The Ibrox club walked right into Celtic’s trap. There is no way to spin this as a win.

At the time of writing this, we Celtic fans are all still waiting, with some interest, for Statement O’Clock. It’s Friday night. Perfect for howling at the moon.

I know you guys are as keen as I am to see what the Ibrox club has to say about the way it has been slapped around by Celtic and by the SPFL. But even without the official club statement, they are already emailing season-ticket holders about tickets for the game. So, at this moment, it looks very much as if they are prepared to swallow this.

That could change, of course. We may still get the blood-curdling statement. You never know. But right now, they seem broadly accepting of the current situation.

What is incredibly amusing to me is going onto the Ibrox fan forums and seeing their response. So far, it has been an absolute litany of delusion and thinking so dense that a pocketful of it would weigh about 15 tonnes.

Some of them are trying to convince themselves that the SPFL ruling today is a victory on the grounds that Celtic didn’t want them to have any tickets at all.

This is so far from the truth it makes your head itch.

The simple fact is that Celtic never intended to withhold a full ticket allocation. We never intended to withhold tickets from their whole support. What we did do was reserve the right to tell them which fans we would tolerate in our house.

I don’t often do this, but let’s talk about why this was a moment of genius from the Celtic board. I don’t often use that word in connection with them.

It is not even that we have been particularly smart here. It is that their club have been particularly stupid. They didn’t have to be geniuses to see that Celtic might do this, because they gave Celtic every opportunity to do it.

When they refused to condemn their own supporters in the aftermath of the cup game, Celtic had its opening. Had they taken even a shred of responsibility, had they shown one shred of sanity after the match, we would not be where we are right now.

But they didn’t.

It was not just that they refused to condemn them, although that alone would have given Celtic an opportunity too good to miss. It was that they actually said, in their initial announcement after the Ibrox game, that they would stand up for their fans and fight their corner when it came to the SFA inquiry.

That, more than anything else, gave Celtic the opening to cause them a little difficulty. From that moment on, it should have been obvious what we were going to do. But the Ibrox club walked into the trap, eyes open, one foot in front of the other, like clowns in a minefield.

Oh, how people at Celtic must have laughed when the Ibrox club not only rejected our perfectly reasonable request, but vowed not to give in.

Taking it to the SPFL must have looked like a slam dunk to them. But if they read those rules properly, they would have seen that there was neither a provision clearly permitting Celtic’s action nor denying Celtic’s action.

In the SPFL’s vague regulations, possibility always looms for anyone who wants to work a bit of mischief.

Before I go any further, let me make this plain. This was not attempted mischief-making from Celtic. The club is evidently as pissed off as we all are that the incidents at Ibrox have gone largely unpunished.

The violent behaviour of their supporters did not result in proper media condemnation. It did not result in changes to the guidelines. It did not result in meaningful sanction. It did not inspire any kind of serious rethink about how this country deals with the problem of anti-Irish racism and bigotry from those stands.

People at Celtic must be thoroughly fed up with this stuff by now.

I don’t give Brian Wilson credit for much. But his initial stand decades ago on Ibrox’s sectarian signing policy is one of the reasons that policy had to end. He demanded that UEFA step in. Check it out, you’ll see I’m right.

This guy might not love our supporters overmuch. He might not love fan media at all. He might not love Celtic’s customer base actually thinking it has rights. But I know he abhors this stuff, because he has a history on it.

Celtic’s concerns were very much based on the behaviour of those supporters and what they might do at Celtic Park. This was not about trying to gain some football advantage.

But let’s be honest. When you can cause your rivals a little bit of internal bickering and trouble along the way, you take the chance. Why wouldn’t you? Why shouldn’t you?

I am certain that we have legitimate concerns. I am also certain that sowing a little disharmony was part of the appeal. By vowing to stand up for their supporters, the Ibrox club put themselves in an impossible position.

Anybody who plays strategy games knows this position well. It is the moment when you think you have made a brilliant move, only to realise that all you have done is build a box around yourself. You have limited your future options, reduced your room to manoeuvre and handed the opposition the initiative.

That is exactly what they did here.

The moment they said they would defend their fans no matter what, Celtic knew what to do. All we had to say was: you can have your tickets, but they are not getting in.

