Tony Bloom smeared Celtic. We are entitled to laugh at their European beating.

Earlier this week, I wrote about Celtic receiving a warning from the European situations now facing our two main domestic rivals. With Hearts beginning their Champions League qualification campaign last night, I thought long and hard after that piece about how I should cover the game itself, and the tie as a whole.

Regular readers will know that I have a good record when it comes to supporting Scottish clubs in Europe. I am almost always willing them to do well, with one obvious exception. Everyone knows which club that is and understands why.

Under normal circumstances, Hearts playing in Europe would have given me every reason to cheer on another Scottish side.

There are even strategic reasons for wanting them to progress.

If Hearts are occupied by league-phase football, that may limit their ability to challenge domestically. Celtic may need every possible advantage this season considering the wounds we continue to inflict upon ourselves.

Cheering them on should therefore have come naturally to me. I have done it before and have made a point of supporting Scottish clubs in European competition for years.

But I could not bring myself to do it.

There is no point pretending otherwise. I was not cheering for Hearts last night, and I already knew several days ago that I would not be.

But it became especially clear when I wrote about Martin O’Neill’s latest interview and his continued refusal to reconcile himself to Jim White’s behaviour after the match at Celtic Park. His comments reminded me just how completely my view of Hearts and the people running that club has changed.

Outside of Ibrox, I have never really had a permanent problem with any other club in Scotland. There are teams I have wished ill upon occasionally, clubs that have treated our supporters badly and managers who have made dreadful remarks about Celtic. There are supporters of other clubs who genuinely despise us.

Even then, I have usually found some small measure of goodwill when those teams have played in Europe, because I do want Scottish football to perform well.

The coefficient matters, as long as it is not being raised by the Ibrox club. The reputation of the Scottish game matters. European money strengthening clubs outside Glasgow can also improve the domestic competition.

Knowing all of that, believing all of it and having treated it as a point of principle, I should have wanted Hearts to succeed. I did not.

I did not want them to win or secure a positive result, and the reason is Tony Bloom. It is because of his comments about Celtic supporters and the way Hearts reacted after that match. A club whose leadership publicly smears our supporters is not a club I can wish well.

We have become accustomed over the years to opposition players and managers saying foolish things after emotionally charged matches. Club officials and coaches have occasionally said things they should have kept to themselves as well.

Most of that is part of football. People become emotional after games. Disappointment takes over, tempers flare and remarks are made that look ridiculous once everyone has calmed down.

I could even forgive Derek McInnes for his behaviour after the match. He slipped away like a bitter man who could not bear to watch Celtic celebrate. I can live with that because I understand where it came from. I know what McInnes thinks of us, how he views Celtic as an institution and why that result hurt him.

But this was not McInnes or a handful of players making emotional remarks.

This was a highly influential figure associated with Hearts making serious public allegations. It was someone operating from a position of enormous responsibility and somebody who should have understood the obligation to establish the facts before speaking.

We could give Bloom the benefit of the doubt and say he acted without knowing the full details. But that would merely mean that he was irresponsibly making serious allegations without having bothered to gather the evidence first.

I find that explanation difficult to accept.

Bloom is not a fool, and he has built his reputation on information, analysis and making decisions based on evidence. It is reasonable to believe that he understood the responsibility to establish the facts before appearing on national radio.

If he did establish those facts, then he must have known that what he said was untrue. If he did not, then he was never interested in doing so, and in those circumstances he had no business making the accusations in the first place.

Neither possibility reflects well on him.

There was no professional reason for him to do what he did. I am therefore left believing that it was an act of spite. What else can it be? It looked like a calculated and vindictive attack on Celtic, and that makes it personal.

I can understand the emotions felt by those at Hearts after the match.

I do not care which of them genuinely believed in the conspiracy theories and which did not. They thought they had achieved something significant, only for it to be snatched away. Then they had to watch Celtic Park celebrate.

Of course it hurt. But pain does not give anyone permission to lie.

Disappointment does not entitle a football club to smear another club and its supporters as a salve for its own wounds.

Hearts were entitled to be angry about the result. They were entitled to question decisions and express disappointment. They were not entitled to invent a narrative which attacked Celtic supporters and cast suspicion upon the integrity of the entire occasion.

That conduct fundamentally changed how I view them.

My opinion will not change back while the same people remain in control and continue to defend what happened. I cannot reconcile myself to wishing Hearts well in any meaningful sense while the club is represented by people who behave like that.

Yes, Hearts are a Scottish club. Their results contribute to the coefficient. European participation could strengthen them financially and perhaps improve Scottish football more broadly. Normally, those arguments would be enough for me.

They are not enough now.

There is a point where the interests of the wider Scottish game become secondary to the way a club has chosen to treat Celtic and its supporters. Hearts reached that point when senior figures used their platform to spread claims designed to smear us. It reached that point when influential Hearts fans decided to push their own nonsensical narrative.

It was not merely sour grapes. It was not simply emotional frustration or a careless remark made in the immediate aftermath of a defeat.

It was a direct hit on our club. It was designed to damage our reputation. For that reason, Hearts can go to hell as far as I am concerned.

My wishes for them in Europe are now the same as my wishes for any other club that openly wishes Celtic harm. Until recently, that category contained only one Scottish club.

Hearts have now chosen the company they keep.

I was delighted with the thrashing they got. I hope they suffer a similar reversal in the home game, in front of that support of theirs.

They are more like the Ibrox club than they probably care to admit. Perhaps the growing crossover between them should have warned us what was coming.

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