After it was reported that BBC Scotland were locked out of Brendan Rodgers’ official unveiling and press conference at Celtic Park on Friday afternoon, despite all the mainstream and the Celtic fan media outlets – including The Celtic Star – being invited along to participate in asking the newest Celtic boss questions on his homecoming, it appears that the national broadcaster wasn’t the only one.

Nope, there was another outlet that was denied entry on the day and that is PLZ Soccer. Headed by former Clyde One Superscoreboard host and Sky Sports reporter Peter Martin, it appears the club have taken a very excoriating view of his outburst via social media platform Twitter when talks of Rodgers returning to Glasgow hit the mainstream media as common knowledge earlier in the month.

The man who is usually hired to host charity events involving the Hoops and other footballing institutions, such as St Roch’s Juniors when they had their Centenary year a couple of years ago, has perhaps been deemed to have overstepped the mark with his personal attack on the returning Celtic boss and this has prompted the heirarchy to render him a threat to unity and an overly dissenting voice.

Taking to Twitter on 12 June when the Rodgers rumours surfaced, he said:

“Some people have short memories. Player revolt, tedious football, European humiliation and a man declaring his love while working his ticket out of the club. #historylesson”

Martin and PLZ Soccer released a statement online, saying of the denial of access to the presser:

“We are disappointed at the decision to exclude us from the Brendan Rodgers press conference at Celtic Park today. We hope to resolve these issues while maintaining our right to voice opinion and offer our viewers the balanced view they have come to expect.”

Did Peter Martin overstep the mark with this one? Banning PLZ Soccer doesn’t come close to the decision to ban BBC Scotland but together it points to a tougher policy that is coming out of Scotland and one that all the mainstream media will be paying attention to.

Go back a few years and it was concerns about letting Celtic fan media into these events that was the subject of debate within the club. A few years down the line and it is the broadcast media, with the red-tops surely next that are the problem for Celtic and not the Celtic fan media who have all had their say and aired various opinions but none crossed a line that Celtic regarded as unacceptable.

Neither BBC Scotland nor PLZ Soccer would have seen that ban coming.  It’s certainly an interesting development.

Paul Gillespie

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