If you want to criticise Celtic for taking a January holiday while the country suffers and you have been stuck at home for 10 months, go for it, there’s acres of space below. The football bubble is difficult to reconcile when people are currently falling ill and dying in such numbers, the optics are poor; Celtic, really?
But if you are responsible for setting the rules of the football bubble, like the Scottish Government are, you are responsible for what is permitted within that bubble.
If you gave specific permission for Celtic’s trip to Dubai, like the Scottish Government did, you and you alone have no right to issue PR statements of condemnation.
This contrasts with the Scottish Government’s congratulatory comments for Newco after punishing their players who broke bubble rules, a marked contrast to their reaction after Celtic punished Boli Bolingoli.
I get that this Government is a world leader at PR, that their leader appears to spend much of her day preparing and delivering her message of PR brilliance and that they effortlessly dig into Celtic without self-awareness.
And I know this is a lot easier than their day job, like deciding whether to send infected patients to care homes or not, running an education system, controlling a police force who witness sectarian crime without concern, and ensuring NHS hospitals do not have to issue statements of regret after poor cleaning-related deaths.
All this magnificent PR keeps eyes away from how that day job is being performed. Scotland has a death rate higher than all but six countries in the world, including countries run by incompetent fools, like the rest of the UK – who we continue to shadow for inexplicable reasons – and the US.
Your government wants people to talk about Celtic, not look at the death count. The former is embarrassing and the latter is worse only in Peru, Belgium, Italy and three former Yugoslav countries. I am not part of this cult.
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James Forrest
A ‘If your Auntie had baws’ kinda question :-)
James Forrest…. I’ve not said they should or shouldn’t be there…… If they did everything correctly and been months in the planning and had the OK from all parties involved… I’m not going to lose sleep over it…… Is it bad PR… Probably….. Has the Scottish government highlighted and increased it most definitely….. Do you in your heart of hearts think this present administration would have condemned the huns??
Just listened to Clyde News while in the car.
Guess what the leader was ? Correct, Dubai jolly, with the FM getting involved.
This really worries me and I agree 100% with James Forrest.
What did our custodians think when they went ahead with this jaunt.?
They are so detached from reality and the ordinary Celtic supporter it’s frightening.
HH.
Dessybhoy
Thanks
Re -Regards plod and the malicious charges I have heard nothing from a group of non SNP MSP’s I contacted regarding this and the cost to the public purse and if those involved have been disciplined or sacked, nothing I wonder why ?
I intend submitting an FOI on this to the Govt for whom it is acutely embarrassing. It will be refused but I will then appeal as clearly it is in the public interest to know how much this cost us. They will try and hide behind confidential settlements etc but that is no reason not to quantify the total sum paid out to various individuals due to the malicious charges.
ROCK TRE BHOY
Bad Manners in my book, eventually it will get CQN shutdown, maybe that is the intention.
================================================
I don’t understand why people are upset that our host is not writing the articles they want to see.
Go start your own blogs………………and write what you like.
Makes sense tae me.
Ah well, life is great after all, seems I’m a Li’l unionist too – yipeeee !!!
p67 writes about Scottish Governments comments – thats deflection it seems
Scottish Governments comments – thats ermmm
VINNIETHEDOG:
Yeah I actually do. The public outcry would have been the same and they’d have had to deal with it.
PHILBHOY:
Yeah, good advise. Just don’t post them anywhere, right? Cause that makes you a Bad Person Pushing An Agenda, doesn’t it? A self-promoting charlatan.
Or are those labels only reserved for me?
ROCK TREE BHOY,
I couldn’t agree more with you. There seems to me that there is a wee coterie, maybe even a big clique, who spend all their time here attacking Paul67. Why? If you do detest him and what he writes, why come on here so regularly? Start your own blog and confirm your certainties by lapping up the likes of James Forrest.
On the Edouard ‘NO!’ Vote not registering…
I thought it was just me? 🤔 😕. Shocking that this article was even on CQN! 🤬.
