Before we even get started, this is no message from a Celtic apologist. This is just pure common sense. We have gotten soft in the world today. Whether you want to admit it or not. This doesn’t mean I’m advocating pure anarchy and no rules. But there are some things that are getting ridiculous.
If you missed it, Celtic faced Linfield last Friday in Belfast. Quick history lesson. Celtic = Catholic historically. Linfield = Protestants. This has changed a lot of late, but there is still sectarianism. For some reason. Things were thrown at striker Leigh Griffiths when he tried to take a corner. Of course, there was going to be some retaliation.
Not very many people would have just ate it at took the abuse. Especially after being turned back by the official, yellow carded for ‘time wasting’ due to pointing out that debris hit him. The absurdity of the whole situation only intensified when the match ended. Celtic were two nil away winners in a match they dominated, but that wasn’t the ended of the story.
Instead Griffiths, unwisely, decided to tie a Celtic scarf to one of the goalposts. While that was unwise, that wasn’t exactly some of the worst things we’ve seen to ‘incite a crowd.’ This wasn’t someone taking a flag from a drone and stomping on it. It wasn’t running from one end of the pitch to another to anger supporters.
That’s just how it goes sometimes. Was what he did wise? No. It was a terrible decision. But it was also unwise to throw things at him, and then to punish him for it. This whole thing needs to be fixed, and the way forward isn’t just to slap the player with sanctions.
This whole thing needs to wrap up now. This is 2017. The world shouldn’t be stuck doing things like this. Alas, here we are still talking about this issue, centuries later.
