Neil Lennon has defended Celtic’s decision to head to Dubai for a week of training that has attracted questions and criticism from the Scottish Government.
John Swinney and Nicola Surgeon have both questioned the trip with images of Lennon and Brown poolside with drinks setting the tone for what appears to be an unfolding PR disaster.
Celtic have attempted to redress the balance by focussing on hard work in their Social Media content but the image of Brown and Lennon set the tone for the week.
While acknowledging that every employee deserves some downtime to unwind that image the day after losing at Ibrox and before Scotland went into Lockdown has attracted criticism from Celtic supporters as much as anyone else.
Although the trip was approved in August when the Christmas protocols were reduced from five days to just one someone inside the club should have had a rethink with the club taking a panning while the other 11 SPFL Premiership sides take a back-seat.
Lennon told the Celtic website:
It is the same format as previous years, obviously with one significant difference being the protocols in place, but we hope that we get the same lift from it and can go on another great run in the New Year as we did last season, that’s our real focus just now.
As the club said yesterday, the camp was arranged some time ago, with the full consultation of the footballing authorities and given approval by the Scottish Government. Of course, we understand that we are in very unique and difficult times and there are now even tougher restrictions in place at home, but the camp is risk assessed and arranged in conjunction with Scottish football’s Joint Response Group.
We have put in place all the appropriate protocols and we have undertaken the camp as we see the sporting benefits from it and hope it can do for us what it has done in the past.
From the first day of camp yesterday and into today, the boys have been working tremendously hard as we always do on a camp which has served us so well over recent seasons. And that will be the format for the rest of the week, very tough, but productive and important sessions to get us ready for the second half of the season.
Celtic are expected to return on Friday to complete preparations for Monday’s home match against Hibs.