This is also part of a worrying trend of not-truly-Celtic-Friendly Articles being increasingly commonplace on CQN… I have to ask what the motivation is? Perhaps increased site revenue from taking an ‘Old-Firmist’ approach whilst also following the party line? 🤔 Who knows other than Paul67? 🤔 As humble readers and/or posters we can only go by the evidence of what we are being fed in terms of editorials and articles… Hmmm…
On the team being in Dubai…
They are allowed so good luck to them, I am a bit jealous, but I just hope it promotes further changes in performance,
… as long as any changes are POSITIVE! 😊
Take Care, Keep Safe, God Bless and Hail Hail! 😊
Yours in Celtic, 🧣🍀
TB&F. 😊
James Forrest @ 2.09am
I post here because this used to be a place for intelligent debate. Now it’s full of people who throw personal invective and spite at anyone with whom they disagree.
Before I’d even addressed a word specifically against you on this issue, you reacted to my piece, defending Neil Lennon against lies and exaggerated rhetoric with this response:-
You call it whatever you want, but all this “Lennon will leave with integrity” and the rest of that garbage you can stow where the sun won’t shine.
That, you might agree, sounds more like personal invective and spite, ineffective though it was, than a detailed refutation of the points I made in defence of Neil and of how he will be remembered by the Celtic support in future, just as the guys who lost the 10 in 1975 are remembered with affection now, even though we had many screaming toddlers then saying we should never have lost that 10 and many offers of taxi transport for unwanted scapegoated players to the nearest train station (airports were not so central to transfers back then).
You then go on to argue a straw man case arguing hte merits for justifying the termination of NFL’s contract.
Many of us know that Neil is likely to leave Celtic sometime soon, with the failure to acheive the 10 hanging over him. He will still leave with my thanks and the thanks of a goood few other Celtic men too. We will value him in the round for all that he brought to Celtic as well as acknowledgiing this current sad failure. The jibe about being “well-rewarded” is being stuck on a man who left an EPL wage behind to join this club, and a man who rejoined us, knowing the damage it would do to his own mental health, though he’d be surprised and disappointed at how many of our own that have piled on the vitriol and abandoned their previous support of him (anyone remember the “We are All Neil Lennon” tag?)
We give more praise to Celtic-minded John McGinn, who sold his Celtic-mindedness for Villa’s EPL pay-packets than we do for guys who stuck with us.
We are eating our own. We look through the one end of the telescope to discover and inflate their weaknesses and failures without any counterbalancing measure of their strenghts and values.
Even a non-achieving Celtic contributor, like Shane Duffy, shuld leave with an appropriate degreeof respect. He wnated to come here. He wanted to succeed and he was generally welcomed as a good acquisition. No-one, not even Shane himself, would try to tell us it was a successful move but it was one he was, not just willing, but eager to make. He could then and still can now, earn bigger bucks at a Championship club but he came to Celtic and tried his best.
But I will hold Shane in higher regard than John McGinn even though the latter is a more valuable player jst as I hold Neil in higher regard than Brendan Rodgers, even though, again, the latter has a better claim to be the better manager.
Loyalty and being willing to suffer for the cause has to count for something. I don’t balme McGinn or Rodgers for selling their talent to a higher bidder, just spare me the badge-kissing apologia while doing so. At least Brendan slummed it with us for a few years but he never left a better paying gig to come here.
PARKHEADCUMSALFORD:
“Start your own blog and confirm your certainties by lapping up the likes of James Forrest.”
Want to translate that so the rest of us can understand it?
Better yet, since I’m named specifically, want to translate so I can understand it?
Geebee…it was definitely Cocu…. People just a bit shy to admit it…. Why is it relevant…. Because he was touted as a forward thinking European (I don’t know why that matters maybe brexit hangover) tactical genius who had won in Holland (again not sure why that’s relevant as has been definitely proven).. Maybe we should look at why some fail…
Back to Cocu.. You said they were wrong to hire him (hindsight is great).. But not as wrong as the people who thought lennon was the man to win celtic 10 in a row….(tho he had won celtic 9 in a row) . So the Derby chairman wasn’t as stupid as lawwell?… In fact lawwell was a far bigger incompetent…..
Lol…. I’m not trying to be argumentative…. I just sometimes get bored of reading the same stuff day out day in about what we should do or where we should go…. Without any real names… I keep using Cocu as he was one name that popped up frequently and many agreed… I can even remember him getting a gig in Turkey and someone saying… That’s one we’ve missed… Thank the lord….. I agree with big wavy the financial package should be greater for the next man…. Whoever and whenever that may be
Parkheadcumsalford on 5th January 2021 3:35 pm
ROCK TREE BHOY,
I couldn’t agree more with you. There seems to me that there is a wee coterie, maybe even a big clique, who spend all their time here attacking Paul67. Why? If you do detest him and what he writes, why come on here so regularly? Start your own blog and confirm your certainties by lapping up the likes of James Forrest
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Great post!
