Opinion – Celtic’s Green Brigade punishment before verdict seems unjust to me

Club unfairly punishing the Green Brigade…

There were rumours doing the rounds during the week that the club had banned the Green Brigade from attending games. This rumour was of course since quashed, but it turns there was some substance to such talk.

But instead of a complete blanket ban it turns out that the club have temporarily suspended them from going to away fixtures pending an investigation that is underway relating to their behaviour at away games and specifically in Rotterdam and Motherwell. Apparently it’s due to the use of pyrotechnics and fan disorder including storming turnstile and attempting to force open a fire exit at Fir Park in order to admit their ticketless friends.

Call me a cynic but the club have been at loggerheads with the North Curve over the pro Palestine banners at the last home game a fortnight ago. Couldn’t this be their way of getting back at them? Celtic though insist that this ban is due to operational safety issues and nothing to do with the Palestine protest that is planned for Wednesday evening for the high profile match in the Champions League against Atletico Madrid.

Or is this a case of childishly firing at them from the comfort of the boardroom and most likely revelling in their temporary misery. If that’s the case then it’s bang out of order. It’s of course only a theory, but a more than believable one for many of the supporters affected.

Personally, I wouldn’t put it past them. Those who call the shots at the club are so out of touch with what our support stands for it can be embarrassing. Yes they’ve done a lot for us, but so have the Green Brigade and they don’t deserve to be wrongly punished ahead of the outcome of any investigation that is ongoing.

The incidents that the club referred that were reported by The Celtic Star Editor last night may well have happened but can the board be certain that the supporters responsible are from the Green Brigade. And if you are in the Green Brigade but weren’t at the Feyenoord or Motherwell games then you would have a fair point to argue that you are getting punished for offences caused by others at games you weren’t even at!

Banning them at this stage isn’t fair. It benefits no one and could leave Celtic in effect are saying that a specific group of fans are responsible for whatever actually happened at Motherwell. In Scots law there is a not proven verdict and a prosecution is only successful if it is proved beyond reasonable doubt.

Time for a rethink from those in charge before the relationship with the younger supporters turns even more sour. And, yes I do recognise that there are plenty of supporters out there who want the board to go even further and ban them once and for all from Celtic Park. But the one question I would have to those supporters is this – how does that benefit Celtic?

Just an Ordinary Bhoy