The Daily Record has been forced into a humbling climbdown after accusing Celtic of being insensitive over safe standing at football grounds.
Picking up on an article that first appeared in The Telegraph, The Record quoted a Hillsborough campaigner in relation to the introduction of safe standing at Celtic Park net season.
Celtic announced their season ticket pricing on Wednesday with a ‘creative mind’ at the Record deciding to pass off quotes from Peter Lawwell 11 months ago alongside the ‘news’ story.
After removing the article from the website yesterday the Record announced: “An article which appeared on our website on Thursday May 5 headlined “Celtic safe standing announcement branded ‘insensitive’ by Hillsborough campaigner” stated that the club’s chief executive, Peter Lawwell, had announced plans for safe standing at Celtic Park the previous day.
!We would like to make clear that Celtic had announced in June 2015 that a safe standing section would be introduced at Celtic Park and that Peter Lawwell did not make any announcement regarding safe standing on 4 May as we had reported.
“We apologise for this error and are happy to set the record straight.”
@CelticResearch @clancyc06 It wasn’t published in paper and I was not aware it had been published online until today. My apologies to all.
— Murray Foote (@murrayf00te) May 6, 2016
Celtic and the Glasgow based tabloid have had a troubled relationship down the years with today’s the latest in a long line of issues in which the publisher has had to backdown.
In 2002 the Record ran a front page story of Thugs and Thieves following an incident with a Record photographer during the players Christmas Party.
More recently the Record was forced into apologising for a story in which they asked if Neil Lennon or Hector the Taxman was the most hated person at Ibrox.
Former Record reporter Hugh Keevins served a two year ban from reporting matches at Celtic Park while Keith Jackson of the Record had his media facilities withdrawn 18 months ago.