Ange Postecoglou spoke to the media yesterday afternoon ahead of Nicola Sturgeon’s bombshell hit Scottish football, reducing capacity to 500 at every stadium regardless of size and of course hitting Celtic harder than any other club.
Deputy First Minister John Swinney, true to form, delivered his usual Celtic-related gaff shortly afterwards as he complained about the unsubstantiated super-spreader event at Hampden on Sunday while completely ignoring the larger crowd at Ibrox the day before, many of these attending there would also have made their way back into the city jam-packed into carriages on the Glasgow Subway.
Swinney may well have been led into this latest gaff by BBC Scotland – no surprise there then – but surely he should have learned his lessons from the last tie he strayed into this territory?
“It stands to reason that if we have large numbers of people, 50,000 fans, travelling towards a sporting event in one particular part of the country, using multiple modes of transport and interacting with each other, there is a very high danger that that will be a super spreader of an event.”
It annoys me profusely that this game was singled out of the two at the weekend however the Sun tweet is slightly misleading, his actual words were “it could well be” not that it was, see audio clip. That said it’s seems to be part of the justification for their actions today. pic.twitter.com/1Jqkyutfui
— Brian Doyle (@Stoneysnapper) December 21, 2021
The BBC started it, citing the League Cup Final as the potential super spreader event of the weekend: “It could well be and I think I regret the fact that we didn’t make this decision earlier,” Swinney stated. “I would have wished we’d taken the decision earlier. That’s nobody’s fault. I was one of the people involved in the decision.”
The contrast in the Scottish Government’s treatment of Celtic and theRangers last season could not have been more stark. Celtic had games cancelled as a punishment – ironically one of which was an away match against St Mirren (Celtic are scheduled to play there this evening but you should hold off on spending £14.99 on the PPV just yet) – then were forced to play matches when the squad was decimated by some made-up rules post Dubai. Rules that we’ve never seen implemented again.
Then when theRangers players broke the Covid restrictions to attend a house party that was busted by Police Scotland, the Scottish Government actually issued a statement COMMENDING the latest Ibrox club for acting swiftly. This site chased down the Scottish Government through the proper channels to get an explanation for the difference in treatment and eventually did receive a response. You can read that below…
READ THIS…Bankier was Correct – Read the Response we got from Scottish Government
Events have overtaken much of what Ange had to say yesterday, although it’s all common sense and well worth a listen. And no apologies for making this point again but these conferences have improved considerably since the implementation of the agreement reached with the club to allow two representatives of The Celtic Fan Media to attend these events. Ange can only answer the questions that he’s asked and the fan media guys are consistently asking a different sorts of questions that are allowing Ange to express himself in areas that would not have previously been discussed, and these events are all the better for it.
Maybe you should reassess your previously indicated confidence in the First Minister. Confidence misplaced?