, a reputational beating and a humiliation. It would also expose us to an unacceptable level of Europa Conference League risk, because we would still have to win the Scottish Cup and then get through qualifiers.

A third-place finish is nothing short of a cataclysm for Celtic.

Would I willingly subject us to that level of risk and embarrassment on the off chance that it swung a title race?

No. Absolutely not.

We have to think of ourselves first and foremost. That is all I will be doing. And let’s not beat around the bush. This question is about us. It is not about them.

The Ibrox club cannot prevent Celtic from winning the title from this point forward. Literally nothing they can do can guarantee that we won’t win it anyway. They play Hearts next, and they have no incentive to throw that game. Even if some of their fans think the league race is already over, a victory puts them right back in it.

Aside from that, by what mechanism can they help Hearts?

How do they throw a game to help Hearts? They can’t. There is no other fixture that matters in that context except the one against us. And all they can do in that one is try to get a result against us, which they will anyway.

So, this is a fake question. It is a ridiculous choice dressed up as a general dilemma.

In reality, it is about one team and one game. The final game of the season. The possibility that if Celtic beat Hearts, the Ibrox club could win the title. The prospect that, if losing was necessary to deprive them of it, Celtic simply would not show up.

This is a question about Celtic.

It is not a question about any of the other teams. It is a question directly to Celtic fans, and to the club itself: would you lie down to stop the Ibrox club being champions?

Even Sky seemed to acknowledge that.

Its original headline asked whether fans would be happy to lose if it stopped their rivals winning the title. But the question only explicitly applies to Celtic fans as we’re the only ones who could conceivably face the choice.

The fact that the headline was later changed suggests that even they were not fully prepared to indulge the fiction that it was about anything else.

There is, of course, a strategic argument in favour of wanting to stop Ibrox. Nobody wants to see the Ibrox club walk straight into the Champions League groups and guarantee a £40 million jackpot we might not get near.

But that is kind of the point.

If we are in a position to influence this anyway, then in all probability the match between ourselves and Hearts will decide which of us finishes second and which finishes third.

Second still gives us a chance at the Champions League. The route is brutal, and I do not fancy us getting through it, but the chance exists. The sliver of opportunity is there.

We are not leaving that on the table. Not in a million years.

There is another thing I have always wondered about those who say they would be in favour of Celtic throwing the last game if it stopped the Ibrox club winning the league.

If we go into that final game with Hearts and they need a win to win the title, there is every possibility that, even if we did lose to them, that the Ibrox club might not get the result they need at Falkirk anyway.

In that scenario, we would have thrown ourselves into third place for no benefit at all. We would take a reputational and financial hit in service of an outcome that would have happened anyway.

When you think about it in that context, the whole idea becomes ridiculous.

It has always been straightforward to me. I love my club more than I detest any other club. That has always been the case. I celebrate Celtic’s triumphs for what they mean for us, not for what they mean for someone else. Most Celtic fans are the same.

That is one of the things that differentiates us from certain other clubs and certain other supporters, who treat victory as a triumphalist statement over an enemy. For them, it often seems more about beating someone else than winning something for themselves.

We don’t think about it the same way.

The only question I ask is what benefits Celtic.

If we are still in the race for first on the final day, then this whole argument is moot. We want Celtic to win. Obviously. If we are in the race for second or third, then we want Celtic to finish second. It is as simple as that.

If the Ibrox club manages to scrape over the line by a point, a goal, or whatever it might be, then that is just the way it is. The blame for that would lie in our own house, not with the players on the pitch or the manager who decided to go all out to make sure we finished the season properly.

If we do not win this title, it will probably be by the narrowest margin. A single game. A single point. Maybe even a single goal.

When the margins are that small, every single person involved has to sit down and ask themselves one question: did I do everything I could?

Could I have given more? Could I have done more?

For a lot of people inside Celtic Park, the answer to that is an obvious, resounding hell yes.

They could have done much more. Had we spent money in January, any money at all, we would not now be taking a £40 million or £50 million gamble. That was a decision made inside our walls. Nowhere else.

So no, Celtic should not lie down for anyone or for any reason. Not for Hearts. Not to hurt Ibrox to make some tribal point. Nor to satisfy people who hate the club across the city more than they love their own.

Celtic should play to win because Celtic should always play to win. If others benefit from that, so be it. Our job is not to manage someone else’s title race. Our job is to protect our own standards, our own reputation and our own future.

Anything else is small-time thinking.

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