Uilleam

There is still time and opportunity, when Clarke, after the Euros, takes the hotseat at Piggery Place. In fact, replacing Lennon with Clarke, and vice versa, could be engineered to minimise any financial 'hit' on the hoops. I wonder when the campaign will start.....

Trending on Twitter?

I know what you mean, but Scottish Fitba' has demonstrated, in the recent past, that it is capable, -well capable- of self harm. Apart from which, would anybody in their right mind trust, in the slightest, those characters who comprise the JRG? They are up to something, it's just that it may not be 100% clear yet. As Milo O'Minderbinder once (nearly) observed: "What's good furra sellik, is good for Scottish Fitba'"

You may recall that fitba' has a Joint Response Group, created to provide a cordinated response to Covid 19 and its affects. This group comprises of the following experts: Rod Petrie; Ian Maxwell; Neil Doncaster; and Dr John MacLean, the SFA's Chief Medical Consultant. These are permanent members of the Group. You may recall also that, following Dubai Daredevils FC's middle eastern adventure, and publication of photos, etc, indicating, pretty clearly, to this observer, at least, that SFA protocols, requirements,etc. may have been honoured as much in the breach as in the observance, Mr Maxwell publicly defended that club. He declared that it had had 'permission' of some -unclear- kind to go, but he either erred, or deliberately deflected (you choose), by failing to mention the apparent breaches of strictures by the happy campers. Subsequently, if memory serves, Maxwell suggested that the Compliance Officer (who may or may not be in post) "may" deign to look at the photographic evidence. To date we have heard the square root of, ahem, SFA about this enquiry, this inspection, whatever: we do not know if there is, currently, a Compliance Officer, whether this official has considered any evidence/behaviour, whether this official has opined on the matter, or referred it to a quasi-judicial committee, as seems to be the procedure. You will certainly remember Mr Neil Francis Lennon's intemperate and completely unseemly tirade against, well, just about everyone, really, at a Press Conference just the other day. The authorities have reacted to this with surprising -for them- alacrity, almost within hours, and have taken action. However, they have not charged Lennon with "Bringing the Game Into Disrepute", which he did, in excelsis; even the meanest intellect in the Gallowgate would consider such a slam dunk, however regrettable to him. The beaks, in the form of the Joint Response Group, have commissioned a "review" of facilities of every Club in Prem and Championship. This can only be in response to Lennon's unsubstantiated, and potentially slanderous, criticisms of St Johnstone and Hamilton Acas. both of whom have responded, the former gainsaying Lennon's rant, utilising both barrels, the latter being more measured. We must surely wonder at the speed of this action, compared to the administrative sloth displayed with respect to the misadventures of the club like no other in the Persian Gulf. Lennon opens his gob, lets loose his tongue, and the authorities jump to attention, and seemingly each incumbent kicks himself up his own backside, the quicker to respond to a reprehensible, wild, and inaccurate tirade. We must surely not rule out the possibility that those in charge of the game are looking for an excuse, no matter how slender, a reason, no matter how slim, a sliver of justification, to enable them to abandon the season. Next week. On the grounds of public health, etc. and on the inability of clubs to meet, and guarantee, whatever standards they deem appropriate, and necessary. Abandoning the league, in this manner, would -make any investigation into the the Arabian Nights irrelevant -possibly provide an excuse not to arraign Lennon on "Disrepute" charges. -royally fuck Rangers. As an extra, it would absolve Nikla and the Shinners of any blame for termination of the competition Sometimes paranoia is merely knowing what the bastards are up to.

