PFA Scotland are pushing to save Celtic’s Scotland contingent from the pointless trip to South and Central America.
Ten days after the Scottish Cup Final, or 16 days after the last round of Premiership fixtures Stewart Regan has arranged for the Scotland international side to face Peru in Lima followed by a match in Mexico a few days later.
It seems like a schedule to please committee men rather than top class athletes with Celtic providing six of the players that made Scotland’s failed World Cup campaign respectable.
Celtic are likely to start the 18/19 season on July 10/11 with a Champions League qualifier with Brendan Rodgers looking for at least two weeks pre-season training before that first competitive match.
Scott Brown is likely to call a halt to his international career but the Celtic skipper doesn’t want to see team-mates like Kieran Tierney getting burnt out.
“Last year, I got six days off,” Brown explained to the Daily Mail. “I’ve had a winter break in Dubai and people might think of the break but we got battered every day in training.
“It’s about keeping our bodies going and two weeks isn’t long enough for the young lads, people like Kieran Tierney.
“Momentum will get him through pretty much whatever, but he needs rest, he needs recovery, he needs time away from football just to go and enjoy his life.
“He’s not a robot. He just can’t keep going season after season after season. You need time to chill and recharge.
“You can do it now and then but it is more mentally than anything, because you are constantly coming in, games Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, or whenever it is.
“We are in a great place just now and everything is going well for us at Celtic but it is hard when you don’t get that break to recharge and go again.
“The PFA are trying to help us out with a four-week holiday. For us, that would be phenomenal especially the Celtic lads in Scotland, we’ve probably not had that in a long time because of the early starts in Europe, Champions League qualifications… the quicker we can get that, the better.”
Brown added: “We managed to get a winter break and that was down to our gaffer fighting the corner for us.
“That is 42 games Kieran played before the new year and most people, even down in England, they don’t play that either.
“For him to play that, it is the most in European football, so our lads have been getting battered more than anyone.
“It’s PFA led, they said they were going to push this on and see if they could get it done — and here’s hoping they can.”
On top of his other failures, yesterday Stewart Regan discovered that Michael O’Neill had rejected the chance to become Scotland manager.
