Peter Lawwell: It's not the Green Brigade
While the Celtic supporters received praise for their behaviour throughout the day in Udine the club is likely to be hit with a fine after an offensive banner was unfurled at Thursday night’s Europa League tie.
The Green Brigade have been the whipping boys for almost all of problems associated with football supporters in recent months but as he addressed the issue from Thursday night Lawwell chose his words carefully.
He said: “It is a very small, rogue element. It is not the Green Brigade. It is a handful of people who for some reason think this is the right thing to do. It embarrasses the club. It embarrasses the vast, vast majority of our supporters, who would be sitting there last night.
“We are going to stop it. Even amid that hardcore of Celtic fans coming out here to Italy in December, it is a very small element. I don’t know what their motivation is, but we are going to stop it. These people cannot love Celtic, given what they have inflicted on us.
“This could well be the tipping point. People are sick of it. In 2003, our four supporters’ associations stood at Celtic Park and collected the UEFA Fair Play award. But now, eight years later we get this, and these banners. It’s just not right. It’s not Celtic.
“This is a rogue element that has infiltrated our support, with whatever objective, but it is a very small minority.
“The other thing is, last night was about Celtic from the SPL playing against Udinese, and it was fantastic. The unfortunate thing is that all this has overshadowed it.
“The eyes of UEFA were already on Celtic. There is no logic to this. If it was logical, it would be easy to sort out.”
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