Cairney, who seems a perfectly charming cove, yesterday pled Not Guilty to a number of charges of sexual and physical abuse of teenage boys. "Mr Cairney was lauded in July 1994 as “one of the great unsung heroes of the Celtic story” by the club magazine", and you won't get a higher endorsement than that, anywhere. Celtic Boys’ Club manager Frank Cairney charged with abusing three teenagers Marc Horne Saturday January 16 2021, 12.00am, The Times Frank Cairney allegedly sexually and physically abused three boys at Parkhead and the club’s training ground. He pleaded not guilty to all of the charges through his lawyer https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/scotland/celtic-boys-club-manager-frank-cairney-charged-with-abusing-three-teenagers-gb3prcv9k A former senior figure at Celtic FC’s feeder club has been charged with carrying out sexual abuse. Frank Cairney, 85, who served as general manager of Celtic Boys’ Club from 1974 until 1991, has been charged with sexually and physically abusing three teenagers over an 11-year period. Prosecutors claim that he attacked the youths on a number of occasions between 1978 and 1989, within “Celtic Park football ground, Parkhead”; Barrowfield training ground, Glasgow; a hotel room in Aviemore in the Highlands, and in a car. It is alleged that on various occasions between February 1, 1986, and December 31, 1988, Mr Cairney indecently assaulted a youth, then aged between 15 and 18, at Celtic Park and Barrowfield. It is said that he repeatedly hugged the teenager, placed his hands underneath his clothing and touched his thigh, groin, buttocks and penis. Mr Cairney is also alleged to have indecently assaulted another youth, aged between 15 and 16, “within a car in Paisley and within a car and the dressing rooms at Barrowfield training ground, Glasgow”, between July 1, 1978 and June 30, 1979. Between the same dates he is also said to have repeatedly punched and slapped the boy on the head and body in a dressing room at Barrowfield. Mr Cairney is also alleged to have indecently assaulted a third youth, aged between 15 and 16, “at a hotel room in Aviemore and within a car in Cumbernauld” several times between August 1, 1988 and June 30, 1989. Celtic Boys’ Club took part in a series of tournaments held in Aviemore over a number of years. Barrowfield, which is next to Parkhead, was used as a training ground by both Celtic FC and the boys’ club at the time of the alleged incidents. It is still owned by the club. Mr Cairney, who did not appear, pleaded not guilty to all of the charges through his lawyer, Mark Lutton, at a hearing at Glasgow sheriff court yesterday. Mr Lutton said: “The defence is not prepared for trial.” Claire Wallace, the procurator fiscal depute, confirmed that the Crown was ready for a trial, which is expected to last for four days. A further hearing was set for March by Sheriff Alan Mackenzie. Mr Cairney, of Uddingston, South Lanarkshire, had his bail continued. Mr Cairney was lauded in July 1994 as “one of the great unsung heroes of the Celtic story” by the club magazine. Comments for this article have been turned off

Maxwell can write? His appointment strikes me as the result of a conscious exercise to scrape the very bottom of the barrel.

This is beneficial to Daredevils Dubai FC, then?

Yeah; and it wasn't like he only scored the odd goal. He was a 'striker' who 'struck'.

Green grow the birks on bonnie Ythanside Though furloughed the furloughbhoys of Dubai-o Well the Deevil's name was Pete but he had to sit and greet When he had to kiss his 10 a bitter goodbye-o

Furlough! Furlough! We are the Furlough Bhoys.... What? Aaah! Right....sorry....got carried away, there.

Maybe that's why they furloughed the bhoys. (Does that sound right? Maybe as a song: They furloughed the bhoys They furloughed the bhoys Oh Glasgow sellik, they furloughed the bhoys.....)

Any currency. And we won't make a dhiram out of a crisis.

I could see that coming..

I'll see your "Linked With", and raise you "Sporting Integrity".

Plus ca change... Still hate the Crown, still love the half-crown.

Personally, I Just Can't Get Enough....

Clearly, we do not want to get ahead of ourselves. Celebrating now would be a wee bit previous, as they say in the Garngad...... However, personally, I want this League done and dusted at the earliest opportunity. -the earlier, the bigger the girfuy to FC Dynamo Dubai -the earlier, the more we can relax and enjoy a beer while watching games -who knows if/when the Coronavirus will strike, where, how virulently, and what its impact will be? So the sooner the title comes home the better -if we are involved at the business end of the Europa Vase, then players and staff will be able to focus with, ahem, laser like intensity on that tournament -notwithstanding that, it will be interesting to see the team perform in the League without any pressure or tension whatsoever -notwithstanding that, it will be interesting to see younger fringe players maybe get some significant time on the pitch Oh, I am told that COVID now means Cellik On Vacation In Dubai

