Kris Boyd last night desperately tried to save his lucrative job on Sky Sports by issuing a clarification via Scottish Sun, the same newspaper were he yesterday complained that theRangers players had failed to test Callum McGregor protective face mask which the injured Celtic skipper wore at Celtic Park in midweek to allow him to play in the match that Celtic won 3-0.
“Look at Celtic. Callum McGregor played with a fractured cheekbone. The fact he managed to get through the 90 minutes without anyone testing out that face mask is another story, but his commitment to the team was tremendous,” Kris Boyd wrote. Earlier he had been complaining that the opening Celtic goal scored after five minutes by Reo Hatate should have been ruled out by referee Bobby Madden as an Ibrox player had suffered a head-knock colliding with a teammate.
The outrage at Boyd’s remarks grew throughout the day yesterday as his comments were widely shared on social media and reported on in all the Celtic Fan Media sites including of course The Celtic Star.
Then rather marvellously – given their previous reluctance to stand up to attacks on our club – the club released a short statement that appears to have had the unanimous support from the Celtic fans. The Celtic’s statement read: “With regards to comments made by former professional footballer Kris Boyd concerning Callum McGregor’s injury, we can confirm that the matter is currently being addressed by the club.”
By this time panic had set in and Kris Boyd hurried to issue a clarification Scottish Sun but not an apology.
“My Old Firm (sic) column in today’s Scottish Sun appears to have irked some Celtic supporters. Therefore I think it’s right that I add some context and clarification to a reference I made about Callum McGregor.
“I wrote: “The fact he managed to get through the 90 minutes without anyone testing out that face mask is another story, but his commitment to the team was tremendous.”
“Some have taken that line to mean I wanted one of the Rangers players to intentionally try and hurt the midfielder. However, that is absolutely and unequivocally not the case. It was simply meant as a criticism of the Rangers players for their failure to get close to McGregor.”
Celtic supporters are well aware that a Celtic player, star goalkeeper John Thomson lost his life playing against Rangers FC on 5 September 1931 and the idea that any former professional footballer would bemoan the fact that players in one team failed to inflict further damage to a fellow professional merely to achieve some sort of sporting advantage during a game of football is sickening, disgusting and frankly evil.
Kris Boyd can have no place in Paradise again, Celtic should tell Sky Sports – who on Wednesday night were able to broadcast pictures of the incredible Celtic Park around the world to a huge, record breaking audience – that the club’s cooperation with the broadcaster will be reduced to the minimum necessary should Boyd not be removed from being involved in ANY Celtic game thy broadcast, home or away.
A line has been crossed. There is no going back. Celtic should ban him for life from Celtic Park and warn Sky Sports of the consequences should they not remove him from all Celtic games going forward. It is that simple.
Well done to Celtic for standing up for the Callum McGregor and taking the views of the support into account. Here’s the Celtic statement as posted on social media yesterday with some responses below…
With regards to comments made by former professional footballer Kris Boyd concerning Callum McGregor’s injury, we can confirm that the matter is currently being addressed by the club.
— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) February 4, 2022
“Intimating violence against the Club captain who has a serious face injury is a straight forward open and shut ‘He’s not welcome at Celtic Park’. No apology is acceptable. He said it and he obviously meant it. This is no misunderstanding from Boyd.”
“He should not be involved in football in any capacity no matter what clubs player he was advocating violence towards.”
“That’s the type of PR we want and deserve. Celtic Football Club making a statement saying ‘these are matters we are aware of, that we take seriously, and we are proactive in tackling them’ around the many issues we face from biased journalists and broadcasters.”
“He has been allowed through his TV work and pieces in the rags to put over his agenda, these outlets have facilitated it. They are as much out of order as he is. Tell Sky enough is enough and withdraw any co-operation with the Sun, something that should have been done long ago.”
“For years it’s been a joke topic how he gets work as a pundit. He offers nothing to discussions, acts like a kid, has nothing when challenged by other pundits. His bias and immaturity towards Celtic is embarrassing. It’s now time he was dropped by the media.”
“Delighted you are addressing this, well done.”
“Excellent – guy’s an utter embarrassment to Scottish football.”
“Excellent. Any knowledgable, respectable, credible ‘pundit’ wouldn’t lower themselves to the level of wishing any player an injury.
Perhaps he was just upset at his own derby goal scoring total being passed by a player in his first derby match, within 42 minutes.”
