After a week of media inspired hysteria Celtic have been fined £20,000 by UEFA for illicit banners in the game against Linfield.
Any fine is unwelcome but the scale of the punishment falls way short of what some agitators were hoping for as they waited for a stand or stadium closure. At least there were no Buckfast bottles thrown at any visiting players or racist chanting. The match also wasn’t switched to avoid the hosts celebrating their hatred of Catholics.
The £20,000 could go to better purposes that the expense accounts of UEFA officials but hopefully it can be a line in the sand moment for the club and the European governing body.
Your Scottish media is sure getting some mileage out of a Uefa fine for Celtic. Nothing else happening in Scottish football then?
— Mark McInnes (@MarkCMcInnes) July 28, 2017
Linfeild get 10000 fine for bottle thrown at player pitch invasion and sectarian songs UEFA have agenda against Celtic
— marty1978 (@EagleEyeREM) July 28, 2017
Fair or otherwise is not important. Moving forward together all that matters. If some can’t do that then we have a problem
— Tumble Drift (@GerryH64) July 28, 2017
Surely everyone must acknowledge that any banner on a European night needs to be checked, there is a fine line between biting satire and becoming illicit or offensive.
No one can deny that the Green Brigade add an extra dimension to Celtic Park but equally their best intentions can be easily distorted by those that are offended by anything connected to Ireland.
For almost a decade Celtic have remembered the Irish famine once a season on their shirt- this is a club with a political edge but that area must be carefully controlled.
Across every area of the club there must be greater unity- there would be no better way for the board to be totally united with the support than bringing out a detailed statement on why they won’t accept the whitewash from the SPFL this week.
A donation from Celtic towards a Judicial Review into a decade of cheating would be the best move the directors could make.
NB Radio Scotland are looking into the possibility of appealing against the leniency of the fine before sending the biggest team in the media to Rosenborg on Wednesday.