Why would we sell Eddie when we could be in a fight for 2nd place.
Please don’t say the rest are no problem it’s Celtic i worry about.
if me aunt had baws – garngrad, you’ve got me on the floor laughin – forgot about that one
SETTING FREE THE BEARS @3:37pm
Respect, sir!
Lennon was unemployed when he got mangers job in Feb 2019 after being sacked by Hibs.
But he’s a legend
I see the bury the head in the sand brigade are on
SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX:
Oh where do we even start?
I’ve heard this schtick about Lennon leaving a better paid gig to come to Celtic before. Even if it’s accurate, so what? We gave Lennon a coaching job after his playing career was done. Was not that loyalty? We then gave him the manager’s job despite not one single line on the CV which jusified giving him the reigns of a European football club with a budget of nearly £100 million.
We gave the same job although nothing he’d done afterwards remotely justified it. God alone knows what Lennon’s salary, as a player, was before he retired … more than he was on at Leicester. God alone knows how much he’s taken in wages and bonuses as manager of Celtic. A lot. I assure you, there has been no fiduciary loss for the manager here.
You accuse ME of constructing a “straw man argument” when I’ve stated facts, and then you throw this into you own; “a man who rejoined us, knowing the damage it would do to his own mental health,”
What relevance that has to his abilities as a manager I do not know. Even if it’s true, then Lennon made that decision himself. It wasn’t a sacrifice, nobody stuck a gun in his face and MADE him take the job. If he thought the Celtic job was worth risking his mental well-being for then that’s up to him … don’t make us responsible for that, don’t make it out to be some kind of sacrifice he made for US … Neil Lennon didn’t ride to the recue; we plucked him off a dole queue.
Take emotional nonsense out of this; this comes down to a straightforward question. Is he the best person for the job? And we know the answer is no, and all the rest is fluff and nonsense.
We sacked Billy McNeill. Billy frigging McNeill. In 1985, a John Sculley led coup-de-tat kicked Steve Jobs out of Apple, the company he had founded. Nobody on the board cried any tears. Sculley returned them to profitability, but another boardroom coup ousted him.
Leicester City sacked Claudio Ranieri less than a year after a generational triumph at that club; you could say that was an outrage and a scandal. It’s football. It happens.
As I said in an earlier rant (if you want to call it that) Noah built the ark BEFORE the rain, just as Leicester sacked Ranieri when it looked they MIGHT get relegated.
I don’t want know what we are waiting for to pull the trigger. I don’t know what it’s going to take. But I know this; if Lennon was capable of looking at the bigger picture, or if he even tried to, he’d recognise that his current role as manager is one of the primary things stopping our club from being able to move forward. As long as he is here it won’t. Too many fans have made up their minds.
You might think that’s unfair or harsh; it’s the reality of this, and I would be convinced of Lennon’s integrity and love for this club above all else if he put it before everything else including his own ego.
“a man who rejoined us, knowing the damage it would do to his own mental health,
Parkheadcumsalford on 5th January 2021 3:35 pm
P67 can write what he wants, IMO he is not being attacked for sharing his opinions that is totally up for debate as are mine. My problem with the likes of todays post is that he is being disingenuous, constantly trying to conflate government policy with sectarian anti Celtic bias, its total BS.
He talks about PR and then posts his own version of it, its CLUB P67.
The ‘whataboutary’ on this thread, including the OP , is deflecting from the real issue here. Advice given in November was pretty much obsolete come 2nd Jan and Celtic will have been well aware of this but they went ahead regardless of the certain outcry. Too big to care?
In any case, just because we ‘could’ go doesn’t mean we should go.
The pandemic is relentless, it shows no sign of stopping, our support are under ‘house arrest’ and the world and it’s aunty knew that a full lockdown was coming in January. The Celtic statement is an insult to us all in it’s total lack of self awareness and sense of entitlement. indeed, it just about sums up this clusterf@ck of a season by our club.
