This “points deduction” nonsense is just more dishonest anti-Celtic rubbish.

I know there are people who are desperately clinging to the last vestige of hope. They want to believe Celtic are not actually champions at all, but merely provisional champions, waiting on some stunning left-handed screwing from the gods. I would advise those people not to get their hopes up. I would advise some of them to get a grip.

It didn’t take the media long to move from one fantasy to the next.

Tonight, the Evening Times is quoting Keith Hackett, writing for the discredited, absolutely ludicrous, batshit crazy Football Insider. Yes, yet again, another mainstream media source is quoting from a website whose very name is a lie.

These people never stop doing this. They never learn. On the day Football Insider gets something, anything, right, I might just stop doing this altogether. Because its contributors appear to know nothing about football, they do not have any insiders, and it remains this country’s number one repository of clickbait nonsense.

Keith Hackett’s comments today are about as idiotic as you will find.

He has proposed the theory that Celtic may suffer a five point deduction because of what happened at Motherwell and Celtic Park.

Based on what? Based on any past precedent? No.

No club in the history of Scottish football has ever had a points deduction because of a pitch invasion. None. No club. Ever. No club has even come close to that sanction.

There has never even been a suspended version of it.

The idea that the league is going to subject itself to the full weight of legal consequences from Celtic, should such a thing be imposed in this case, is so preposterous and so far out of left field that it is barely worth discussing.

The media has already been found wanting all the way through this.

Any outlet pushing this as a realistic possibility, and not just somebody’s mad fever-dream fantasy, is being every bit as dishonest as the outlets which pushed the so-called missing minute theory. I cannot stress this enough: this is so far outside the realms of possibility that it belongs in Narnia.

Nor will there be a full stadium closure, which is the other sanction Hackett thinks “might” be levied against us. Nor is there likely to be an actual stand closure, despite what some other halfwits are proposing.

Again, this would meet with the full legal department of Celtic coming down on the authorities from a great height.

If the SPFL was even minded to try it, its own lawyers would surely beg them not to, because, again, let me say this clearly: it would be unprecedented.

It has never happened in the history of the game here.

Never. Not once. Not over any incident, including those where members of Celtic staff were struck by objects at Ibrox. That was a far more serious set of circumstances than anything that could be said to have applied here.

There has been a suspended sanction involving a partial stand closure in the SPFL; it happened in the last 12 months. It happened after the Ayr United versus Partick Thistle game. But it was not solely for a pitch invasion.

During that game, Partick fans invaded the pitch twice. Flares and pyrotechnics were also used. Pyro was thrown onto the pitch. The match was delayed. The SPFL bundled those incidents together, and it was that wider pattern of unacceptable conduct which resulted in the suspended stand closure sanction being applied.

In addition, Thistle were criticised because they had not done enough to identify and punish the perpetrators. I can pretty much assure you that will not be the case with Celtic.

Even in that instance, there was no question of any sanction beyond that suspended closure. The game took place during a play-off quarter-final second leg, so the issue of a points deduction did not arise and would never have arisen in a million years. Again, there would have been no precedent whatsoever for that type of action.

Let’s not forget that we are not talking about a play-off quarter-final here.

We are talking about a game that decided the championship. If the SPFL were to deduct Celtic even a single point and thus hand Hearts the title, the outcry from our club and the legal and reputational fallout would be momentous.

People should get this idea out of their heads completely.

The pitch incursion at Celtic Park was cleared in three minutes. That needs to be repeated over and over again. Reports that Hearts players were assaulted remain unproven allegations, in spite of acres of newsprint to the contrary. Thousands of hours of video footage must have been studied at this point, and yet not one example proving that claim has emerged anywhere.

Celtic have virtually dared Hearts to produce the evidence, which is how sure we are that there is none to be had.

In case the morons pushing this idea still haven’t got it through their heads, you cannot impose sanctions because of unfounded allegations. If that were the case, no game which ended in defeat would ever be settled outside of a disciplinary hearing, because people would simply allege anything they wanted to get the result overturned.

Honest to God, the SPFL has opened an investigation because it is almost obliged to open an investigation. That investigation may or may not result in a heavy fine. There may even be a threat of some suspended sanction in future, in the event of A, B, C or D happening.

But anyone waiting with bated breath for the most severe sanctions is going to be just as disappointed as all those Hearts and Ibrox fans who clung to the missing-minute fantasy fed to them by a media which knew the truth all along.

Just as it does here.

There is a world of difference between possible disciplinary action and the wild nonsense being pushed online. There is a world of difference between a fine or suspended warning and a points deduction. There is a world of difference between precedent and wishful thinking. The precedent simply does not exist.

That is the part they do not want to say out loud. That is the part they want to dance around. That is the part they want to bury beneath noise, innuendo, conjecture and the usual half-baked panic merchant nonsense.

Because once you strip this back to the facts, the whole thing collapses.

No points deduction precedent exists in Scottish football for this kind of incident. No league title has ever been reassigned because fans came onto the pitch. No club has ever had a championship taken from it because supporters crossed a white line during a chaotic celebration. That is not where this is going.

The people pretending otherwise are either deluded, dishonest or chasing clicks. In the case of Football Insider, one should never rule out all three. Shame on any media outlet which stoops so low as to print their nonsense as though it were real news.

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