Apparently, we are in competition for Reach's signature with FC Dynamo Dubai

The Guardian, now, kicks at the open door. Well, being The Guardian, it is more of a waft of the desert boot in the general direction of the portal. However, it's a start, and I do like the "plasticine empire" jibe. Celtic's plasticine empire is collapsing amid arrogance and awful decisions Ewan Murray The club should apologise for a Dubai trip that has disfigured a season already notable for toil on the pitch and mess off it Tue 12 Jan 2021 13.36 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jan/12/celtic-plasticine-empire-is-collapsing-amid-arrogance-and-awful-decisions-apologise-dubai Celtic: The Implosion. The imagination of a scriptwriting genius would have been necessary to piece together a chain of events which are now far enough removed from fiction as to fatally undermine what was billed as a history-making season. Grand plans relating to a 10th title in a row are long gone; instead, Celtic’s collective decision-making has reduced the club to a laughing stock. Their supporters, normally so fiercely defensive of reputation, have been united in horror at the unravelling of a setup which appeared untouchable 12 months ago. It really didn’t take much to topple this plasticine empire. There are dismal multimillion-pound transfer episodes, the case of the left-back who breached travel rules for a holiday in Spain without the club’s knowledge, rows from Nicola Sturgeon, European embarrassment at the hands of Ferencvaros and Europa League teams who rattled in 19 goals in six group matches, even before we get to rampaging supporters outside Celtic Park as domestic dominance began to disintegrate. Just when such noise had calmed to the point of acceptance – Rangers’ win in the Old Firm game of 2 January secured the title in all but name – came a trip to Dubai and fallout which renders “ill-advised” as understatement of the year. By the time Celtic took to the pitch against Hibernian on Monday night, 13 players and three coaches – including Neil Lennon, the manager - were in isolation. Celtic’s season-ticket holders, handed a streaming code for their money, watched a reserve team limp to a 1-1 draw as Lennon issued instructions to substitutes via air pods. It sums up the incredible scenario that Christopher Jullien, taken to Dubai despite a long-term injury, was the player to test positive for Covid-19 and attract the attention of track and trace teams. Were it Celtic – and not Rangers – holding a 21-point advantage then fans really wouldn’t care less about Dubai and associated drama. But here we are: Celtic are toiling on the pitch and an unholy mess off it. Rangers’ league form has been exemplary but Steven Gerrard must be laughing himself silly. Celtic’s board detest any charge of complacency. The club object to any assertion that their self-proclaimed scale is undermined by two-bit behaviour. Yet it is impossible to foresee any situation whereby Dermot Desmond, the absentee landlord, would abide by such gross mismanagement at any of his other businesses. Celtic’s Dubai shambles is indicative of dreadful decision-making and a culture of arrogance. It cannot be emphasised often enough that Celtic should be in a different competitive stratosphere to this, owing to the years of leeway afforded by Rangers’ financial implosion. Instead, punters lapped up thrashings of Hamilton Accies as directors presided over managed decline. The means by which this has all come to a head is spectacular but the signs have been there for years. Lennon was offered his job in the dressing-room showers after a cup final. The Celtic statement that confirmed the housebound status of the Dubai 16 was as extraordinary as it was audacious. Rather than offer any hint of remorse, this served as a reminder of an entitlement culture. “The reality is that a case could well have occurred had the team remained in Scotland, as other cases have done in Scottish football and across UK sport in the past week,” it read. A club founded on grounds of decency and compassion has acted with blatant disregard for a troubled, wider picture in needlessly swanning off on a charter flight to the Middle East mid-pandemic. They go to Dubai every year, so why not go again? This is the attitude of a petulant teenager, with chutzpah boosted by the scores of observers too scared to criticise such a prominent entity. John Kennedy, Celtic’s assistant manager, reported on Saturday that Shane Duffy would “miss the [Hibs] game because he’s left the bubble”. Duffy had departed Dubai early to attend to personal matters. By Monday night, the Irishman was playing at centre-back. Scottish clubs have indeed returned positive Covid cases, without the necessity for such a tally of isolations. Celtic aren’t at all used to being told they are in the wrong; and certainly not from Scottish football officialdom. Their level of power may well distort perspectives. An apology to Celtic’s supporters should have opened any bulletin. Instead? Hubris. There are two strands to the Celtic trip. On the one hand, it was chronically tone deaf against a backdrop of severe restrictions at home and on-field underperformance. On the other, it looks from this distance that it was crazily inviting coronavirus risk. Celtic don’t fly to any domestic fixture. As photos emerged of an apparently “relaxed” environment, scrutiny only intensified. “I do have doubts, based on how the club itself described it, about whether Celtic’s trip to Dubai was really essential,” said Sturgeon. “I have doubts based on some pictures I’ve seen whether adherence to bubble rules was strict enough.” Celtic didn’t break laws but they abused the spirit of them. Gavin Strachan, left in dugout charge against Hibs, doubled down on the club’s stance. He said: “There’s regret that one person has caught the virus but there’s not a regret in terms of the permission we got to go and the protocols that we followed, which we have done the whole season. It’s regrettable that we got one positive, which we could have got at any time. “It’s a trip that’s been done over the last few years and it has yielded very positive results, so the thinking behind it was to maintain that and try to galvanise and push in the second half of the season.” It may have escaped Strachan’s attention that a number of things deemed absolutely fine “over the last few years” are off the table for now. Andy Walker, a man immersed in Celtic, was wonderfully coruscating during Sky’s Monday night coverage. “What the Celtic support deserve is a bit of contrition from someone with a bit of backbone at this club,” said the former striker. “They are being short-changed and it’s completely unacceptable.” This mess leaves the Scottish Professional Football League – unimpressive enough in normal times, let alone a crisis – in something of a pickle. After St Mirren and Kilmarnock couldn’t play fixtures earlier in the season, 3-0 victories were handed to opponents. The clubs appealed. Boxing Day – months after the fixtures in question – saw a hilarious but necessary reconfiguration of the table on account of said appeals. Not only did the SPFL allow Celtic to skip over to Dubai, the league moved the Hibs match – much to the chagrin of the Edinburgh club – to facilitate it. At the point this nonsense was taking place, Celtic held two matches in hand. Neil Doncaster, the SPFL chief executive, had previously been very uptight about scheduling. Celtic were allowed to knock out midweeks while behind in fixtures on the basis of winter sun. The SPFL appears far more interested in Covid outcomes than causes, especially with regards small clubs with small squads. Celtic played Hibs, hence the integrity of the competition and image damage beyond that don’t apparently matter. Hibs asked for retesting at Celtic, a perfectly valid request even on an optics level, and were refused by their opponents and the SPFL. There is total silence from Doncaster, his chairman Murdoch MacLennan and non-executive directors implicated in yet another farce. This is, however, predictable. Dubai will for ever serve as an inauspicious reference point in this Celtic campaign of 2020-21. Even in this, such a fickle business, it will take a lot for the club’s support to turn back on-side. The sequel will only depict a happy place if Celtic admit to glaring failings.

