THE PRESIDENT OF ALBANIA has been having a beer with his friend, the former Celtic cult-hero Rudi Vata and the two of them raised a glass to toast Celtic’s Ten-in-a-Row season which will get underway in early August.
From Tirana, with Rudi Vata: TEN-IN-A-ROW!
Hail Hail! 🍀🍀 #CelticFC 💚 pic.twitter.com/DrPYIYnUYv— Ilir Meta (@ilirmetazyrtar) June 15, 2020
Of course most Celtic supporters have been denied the opportunity to enjoy a pint with mates and talk about the football due to the coronavirus lockdown, so that beer looks delicious! Hopefully it’s not too long before the pubs and restaurants reopen and we can do the same as the leading politician in Albania and the only footballer from his country to have worn the green and white hoops for Celtic.
Ilir Meta supports Celtic due to his friendship with Vata who played for Celtic between 1992-96.
The Albania President bumped into the travelling Celtic support in Sarajevo last July and they were astonished to learn that he was actually a Celtic man himself. And he clearly a real people person, going out of his way to share time with the supporters. Since then he has a constant Celtic minded presence of Twitter, congratulating players like Odsonne Edouard, Olivier Ntcham and Jeremie Frimpong on winning individual awards, wishing Callum McGregor a happy birthday and that’s just over the past week or so. President Meta also invited Celtic supporters to visit his country this summer!
Vata played 55 times for the Club, scoring 4 goals, and was part of the Celtic team that won the Scottish Cup in 1995. The Celtic Wiki has this quote from Vata which sums up how he felt about the club during his playing days.
“I was just a young Albanian who walked into a big, massive club with a big reputation and big players everywhere and it was a great experience, just great, great, great… Every morning I would wake up happy, just looking forward to going to work at Celtic Park,” Rudi Vata said.
Looks like he still feels the same attachment to the club today and so too does the wonderful President of Albania – who must surely be due an invitation to travel to Paradise when fans are allowed in?
