Irony overload as Graeme Souness names the unacceptable face of Scottish football

Graeme Souness knows a thing or two about the unacceptable face of football.

In August 1986 he failed to make it until half time in his first domestic match as player manager of the now in liquidation Rangers club. A brutal attack of George McCluskey kicked off an 18 man brawl at Easter Road.

A year later Billy Stark was the target, on Scotland duty he shamed the nation with brutal over the ball assaults on Peter Nicholas of Wales and Siggi Jonsson of Iceland.

His main contribution to football at Rangers was one of the most violent attacks seen in a European Cup tie when even Archie MacPherson was taken aback by the violence used on a Steaua Bucharest player.

While managing Blackburn Rovers he accepted payments from his old mate Dave Murray. As a manager in England he bought Barry Ferguson, Tugay and Jean-Alain Boomsong from his old club, the Boomsong deal later resulted on a police raid on Rangers where some interesting correspondence was passed to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.

Sitting in his TalkSport echo chamber with Jim White and Simon Jordan the former Rangers manager was in his element.

Picking up on the broadcast, The Sun reports Souness saying:

Celtic now have a major problem because if you’re a sponsor of a company looking to sponsor a football team in Scotland, would you consider Celtic anymore? No not at all.

And the decision makers at Celtic, by being silent on this matter, they’re compounding the problem. They are causing such a problem for themselves.

This isn’t just a talking point in Scotland, it’s a talking point around the world. They have shot themselves in the foot big time.

It’s amazing to me, now it is a minority that were guilty of this, but this minority are damaging the club beyond belief.

And if you’re a Rangers supporter then it’s happy days, on you go, keep your silence, keep it going.

They should have been out days ago condemning this and they’ve not.

For everyone who doesn’t like Celtic then it’s music to their ears, the silence is brilliant, keep it going.

They’ve shot themselves in the foot and they must see that. They are now the unacceptable face of Scottish football.

Celtic Football Club has paid HMRC every penny owed on time, without ever defaulting.

David Tanner covers Scottish football for TalkSPORT and is a welcome guest of Celtic’s Communication Manager.