Last Friday afternoon Celtic held a media conference to preview the Glasgow Derby on Monday night at Broadwood Stadium in Cumbernauld. As it was the International break you might have thought that the mainstream media might have been interested in attending, given the importance of the match as the SWPL1 reached the business end of the season with ten matches to be played in the post split fixtures.
None of the newspapers made an appearance, as indeed is usually the case. On the Scottish Sun that day the lead story online on their Celtic page was about Ben Siegrist’s girlfriend, who apparently is a TV star over in Australia as she had posted some publicity photos on Instagram about staying in some posh hotel next to the beach, nothing at all about the upcoming SWPL1 Glasgow Derby.
The Celtic Star as usual attended that media conference, as did Cynic Women and one other podcaster from the Celtic fan media. None of the papers, or the BBC or even Sky Sports, who were showing the match on Monday night, bothered.
Now though that has all chanced with not only the mainstream media including Daily Record and Scottish Sun showing a new-found interest in the women’s game after the Celtic manager was assaulted post-match by theRangers Assistant manager. The Scottish Sun’s photo of Alonso dates back to his first season in charge of the club three years ago where Fran is wearing the old New Balance kit!
This has become a national and indeed international story – even CNN have reported on the cowardly headbutt and we know that Police Scotland are investigating the incident, the Scottish FA’s Compliance Officer is also involved but there has been nothing at all from the Ibrox club.
Plenty of the Celtic fan media sites have also discovered a sudden interest in the women’s team this week, hopefully it will continue. The media are bound to take a greater interest and the next Glasgow Derby is going to attract huge interest and also probably a very large crowd.
Alison McConnell, writing in Daily Record today has an update where she reports that Fran Alonso does not wish to press charges IF he receives an apology. That however might not be the Celtic position, and indeed it might not even be Fran Alonso’s position if no apology is forthcoming or if Celtic have other ideas on how they would like this to be handled.
The question that really has to be answered is when will Celtic draw a line in the sand and say that enough is enough? We have had broken glass thrown onto the penalty area in an attempt to injury Joe Hart, a Celtic coach scarred for life after being hit on the head by a bottle thrown from the hospitality section at Ibrox and a Celtic supporter lucky to be alive after his head was split open by a Rangers fan throwing a bottle into the away corner at Ibrox on 2 January.
Now we have a Celtic manager assaulted from behind and verbally abused by a Rangers assistant manager while he was sportingly shaking hands with theRangers players after the 1-1 draw on Monday night at a match that had a very large percentage of families with young children in the crowd.
And if the media are relishing the prospect of a Celtic FC Women media conference later this week ahead of Celtic’s first home match in the post-split fixture list against Partick Thistle on Sunday, then they are going to be disappointed as we can confirm that there will now be no media conference taking place, which is probably the sensible decision from the club.
Less sensible is the SWPL1 – who are under the SPFL umbrella these days – scheduling the match to kick-off ten minutes after Ange Postecoglou’s Bhoys take on Ross County up in Dingwall. Surely that fixture clash should have been avoided?
Celtic have taken the appropriate action in ending the 700/800 away allocation farce for Glasgow Derby matches and that will NEVER return. Now it’s time to call out this disgraceful, criminal behaviour and if that means pressing charges against after the latest cowardly assault then so be it.
Time to draw a line in the sand, Celtic because enough is enough.
100% agreed . I said the same yesterday , it’s absolutely Celtics minimum requirement as an employer to protect their staff from assault more so when in full view of thousands of witnesses AND recorded on media cameras
If a British Rail staff member, ( Post office , British Airways ) had been assaulted in a similar fashion , there would zero chance of them not protecting their staff member , it would be unconscionable for them to be seen prosecuting , where a prison sentence could like be the outcome .
Though as you say , with extra media focus now being thrown onto the upcoming Glasgow derby , a prosecution would increase the tension and no doubt cause a riot amongst the low life whordes .