From that moment on, there were only two options for the Ibrox club. Either it backed down and failed to stand up for its fans in the way it said it would, or Celtic could quite rightly say, fine, you’re not getting any tickets at all.

Their moon-howling statement in response, where they again vowed to stand up for their fans and die in the ditch, has made what they do next virtually impossible to spin as a victory.

They can accept their tickets like good little boys and girls, and construct whatever fiction helps them sleep at night about how they are still standing up for their fans.

Or they can stand their ground, back the Union Brats, and tell the rest of their supporters that they are putting the most unruly and troublesome element first.

Neither position helps them going forward. Both look weak. Both look stupid. Neither gives them anything like a win.

I am already hearing people from that side of the city going on about a precedent being set.

But what precedent has been set here?

Violent thugs are not allowed at Celtic Park.

On the day it is proven that the Green Brigade, or any other ultras group in this country, has acted in the way the Union Brats did at that game, then the so-called precedent will apply. And you know what? It should apply.

A risk assessment is not a document dreamed up on a whim. It is a weighted and considered position, arrived at after thought and evidence.

I am 100% certain that if the Ibrox club attempts any form of crude reciprocity here, it will not be upheld unless it can demonstrate a legitimate security concern.

Whether people like it or not, whether people accept it or not, whether the Ibrox club accepts it or Hugh Keevins and the rest of the media accept it, Celtic had a legitimate security concern.

The SPFL has agreed with that.

Any attempt at reciprocity will have to demonstrate the same thing.

It is that simple.

And believe me when I say this: no club in this country which has ultras wants to pursue this so-called precedent too far. Any club which normalises tit-for-tat bans without a genuine security basis will send us all down a road that will create blowback every which way, and no club is going to be that daft. Not even the one at Ibrox. Now that this can of worms is open, everyone involved will want it closed as quickly as possible.

Ibrox has to get its house in order. If it decides to pursue this further, if it decides to announce some tit-for-tat scheme to ban the Green Brigade, then it will be the one setting the dangerous precedent.

No precedent has been set here except this one: dangerous thugs should not get tickets for major matches where there is something big at stake.

My guess is that no one wants to escalate this beyond this match. I will be shocked if that is what happens, because all they will do is hurt themselves, their own club and the very fan group they vowed to stand up for no matter what.

Some people say this will make no real difference.

They say the Union Brats will get tickets regardless.

That is not quite as easy as some seem to think.

The Union Brats, like the Green Brigade, are a registered group. Their club will not be able to directly sell them tickets as a group or Celtic will simply tell them they’re getting none. The SPFL has upheld our right to do that in these circumstances – and please note, again, that I have said “in these circumstances.” This doesn’t open the door to future action.

If the Brats turn up anyway in their gear, they can simply be refused entry at the gate.

There will be a major stewarding and policing operation to make sure they do not get near the ground if they are not supposed to be there. So maybe some of them will be present. Maybe some will not. But they will not be there legitimately, and they will not be granted entry to Celtic Park en masse.

That means anyone turning up masked will not get in. It means everyone who walks through those turnstiles will be recorded, photographed and tracked for later on if there is trouble in the ground.

Besides, even if a little cadre of them gets in, even if they unfurl a banner on the day, the bigger truth will last long beyond the fixture itself.

Their club backed down. Celtic won. That is what people will remember, and it is exactly all people ought to remember.

What other choice do they have but to take the tickets?

They can disenfranchise every other one of their fans. They can even hurt their own team on the pitch. But that will be their choice, and they will have to explain it to the rest of their support. I cannot imagine them doing it.

So, we have achieved exactly what we aimed to do here. Sow a little disharmony. Sow a little division. If they give in, take the tickets and impose the condition, they look weak. If they stand firm and back the Union Brats, they look like they put the lunatic fringe ahead of everyone else.

That was the box we wanted to nail shut.

But let’s be clear. They built the box. They climbed into it. Their club, with its reckless, dangerous and uncompromising statement after the cup game, created the conditions it now has to navigate.

It will stick in their craw for years that this Celtic board of directors, which can barely walk without falling over its own feet, has so completely stuffed them here.

One broadcast journalist tonight said that it is only grandstanding.

Well, it is pretty good grandstanding.

Whatever anyone wants to say about it, we won. They lost. Whatever decision they make now will not change that fact one bit.

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