THE CELTIC BOARD DESERVE NO SYMPATHY, DESPITE THEIR DESPERATE ATTEMPTS TO MANUFACTURE IT
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 20 hours ago
- 3 min read
I read with interest and a bit of trepidation over the weekend a series of typically sensationalist headlines about supposed acts of intimidation against the Celtic Board and their families. So, what happened? Did they have their doors kicked in? Did police raid their houses and terrorize their sick relatives?
No, it was something worse, far worse.
Some truly awful, downright evil individuals committed the utterly heinous and despicable act of, erm ... putting up some posters near their houses that showed the board members in a bad light.
Celtic Board’s Attempt to Play the Victim Card Falls on Deaf Ears While Fans are Brutalized
I can just imagine the outrage from the likes of Peter Lawwell and Michael Nicholson now. I guess it probably went something like: “Oh no, somebody call the polis, quick!”
“Those damn peasants are writing hurty words about us, and then putting them in places where people we actually give a damn about might see them!”
According to the usual suspects: The S*n and the Daily Record, Police Scotland are investigating these alleged acts of “intimidation” against Celtic Board members.
Even by the usual standards of those "p*sh and wind" purveyors at the S*n and the Record calling this "intimidation" is a huge stretch.
And once again, the club are doing their very best to undermine any possible criminal charges the police might try to bring against the individuals responsible for these “criminal acts” (good luck securing a conviction if all you’ve got is people allegedly putting up posters in a public place) by going off on their own little temper tantrums via club media and quotes to “preferred journalists”.
As usual, the source at Celtic is quite happy to slander fans but has neither the courage nor conviction in their own words to put their name to it. An anonymous Celtic statement said: “This is a disgusting and cowardly attempt to intimidate and threaten Club staff and their families.”
Actually, I think you’ll find that as far as peaceful protests go, this is about as tame as it gets. No Celtic Board member’s property was damaged. No Celtic Board member was subjected to or threatened with physical violence. No Celtic Board members had the health of their loved ones put at risk by overzealous policing.
We’ve also seen absolutely zero evidence that any of this actually happened. Much like last week’s previous claims from Celtic that two members of the Green Brigade “directly threatened and sought to intimidate” security chief Mark Hargreaves.
Again, you cannot just go around throwing out slanderous accusations like that without hard evidence to back them up. We’ve seen none, and none seems to be forthcoming, yet the club just completely ran roughshod over any pretense of due process and banned the Green Brigade indefinitely.
There are of course two sides to every story. But so far, only one side has been caught being untruthful to the wider Celtic community, and that’s the board. Attendees at the recent meeting between fan groups and the board have already highlighted the numerous factual inconsistencies between what was said by the club at that meeting and the actual reality of the current situation.
Perhaps if someone kicks their doors in, drags them away on trumped up charges, which, inevitably are dropped soon afterwards, and leaves their vulnerable family members in a situation of immediate danger to their health I might have some sympathy for them.
But the utter contempt the club have shown by failing to even acknowledge, let alone respond to the complaints raised both by the victim of this completely unwarranted “dawn raid” by Police Scotland, or indeed the family of the young boy who was filmed being manhandled by Celtic’s own security staff without any justifiable reason, leaves me feeling absolutely zero sympathy for the Celtic Board Members in this case.
If this hysterical overreaction to a set of protest posters being put up in their local areas is anything to go by, God only knows how they’ll react if some idiot actually did engage in genuinely threatening, intimidating or even violent behavior towards them.
One of my teachers at high school always preached the mantra: “Treat others as you would like to be treated.”
Well, the Celtic Board have show us how they like ordinary fans to be treated, so, I make no apologies for being utterly indifferent to their current “plight”.