The problem I have mostly with this government… Is they find fault in what I would call a triviality in the grand scheme of things…. This celtic trip will have been planned to the finest detail… All precautions abided by….. Safer than say going to Belgium in October when liege was the capital of covid…… Yet what I would call a big problem in society…. Hatred, racism and sectarianism is totally ignored……. Funny old world
TIMMY7_NOTED on 5TH JANUARY 2021 3:54 PM
And
SAN LUIS on 5TH JANUARY 2021 3:55 PM
You have both hit the nail squarely on the head on this.
’nuff said.
VINNIETHEDOG on 5TH JANUARY 2021 3:43 PM
I wasn’t talking about the appointment being wrong, I was talking about those on here who were convinced that Lennon would win 10IAR. There were more of them than those putting Cocu’s name forward. This season has been a relative failure almost to the level anything Cocu has overseen.
My response is the same. Somebody said Cocu might be a good appointment at Celtic based on his excellent work with PSV. The Derby chairman agreed but with the power of hindsight, we can see he failed there. Not sure what that proves as Celtic are a different club with a different situation but you could be right – it might prove that Cocu isn’t a very good manager.
But my question is the same – why is it relevant and why are you obsessed with it? Cocu failed at Derby (Lennon didn’t pull up trees in the same division) therefore we stick with a manager that’s failing? Cocu failed at Derby so we…..don’t bother appointing a manager? What? Sorry if it’s me who’s coming across as a bit thick but I’m not really getting your point.
The SMSM narrative and the Scottish Government’s sidestepping of responsibility narrative are being swallowed wholesale on here.
I am quite prepared to believe that the majority of Celtic fans NOW disapprove of the Training trip to Dubai, and that almost all of us agree that the drinking round the pool pics are really bad publicity.
However…….
I have strong dounts that everyone was unaware of our planned trip to Dubai until they saw the pics.
I have equally strong doubts that all of you were unaware of the announcement of the re-scheduling of the Hibs match as their righteous indignation was all over the media and mentioned on this blog.
How did it escape everyones attention that Dubai was on the cards again? Or did it? I dare say, it did pass by one or two of our contributors but I think a lot more are deliberately suppressing their memory.
So where were all the posts of condemnation on Celtic Blogs back in November and December? Where were they before we lost to Sevco? It was just as bad a look back then as it is now but I can’t recall a single blog protesting. I can’t recall a single post protesting. I can’t recall a single post or blog siding with Hibs’ view. I am prepared to have the evidence given to me but at the moment I haven’t seen anyone who was prescient in their condemnation.
Even Ms Sturgeon and Mr. Swinney are saying that, while we approved it in principle, we did not think it would look like this (code for “come back to bite us in the bum”). Though they approved it, they want to slough off responsibility and Say “We were too busy to change the rules and cancel this but the SFA and/or Celtic should still have done so, without any guidance or leadership from us”.
Now of course they do have graver responsibilities than Celtic and football, but they still have responsibilities here. They weren’t too busy and swamped to fail to commend Sevco by letter for their swift action in disowning Arfield’s party.
But having a go at the SNP government, even when they are blatantly in the wrong (even if Celtic are too) is a step too far for some. One poster even suggested that casual racism was preferable to outspoken “Li’l Unionism” (code for criticism of SNP).
MNCELT on 5TH JANUARY 2021 2:39 PM
I don’t have an issue with the team going to Dubai. I am confident they made this decision in the interest of the players and the hoped for improvement in on-field results. I hope they find the time to relax away from the vitriol being aimed in their direction from the ‘fan’ base, media and now Scottish government. If they come back and hit a purple patch of form, beating every team before them, it will have been a very worthwhile trip.
——-
If it’s vitriol we’re concerned about, let’s hope our one player with true international star potential doesn’t slip online to CQN and see the poll instigating his (fire) sale.
Something I’d expect from the daily record or The S💩n, not a semi-official Celtic blog.
HH jg
James Forrest
I’ll keep this short so that you’ll get to the kernel of what I am arguing.
It is possible for both of us to agree that Neil Lennon should go because of our failure to land the 10.
I take a different road in not wanting to kick out at him and belittle him as he goes. I think he deserves better than that.
It is that simple.
Aff oot furra bit
Sun Luis @3.55
‘Relentless, is sadly the perfect description of Covid thus far.
Your point about ‘can we’ versus ‘should we’ is equally valid. I’ve had significant disagreements since Easter with my father and sister as they’ve (emotionally understandably, medically ill-advisedly) sought to push the envelope of advice to suit their wishes.
