Once again, we’re confronted with a media story which the media wants to pretend is about something other than it is.
Once again, it involves Ibrox. Once again, it involves the Ibrox fans. Once again, it involves the Ibrox club and our club, and once again it has been twisted into a shape which is not representative of the story as a whole.
Today, Martin O’Neill said that Celtic had a visit from the police prior to Sunday’s game. This is unusual. He has said that it is unusual, and that other than the events of the last game at Ibrox, he doesn’t think this would have happened.
He is almost certainly correct in that assertion, because without the last game at Ibrox, I don’t think there’s any way the police visit Celtic’s training ground today.
And what was the message for our players and our coaches? To be careful. To mind their conduct. To watch what they do.
I personally don’t think the police should have been issuing such a message to a football team before a major game.
They may as well have told our boys to try not to score too many goals, because at the heart of what Celtic players were being asked to do today was something very simple, and it is what everyone in the media is pretending not to know because the implications of it are rather large and rather severe.
What our players were being told to do was not to provoke the home crowd to the point where the home crowd might react in an aggressive or violent manner.
If this was normal, football clubs would get these visits all the time. If this was standard practice, we’d have heard about it. If this was one of those things that happens routinely, then this would not have been a news story.
But it was a news story because it’s an exceptional event, and at the heart of it is an exceptional message.
Not that Celtic players are uniquely predisposed towards causing trouble. No. What makes this unique is that there will be no Celtic fans at the ground, while the home support has a record of violent and aggressive conduct, and our players are being told not to do anything which might set off the mob.
Let us not pretend that this is not the message.
That is exactly the message.
It is crystal clear that this is what it was about. Celtic players were being told, in no uncertain terms, that Ibrox is a dangerous environment and that they should act accordingly.
It doesn’t matter how it was dressed up. It doesn’t matter what language was used. That was the message at the bottom of it.
And whilst I don’t think Police Scotland should be putting that on the shoulders of Celtic players, it nevertheless acknowledges the very serious risks that the Ibrox club has subjected us to. This is a bad place we’ve got to.
A really bad place.
We’re a football club being told that its players have to moderate their celebrations, that they have to moderate their behaviour on and off the pitch because it might provoke the home crowd into doing something crazy.
The problem is not with our players. The problem is with the home crowd.
And once again, we are dancing around the real issue and focusing on the wrong problem. I cannot help but think the reason we are doing that is because it’s the Ibrox club which is the problem, and I don’t know how many times we have to go over this.
I am already deeply concerned about this fixture.
There’s a reason Martin O’Neill brought this up at the press conference today when it was not a subject that was under discussion. He brought it up because he wants people to know about it. And he wants people to know about it because he wants people to focus on what it actually means.
Not that anyone in the media is going to bother to do that.
But the rest of us should focus on what it actually means, because it tells us a lot about the situation we’re living in at the moment.
I mean, let’s take this to its natural conclusion. Or maybe its unnatural conclusion, if you want to use a more precise term.
Say we score a last-minute winner. Are we all supposed to walk off the pitch like choir boys at the end? If a Celtic player celebrates and that sparks trouble, is the Celtic player going to be held accountable for that trouble?
Are we going to see an arrest made? Is a Celtic player going to leave the stadium in handcuffs for celebrating a goal? Or are we going to focus on the people behind the goal who can’t handle seeing their team get beat?
That’s the only question that we really need to ask.
What is it that makes Ibrox such a uniquely dangerous place that the police have to advise Celtic players to tone down their behaviour when they’re there?
This is not a football problem. This is a social problem.
This is a cultural problem.
Specifically, it is a problem rooted in Ibrox’s unique brand of culture.
And the sooner we accept that, the sooner we discuss that openly, and the sooner it is acknowledged and then dealt with, the better off Scottish football and Scottish society as a whole is going to be.
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In my opinion this is out and out intimidation of our players, for if the police are concerned about our behaviour (what a fkn joke ) or indeed our safety, then this game should only be played behind closed doors and not have been given the go ahead. Are our impartial police force actually more concerned that they may have to arrest their fellow huns?
Your timing of this story the day could not be worse. The same day we have a police Scotland post looking to identify a Celtic fan who has been accused of assault during the hearts game last season. What a clown this individual has been.
The Celtic fans did not assault a Hearts player… I think the police have confirmed this.
I think this is a disgrace, If I was Celtic I would have refused them entry to Lennoxtown. The Police should have been issuing a statement to every media outlet, Print and Broadcasting in Scotland, telling them that the Ibrox support will have to behave, and that arrests will be made swiftly, if anybody inside the ground throws any missile, or assaults anybody connected with Celtic.
So if the Celtic players celebrate a goal, or show anger if fouled, it is their fault if trouble from the Ibrox crowd kicks off, and Celtic people are injured.
Football is an emotional game, the foreign players within our team must wonder what kind of Mad Football World they have wandered into.
Our impartial police force know exactly what they are doing here, it is a blatant attempt to sew seeds of danger into the Celtic players minds, to upset their psyche and to affect their performance. Shame on them, the Huns have got another 12th man to add to the MIB.
To me, this looks like a mixture of deflection and posturing. We’re going into the bear pit and being told to tiptoe. The police are practically washing their hands of the whole thing. This is really the only pep-talk O’Neill needs to give.
Only in Scotland!!! ???????
I posted on another article that I was taken aback by the BBC Sport headline today that Celtic were “given a timely reminder from the police”. I’ve no doubt the police have visited both clubs and suspect spent a lot more time at Ibrox given our fans won’t be there. But that’s not something the BBC thought to add to their article – and yet they tie themselves in knots when it comes to giving air time to flat earthers and climate deniers to provide “balance” against the science. The suggestion that our players don’t celebrate a goal/a win is a terrible indictment on their fans – but again, not a point the BBC choose to explore.
Reading the comments here I am coming to the view that Celtic should have told the SPFL that if the police and Sevco can’t give assurances on their safety then we refuse to play. The players have been told to not goad the fans – what goads them more than us scoring a goal?
If there is trouble on Sunday then I am pretty certain that as has been stated on here before, the Authorities will say both sides are as bad as each other and the league game next week will be behind closed doors. I fear for the safety of our players, our manager and wider backroom staff.
How on earth are we accepting playing a one off cup tie without our supporters being present (and not the disgustingly 300 offered)? We should have refused to play the game in my opinion.
This fixture is out of control and heading for being a closed door fixture. If we beat them there will almost certainly be violence of some sort.
We cannot be complacent about this either though and I think the Ibrox mob will get a visit from the police also before the CP game.
Our fans must be on their best behavior. In the unlikely event of an Ibrox player running up to the GB section and celebrating I would expect the player to be punished and his safety couldn’t be 100% guaranteed.
Of course this is why Sky are still interested in scottish football….its car crash TV…nobody is watching it for the football outside of the actual support.
Sky and Premier sports that should have read.
The cops are getting their excuses in early.
Victimising our players before a ball is kicked .
Don’t celebrate when a goal is scored , it will cause a riot.
It will be nice to see a thousand police officers ringed around the pitch hemming they stinky dying hun cunts in.
Am I hoping too much that the cops will do what they are paid to.
They can’t blame our supporters for any trouble this time , so they will heap blame on our club , staff and players.
We will win this game by 2 possibly 3 goals .
Mon the Hoops, Hail Hail .
Let’s get in about that shower of shit from ibrox , GERRINTAEREM