Neil Lennon fires back at Mark Hateley
The former England star, whose transfer to Ibrox from Monaco in 1990 was the subject of a tax probe, accused Mr Lennon and Mr Peter Lawwell of dancing on Rangers grave with inflammatory comments about the crisis at Ibrox.
“Mark’s brought this up two weeks after we’ve done the interviews, so why he’s bringing it up now,” the Celtic boss asked. “I don’t know. I find it embarrassing.
“It caused a lot of amusement among us. At the end of last season I said there were a lot of people outside the game who don’t put anything constructive into it. It’s just take, take, take. And Mark, I’d put into that bracket.
“I don’t know where he’s coming from with his comments about us dancing on Rangers’ grave. That is completely misconstrued.
“In his opening paragraph he basically says ‘I don’t care what you think, but your title’s tainted’. To me that’s disrespectful and inflammatory to the supporters of this club, the club itself and certainly my players. Basically it’s just pub talk. Someone in his position should know better.
“So if anybody’s being inflammatory about the whole situation it’s him.
“We’d still be well clear without Rangers being in administration and the ten-point penalty.
“Hateley is someone who has played the game and should know the game.
“We’ve never mentioned dancing on Rangers’ grave at all. We haven’t taken a gloating theme to it.”
Lennon added: “He’s using the words dignity and class- well Rangers are the ones under investigation. They’re the ones who the police have been called in to look at.
“We’ve done nothing wrong. We’ve played the game on the pitch as honestly as we can and off the pitch we do our business properly. It was a cheap shot from Hateley.
“Our fans won’t take a blind bit of notice of what Mark says or thinks. And neither will we.”
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