Absolutely. Give them an inch, they take a foot; give them a foot, they take a yard; give them a yard, they take a furlong; give them a furlong, they take a mile; give them a mile, they take a league.... At very least, and immediately, the Club has to ask for, ahem, "clarification" over the apparently disparate treatments of Zungu, and of Duffy. I would expect the Club, also, to ask for explanation of the immediate 7 game bans dispensed to our twally brains, while, obfuscation, diversion, delay, and prevarication seems to be the authorities' position re the club like no other. The Club must also, however distasteful, offer support to those other clubs with genuine grievances following the Dubai debacle, and the handling of it. I have, of course, no faith in the governance of Scottish fitba', from bitter experience. I will be surprised if the SPFL and/or the SFA pursue rasellik with any vigour. Doncaster gives every appearance of owing his position to it, and knowing it; Maxwell appears out of his depth, and seems to show the courage of no-one's convictions, least of all his own; and as for CO Clerr, if still therr, well she, like her predecessors, displays what can only be interpreted as a distaste for pursuit of shifting sands fc. That does not mean that the Club should stand back and let the bastards off the hook. The malfeasance, including that masquerading as incompetence, marring the game in Scotland must be called out.

openairfly https://www.instagram.com/p/CJ4cRKQFb4J/?utm_source=ig_embed DUBAI UPDATE ?? For customers travelling from Scotland we envisage any travel restrictions currently in place to have lifted by April 2021. A negative PCR test will be required on entry. A further info pack will be sent to you. For customers based in the UAE - we look forward to bringing FLY to desert and dancing with you this year. All venues in Dubai are open and further tickets will be available soon. Link in our bio. We love and miss you all ? Music is the answer ?? Stay safe ? Abide by the rules ⭐️ Blame Neil Lennon ? All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten his little hand

The Scottish Government approved it. Last november

I am convinced that a game is afoot, a dirty game.

In the interests of Sporting Integrity, I think that Hibs' lawyers should engage in Trial by Combat with rasellik's lawyers, on the Suspension Bridge, Glasgow.

It is being suggested that 9 out of the potential 11 starters tonight started against Rangers. Bain and Walsh (?) are the additions. It would be hugely coincidental and convenient if only the stiffs were required to isolate.