As Brendan Rodgers announced that Leigh Griffiths wouldn’t be available for some time due to issues a news frenzy kicked in.
The news that a high profile Scottish footballer was being withdrawn due to personal issues was a big enough story but that wasn’t good enough for one publisher.
True to form the Daily Record opted to speculate on the nature of Griffiths’ issues, after over an hour in the spotlight they decided to tone down their coverage.
Celtic fans have never really respected the Glasgow based publisher with a whole host of incidents to call upon as well as the infamous Thugs and Thieves story from the 2002 Christmas party in Newcastle
They were out of order with the headline. It’s too late for toning down. They’ve put it out there now and it’s everywhere. Celtic should explore the legal options available against the record.
— Barry Mc Gowan (@Barrymc010279) December 12, 2018
Everyone famous or not should have privacy and dignity.
Cliff Richard case in point— mary duncan (@marydun10978252) December 12, 2018
Making this public means he’ll be taunted about gambling at every football ground from here on out.
Doesn’t matter if that’s what his actual issue is, he’ll be bombarded with gambling “banter”
Reprehensible from a newspaper.
— Judging EBTs:guilty (@AitkensDrum) December 12, 2018
Strangely there seems to be no reaction from Celtic, not even a surprised and disappointed message from the club.
A generation ago the Record dominated Scottish news and a close relationship was essential regardless of suspicions about their motives.
Yesterday afternoon Video Celts emailed Iain Jamieson, Celtic’s long standing Communications Manager offering him the chance to comment on the Record’s treatment of a club employee.
Jamieson declined to reply, a text message sent later in the evening was similarly ignored.
It seems that some of those inside the club remain in a time warp, unaware of supporter sensitivities on certain issues.
On Monday Griffiths and Craig Gordon had been put up to talk to the media after visiting Yorkhill Hospital for Sick Children.
Tuesday mornings headlines covered Griffiths discussing the infamous Rangers (IL) huddle at Celtic Park, the next morning he was chasing Henrik Larsson’s European record of 31 goals. By lunchtime the striker was out of football for an unknown period of time.
The relationship between publishers and football clubs should be a two way street, for reasons best known to themselves Celtic seem to be in awe of a Glasgow based publisher whose printed sales have crashed through the floor to just over 120,000 per day and declining at more than 10% year on year.
NB UPDATE: Daily Record circulation for November was 121,473, a drop of 12% on November 2017.