Celtic are powerless in media game over Rodgers’ contract

On Monday at Hampden Premier Sport turned to a tried and tested format to promote their coverage of Sunday’s Scottish Cup semi-final between Celtic and St Johnstone.

A couple of former players are stuck in front of backing boards or put into polo shirts to discuss the match, giving over their time for broadcasters and newspapers as Premier Sport gets some reflected glory while prompting fans to take out subscriptions for Sunday’s match

The problem is that, with all respect Celtic v St Johnstone isn’t much of a headline grabber, the biggest issue related to the match is the Hampden App which requires all fans to use a smart phone if they want to attend the match.

It won’t be a good look for the SFA or broadcasters if there are lots of empty seats of stories on social media of fans being denied access to a showpiece match.

Of far more importance, and newsworthy is Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic contract.

On Saturday the Irishman said that he was 150% certain to be at Celtic next season but with a contract that runs until June 2026 the clock is ticking away.

Whether Celtic like it or not there is going to be regular bursts of speculation about their managers contract.

It is an easy topic for the media, discussing Rodgers, the Daily Record reports Paul Hartley saying:

He’s box office, that’s what we need here. We need to always try and talk our game up and then we’ve got to have the best managers possible for that.

So, I think it would be really important that, if they could keep him, then it’s good for everybody, Celtic and Scottish football.

He’s got a good team there, he knows how to win. Going for another Treble again, so I think it’s really important that they try and tie him down.

There’s a lot of eyebrows raised, obviously, about how he left the first time. But since he’s come back, he’s shown that quality that he is as a manager.

He did say that he’d be here for the three years, but if they could try and keep him longer than that, I think it’d be a great bit of business for the club and for Scottish football also.

Over on the BBC website it was a similar message from Stan Petrov:

It was really clever from a strong manager asking for players, I think with the new format of European football, Brendan feels that if he had more quality, more good players, then he can do even more in European football.

We all remember that when Brendan came to the club, he was talking about the European adventures, that he wanted to achieve a lot more with Celtic in Europe, so that will be his intention

Rodgers will face the media on Friday to preview the semi-final, he knows the drill, the agenda and will deal with it in his usual assured manner.