Those who smeared Celtic fans must now account for it.

The narrative against Celtic fans had already collapsed when Police Scotland confirmed that no formal complaints had been made by Hearts over alleged assaults on their players. Now Cammy Devlin has put the whole thing to bed completely.

Devlin shared a dressing room with the Hearts players that day. He is in the best possible position to know what happened to them, who was hurt, who was assaulted, who was shaken up and who required treatment.

He was there. He was part of that squad. He saw the aftermath from inside the room, not from a commentary position, not from a social media clip and not from the fever swamp of Scottish football grievance culture.

Today, he said no Hearts players were hurt. That should end it.

Because once you add that to Police Scotland confirming they had received no formal complaints from Hearts about alleged assaults, the whole story collapses into the gutter where it always belonged.

The claim that Celtic supporters had physically attacked Hearts players was one of the most serious smears aimed at our support in years. It was allowed to grow legs before the evidence existed. It became a media narrative before anyone had established the facts.

Now the facts are here. No formal complaints. No injured Hearts players. No evidence produced to support the lurid claims. So what happens next?

Some will say nothing. That’s not going to fly. Because certain people in the media owe Celtic fans explanations over what they claimed to have seen.

Not apologies. I am not stupid. I know how this works. These people are not built for apologies. They are not built for public correction. They are not built for sitting in front of a microphone and saying, “I got that badly wrong.” Scottish football punditry contains many things, but humility is rarely one of them.

But explanations? Aye. They owe us those.

Pat Bonner owes Celtic fans an explanation. Pat Nevin owes Celtic fans an explanation. They are not alone, but their claims were the loudest so they’ll do for starters.

Both men were part of the noise that helped turn an emotional pitch invasion into something darker, uglier and more malicious. This was not simply people saying the scenes were chaotic. Nobody serious disputes that they were. This was not simply people saying Celtic fans should not have gone onto the pitch.

This was about alleged assaults. This was about specific claims of physical attacks on Hearts players. That is an entirely different category.

Nevin’s claim was not vague. He was quoted as saying that some Celtic fans attacked Lawrence Shankland and that “two or three” had punched him. This is something he says he witnessed personally. That is not colour commentary. That is not heat-of-the-moment opinion. That is a serious allegation of criminal conduct.

So where is it? Where is the footage? Where is the complaint? Where is the injured player? Where is the witness statement? Where is the evidence?

If Nevin saw what he claimed to see, then he is not merely a pundit with a view. He is a witness to an alleged assault. Hearts should have been asking for his account immediately. Police Scotland should have been made aware of it. The claim should have been tested properly, because that is what serious allegations require.

If he did not see it, then he should explain why he said it.

That is not an unreasonable demand. It is the bare minimum.

The same goes for Pat Bonner. If Bonner said he saw an assault, then he too should explain exactly what he saw, where he saw it, who was involved, what angle he had and why that claim has not been supported by the later facts. Celtic fans are not asking for miracles here. We are asking adults in the media to account for serious claims they helped put into the public domain. Because the problem is not just that they may have been wrong.

The problem is what those claims did.

They helped create an image of Celtic supporters as a violent mob physically attacking opposition players. They gave fuel to every hostile headline, every rival fan fantasy, every lazy pundit who wanted to talk about shameful scenes without doing the hard work of separating disorder from criminal assault.

Hearts issued their statement. The media amplified it. Tony Bloom spoke about assaults. Others piled on. Then, once the evidence failed to materialise, everyone started getting quieter. Funny how that works.

The allegations were loud. The retreat has been silent.

That is not good enough.

Cammy Devlin has now done more to clarify the situation than a lot of professional broadcasters and journalists managed in the last three weeks. He did not dress it up. He did not need to protect Celtic fans. He had no reason to help our side of the argument. He plays for Hearts. He lived through that horrible ending. He was gutted. He had every emotional reason to lean into the grievance.

And still, he said no players were hurt. That matters. That’s the ballgame. That’s the last collapse of this story, the last proof that it was all a lie.

This comes from inside the Hearts dressing room. It removes the last plausible hiding place for the people who wanted this story to be true. It matters because the narrative against Celtic supporters has not merely weakened. It has died.

Now we need to talk about accountability.

Not the pitch invasion. That has already been discussed to death. Celtic fans should not have gone onto the pitch. Fine. That point has been made. Punish anyone who committed actual offences. Fine. That point has been made too.

But what about the people who made claims that now appear unsupported by the evidence? What about the pundits who spoke as if they had seen assaults? What about the journalists and broadcasters who let the story run wild? What about those who helped put a stain on the Celtic support and then moved quietly on when the facts began to shift?

That cannot be allowed to happen.

Because this is how smears work in Scottish football. The allegation gets the front page, the live broadcast, the panel discussion and the moral outrage. The correction, if it comes at all, gets buried. The damage is done. The public memory keeps the first version because the first version was louder. That is why Celtic fans should not let this go.

Bonner and Nevin do not get to simply drift away from this.

Not because they criticised Celtic supporters. We can take criticism. God knows we have had enough of it. They need to answer because they made, or appeared to support, claims of criminal behaviour against our fans.

That is different. That demands a higher standard.

Nevin especially should know better. He has been around the game long enough to understand the weight of words. If you say players have been punched, you had better be certain. Not almost certain. Not emotionally carried away. Not guessing from a chaotic scene. Certain.

And if you are not certain, you keep your trap shut.

That is supposed to be the job.

Bonner should know better too. A former Celtic player, a man who knows this support, should have understood how damaging those claims would be if they were wrong. If he saw something, tell us what it was. If he misread something, say that. If he repeated something he had not properly verified, admit it.

But do not hide behind the general chaos of the day.

That will not do.

Because the specific claim has now been challenged by the absence of complaints and by a Hearts player himself. The line has been crossed from opinion into accountability.

I do not expect apologies. Not from this lot. Apologies require a level of self-awareness the Scottish football media rarely displays when Celtic supporters are the ones smeared.

But I do expect questions. I expect Celtic fans to keep asking them.

What did you see? Or what did you think you saw? Was this you taking someone else’s word for it? Did you misinterpret a situation? You know what? I’ll take that an answer. Tell me that and I’ll accept it. But then you have to admit you were wrong.

Here’s a last question; why should anyone trust your judgement the next time you make a serious claim about Celtic supporters?

Until those, and other, questions are answered, this issue is not over.

Not for me. Not for many Celtic fans. Because the lie has been killed and now those who helped spread it have to explain why they did that.

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