Video – Watch Neil Lennon: “barrage of absolute hypocrisy” Plus Celtic’s Dysfunctional PR

“We didn’t abuse any ‘privilege’, we did the right things, we were totally professional.

“We had a little drink in the afternoon on the day of – completely allowed – no law breaking.

“But we come back to this barrage of absolute hypocrisy.”

Today we’ve been spoon-fed edited highlights of Neil Lennon’s Media Conference and it has to be said the decision by the club to either delay or completely hold back posting the video on You Tube doesn’t help.

Most of the Celtic fans media are excluded from these Media Conferences – yet newspapers like Glasgow Times, who called Neil Lennon ‘Popcorn Teeth’ at the weekend are welcomed with open arms.

The Celtic Star has been asking the club PR Manager Ian Jamieson for this matter to be reviewed and for fans media to have greater access. Today’s events means that this is now a necessity. Frankly the lack of courtesy from people like Jamieson is astounding – not one single reply to our emails from him. The distain seeps from those running our club and it is ours not his.

We’ve more reason than most to be angry about this Fighting Celtic’s corner is a given for The Celtic Star, otherwise what is the point?  But the club has been allowed to get away with disrespecting the Celtic support’s own media for too long. That has to end tonight.

“We’ve been held to a far higher standard than any other club. Protocols at different clubs are inconsistent.

“As soon as Celtic are deemed to do something wrong, bang, you’re all wanting blood. It’s absolutely scandalous. The fallout from this has been way too much.

Neil Lennon, Scott Brown and poolside after arriving Dubai ahead of the Winter training getting underway.

“Aston Villa have shut down, Raith Rovers. They haven’t travelled anywhere. We could easily have stayed here and had an outbreak but because our protocols are so good, we’ve been able to quell that.

“My apology is to the fans because 13 players and three staff had to isolate for 10 days, which is ludicrous.

“I’m not apologising for anything else. I’m not apologising for going out there and training for a week. Hindsight’s a wonderful thing. We did everything we possibly could to avoid the damage. Everybody’s negative, the whole squad’s negative bar two players.

“I think that’s remarkable and I think it totally blows out of the water the way the trip, the way the training camp has been portrayed by certain quarters of the media, by certain pundits and by certain government officials as well. We did not abuse any ‘privilege’. We did the right things, we were absolutely totally professional.

“We had a little drink in the afternoon on our day off, completely allowed, no law-breaking. Yet we come back to this barrage of absolute hypocrisy. We’ve come back, we’ve been absolutely decimated by these rules. It seems political.”

You can’t go on a public platform and spread insults about my professionalism, my players’ professionalism. About 70-80 per cent of the group are teetotal and you know the inference and innuendo that he is making.

“It is not a stag do, it isn’t an ’18-30′ even though it has been portrayed like that. We went out there with the best intentions. The lads had one day off and they are entitled to a bit of down time.”

“We were in our bubbles, The players were in a bar, they weren’t on top of one another. We were outside, in our bubble having a beer for half an hour. This has been made out to be something that it is not. We weren’t doing a 20-man conga which is lauded by all and sundry because Scotland qualified for the Euros. Our players weren’t behaving like that at all.

“Like I said, 80 per cent of them are teetotal and for anyone to call it a jolly is totally disrespectful. There is nothing wrong with the photographs, we weren’t hiding anything, we were there on our day off, having travelled through the night. We had some downtime, as it was impossible to train.

“This has been a stick to beat us with – these photographs – and it is completely preposterous.”

Maybe Celtic FC will have enough balls to post the video or perhaps tell us why it’s not going up?

About Author

The Celtic Star founder and editor, who has edited numerous Celtic books over the past decade or so including several from Lisbon Lions, Willie Wallace, Tommy Gemmell and Jim Craig. Earliest Celtic memories include a win over East Fife at Celtic Park and the 4-1 League Cup loss to Partick Thistle as a 6 year old. Best game? Easy 4-2, 1979 when Ten Men Won the League. Email editor@thecelticstar.co.uk

1 Comment

  1. The only thing the club have done wrong is disrespect the thousands of fans who paid for season tickets even though they knew they weren’t going to see their team play anytime soon, these loyal fans paid out there money to keep the club going, some of these fans have probably since lost their jobs or seen there wages drastically reduced but are still paying for the tickets, while the team take themselves off on a training “break”. This trip should never have went ahead and somebody needs to issue a serious personal apology to all the fans who paid for season tickets.