“Well done Celtic. An absolutely moronic statement from a total imbecile. Hopefully Sky Sports are also asking themselves if this is how they want to be represented!”
“He should never be allowed to set foot in Celtic Park again, Those comments were disgraceful and Sky Sports should also look at that, and decide if that’s what’s representative of their values from a pundit who works for them…”
“Well done Celtic. He needs to be brought to task. We all don’t mind a bit of banter but questioning why (the)Rangers players didn’t try and cause a further or more serious injury to Callum is disgraceful.”
“Well done Celtic, please ensure that cretin is nowhere near our stadium again.”
“To infer and encourage a violent assault on a professional football player is absolutely disgusting. Well done Celtic dealing with this an I hope Scotland Sky do the same. Shocking comments from Boyd.”
Shocking comments in Sun from Kris Boyd suggesting in his column, that Rangers players should have applied bodily harm, on Callum Macgregor should be sacked
— Sligotim (@JohnFallon8) February 4, 2022
What all Celtic supporting subscribers to Sky Sports should do is to notify Sky that unless they sack Boyd over this then they will cease to purchase any Sky programmes.I only watch Celtic games anyway,and I can do that in the pub.
Well done Celtic. Comments like Boyd’s come from a deep rooted sense of entitlement – the “all Taigs are targets” mentality. Don’t let him get away with it.
I totally agree 100%
There is no mention of the Boyd issue on the BBC (Bears Before Celtic) website, how surprising!!
Does anyone really think that Bankier and Co will follow through on this? This will die down and they will quietly forget about it. Their form tells us this.
A couple of things need to happen here, the club need to ban him no doubt about that, dont think lifetime is rewuured, two years would cover it, in that time they will have selected from the many other cherrleaders and he will be forgotten but it will deliver the message.
The second thing that must happrn is one of the club selected fan forums should run a poll asking Celtic fans if they will continue with their Sky subscrption if they continue to employ this person orothers whoshare jis views.
Perfect storm lets stand up instead of sitting at the back of the bus
There has been a lot of injustice against my club over the years and not a word or backing from Celtic so a welcome this intervention from Celtic so in the future stop letting our club be a doormat thinking they can say what they like against the best support and club in the world
Yes this should have happened years ago with these anti Celtic journalists and rags of newspapers.Remember Fergus McCanns statement {LETS TAKE THIS TO LAW] and the parties involved backed down mainly because he was right but more so because he and the Celtic support have been put down by these journalists and rags for too long and it was time to show a bit of metal against them.
In this day and age this is a termination case,regardless of who the individual is.This is advocation of violence on a professional sports figure.
I have already phoned Sky about this disgrace of a character(wouldn’t waste my time with the ‘paper’ where someone else puts the big words into ‘his’ column).Very nice PR lady told me that they have been swamped with complaints,from around the World,she seemed surprised when I pointed out just how big Celtic’s fan base is.She assured me that the matter is seriously being looked at,at the very top,rather like Celtic and no wonder the blatantly biased supporter is panicking like his new team did on Wed.Out,sine die……no other verdict is acceptable for this charlatan.
Don’t have much time for the guy myself to be honest. Amazed a lot of fans get so wound up by him, his piece in the paper shows how thick he is, but not into witch hunts, which this has become. Wonder what our fans would be saying if big Sutton had said something similar, doubt they would be flooding bt sports with calls for him to be sacked, lets be honest Boyd is despised by a lot of fans, and people see the chance to get rid of him. If he is man enough to apologize we should move on, don’t think he should lose his job for it. What if someone in your work had said it, someone reported them and the management were talking about sacking the person, you would think it was nonsense.
I have called Chris Sutton out when he crossed line. Fun and rivalry is one thing but insinuating that a player of any club should have been targeted for assault is reprehensible.
He needs taking off the air and the regulator reviewing all past performance including the trigger event.
Doesn’t look as though he is leaving Sky anytime soon.
Appears settled on his perch today.
He said what a lot of the Rangers supporters were thinking.
I hope I’m proved wrong.
Doesn’t look as though he is leaving Sky anytime soon.
Appears settled on his perch today.
We will find out tomorrow.
He appeared to be dominating the match analysis. He wasn’t keen on letting the other two lads speak.
does it surprise anyone ,usual rubbish from a muppett