Why exactly should Celtic show respect to losers who don’t respect us?

Over the last few days, we’ve heard a lot of moralising, squealing and crying from people outside Celtic Park.

They seem very angry about how this title race ended, but mostly about how Celtic have chosen to celebrate the end of the season and our triumphs.

There is crying from Hearts and Motherwell fans over our handball mockery during the players’ night out. There is outcry from the Ibrox fans over the same thing. Apparently, the thing everyone in the country spoke about for more than a week is something we are never supposed to mention again.

Ever.

Then there is the amount of crying, squealing, moaning, wailing and whingeing from Ibrox over Simply The Best. That is just off the charts, and sort of beautiful. It may be one of the funniest meltdowns I have witnessed from their fans in a long time.

I dare say there is a feeling inside the club itself that they are not too impressed with it either.

All of it is hilarious.

We’ve been getting absolutely brutalised for more than seven days and are supposed to just take that. We’re supposed to sit there and swallow it. We’re not supposed to respond in any way, shape or form.

Well, I don’t know about you, but to hell with that.

Why should we sit and take it?

Martin O’Neill made it clear that allegations of assault and everything else were not just going to sit there unchallenged. So if the whole country wants to get involved in talking about the handball, I think it is perfectly right that Celtic mock it a little. We are entitled to engage in a bit of piss-taking.

You have a former Hearts chairman spewing about writing to FIFA. If that is not a joke, then nothing is. We are well entitled to take the tone we have taken.

As for mocking Derek McInnes, as the fans did at Hampden and as the SLO did yesterday, why shouldn’t we mock him?

Look at the face. Screwed up in anger and fury. Shouting at referees. Pointing at our players. Accusing our bench of disrespect.

That is a guy begging to be embarrassed. That is a guy wound far too tight for modern living. He either has to sit down and calm down, or expect the worst as our supporters go into full-scale piss-take overdrive.

People on Hearts forums, and some in the media, have accused us of not being good winners.

Funny that the same accusation is never levelled at those who cannot be respectful losers.

Right now, that’s everyone from Tynecastle to Ibrox.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen two sides so abysmal at losing with dignity. Hearts evidently believe that emulating the Ibrox club and its dummy-spitting tantrums is the way to go about their business, perhaps mistaking that for greatness and what big clubs actually do.

Celtic mostly stay silent as the insanity unfolds around us. That isn’t always to our taste, and it drives us crazy at times, but our club nearly always looks professional by comparison, except when it is stabbing former managers in the back.

But it is the Simply The Best complaints that really make me howl with laughter.

If you collect 3 trophies in 14 years, that is probably not a song you should still be playing if you want to avoid mockery. When you have just finished third in the league, that song practically ridicules you on its own.

How anyone can muster the stomach to sing it, knowing how deeply it now parodies itself, I will never know.

Perhaps they think it’s some sort of magical incantation. If you keep saying it, you can make it true.

Except that is not how the world works.

In the context of where that club finds itself, the song is delusional. It is supremacist. It is absolutely nuts.

We went there and sang it ourselves on their turf, in their stands. That should mortify them. When Celtic overtook the lie in terms of trophies, they should have switched it off for good. That was their chance to ditch it.

The song has become an acute embarrassment to them, and they must realise that on some level.

They can’t even change the lyrics now.

To what?

Simply The Third Best?

I always said they misunderstood the song anyway. The song is not “we’re simply the best.” It is “you’re simply the best.” So when they play it, they’re playing it for the opposition, not for themselves.

I’ve never really been able to grasp why they don’t get that.

The song has always been mildly embarrassing to them, especially after its association with some of the worst elements attached to loyalism. But now it is not just embarrassing. It is parody.

If you are going to play a song like that at your home stadium when you are the side that has just finished third in the title race, with that pitiful, minuscule trophy haul over the last 14 years, you are going to get stick.

You are going to be mocked.

When your biggest rivals are unselfconsciously singing your anthem in open contempt of you, it may just be time to ditch it once and for all.

No, there is nothing wrong with the way Celtic have chosen to mock their rivals over the last few days.

Not after the week we’ve just had.

Not after those rivals and their friends in the media proved themselves willing to paint us as undeserving winners, cheats, beneficiaries of luck, or whatever latest fantasy they had settled on that morning.

If the Ibrox club and its little friends from Hearts want to talk about respect, they should start by showing some.

Those who want respect should give respect.

Since those two clubs cannot be bothered, why the hell should we?

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