Much though I’ve disagreed with that, much though it’s helped to delay my getting back up the road to see hem and my own kids.. I can recognise the emotional driver ref an old man living alone.
Celtic’s behaviour in this instance looks and feels far more like the entitled few who use their wealth and status to circumvent the restrictions that normal people live under. It looks and feels that way, because it is that way.
I feel sorry for JPT and his great colleagues in the Foundation who work for ‘the cause’ and will most feel the pushback.
HH jg
Cocu – if he’s got a pair of boots, I’d sign him!
SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX on 5TH JANUARY 2021 4:14 PM
What if he refuses to quit and this time next year we’re in the same position (with the difference of Sevco having £30m CL money in the bank)?
Are you saying he’s unsackable? Is that really the way a big club behaves?
What the fugg has Dubai got to do with anything other than looking bad and naive of the club?
These players are together all the time, play against others who are together all the time during and all of this during the pandemic and all versions of lockdown just so the sofa masses can have their opium (I’m one of them).
SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX:
So it’s a matter of timing? Cause if we both agree it’s over, then surely you recognise that the sooner it’s done the sooner we can start the hunt for the next guy? And that has major implications; if we leave this too long we turn the summer into a desperate scramble to find a manager instead of that guy being in place already, having analysed the team and his needs and being able to start the work.
Stop making this about Lennon; this is about Celtic. It’s in the best interests of the club that we put the current situation behind us so we can move on to the next one. It’s what football clubs the world over do, it’s what businesses faced with these choices do.
I am lefty and a socialist, but I sometimes wonder how to reconcile that with also having a certain hard-headeness about this stuff and an ability to be coldly ruthless when circumstances require it.
This is one of those circumstances. It’s not about Lennon; Celtic is my primary concern, and if someone’s holding that back then I just want that person out of the way. We, all of us, have circumstances and things in our life where we “deserve better” than what we got.
It’s a tough old world. Very few us have a large bank balance to see us through the hard times.
The horrible reality of it is that Lennon’s reputation will forever be tarnished in the eyes of a lot of our fans. I don’t care one way or another; I’ll applaud the guy if he does the halftime draw on some future trip back to Celtic Park, and everyone else will as will. I bare him no ill will as a person.
But he has mismanaged our football team as others have mismanaged our club and I just want those people out of the way so we can move on. If that sounds cold and callous then maybe there’s a bit of me that is cold hearted and callous.
James F
SFTB olive branch – grasp it
We Tims need to stick together as best we can.
And I know you’re both committed in your own, very different, ways.
HH jg
Where is the sell Eddy poll ? cant’s find it to register my NO vote.
The trip to Dubai, a PR disaster no more no less, had we employed a proper PR man over the years this wouldn’t be happening, but as ever the club are bending over to appease the establishment who are doing everything in their power to see us gone, they have cheated us out of silverware for decades, they have STOLEN millions from the club due to the cheating that has gone on for decades, yet we are still arguing about it, why, there is only ONE way to get the change we want, force it, stave the tory parasites out and starve any other parasites that take their place.
I left sectarian scotland over twenty years ago due to many things but the hate towards us was pretty much at the forefront, if anything it’s actually worse today than it was back then.
Not that anything matters anyways, football as we knew is is gone for ever, if you had been paying attention you would have seen that.
On the radio they are openly telling folks in Ireland that the lockdowns are expected for at least the next year, probably the next two years, in brit land it’s a couple of months at a time, or so Gove has said today, and some are expecting football and crowds back, dream on folks.
Jeezo, they are now arresting women for videoing empty hospitals in England, who would have thunk it eh.
Since we have a free week , there is a simple alternative to the Dubai trip which would have avoided all the furore .
Get the players to put an extra semmit on and do the work at Lennoxtown .( Apart from Broony of course , who wouldn’t need one .)
God knows , we have plenty to work on .
JAMES FORREST on 5TH JANUARY 2021 4:21 PM
SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX:
‘Stop making this about Lennon; this is about Celtic.’
###
So devote as much effort to lambasting Lawwell etc as you do to lambasting NFL.
ERNIE LYNCH:
You haven’t been paying attention if you think I’ve spared that joker during all this.
I’m finishing a lenghty piece on Dubia right now.
Guess what’s up next?