NO PLACE LIKE HOME
Lawwell: Hoops belong at Europe’s top table CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
REAL MADRID and Barcelona mingled, Juventus and Bayern Munich chiefs shot the breeze.
Paris St Germain officials, fresh from their club spending £200million on Neymar and ready to write cheques for another £200m for Kylian Mbappe and Fabinho, hobnobbed with counterparts from draw hosts Monaco.
England’s five clubs, responsible largely for the £300m which has been spent in the Premier League this summer, sauntered up and down the escalators within the Grimaldi Forum. It was European football’s highest rollers in Monte Carlo, the glitziest of settings.
As far as Peter Lawwell is concerned Celtic, cash restrictions aside, are very much part of the set. More than that they belong there.
This was the 10th time the Parkhead outfit had been involved in this ceremony after reaching the group stages.
In many ways as money matters more and more in the game and the rich line their pockets to keep widening their gulf to the rest, Celtic and some of the other big clubs in the smaller nations have never been further away.
Lawwell is well aware of the financial chasm. He’s been part of talks involving the likes of Ajax lobbying UEFA and urging them to understand the continual growth of the big clubs could turn out to be even more harmful to their poorer relations money wise in years ahead.
But it’s football that really matters. And when it comes to history and tradition, to having the name and the respect, Celtic’s chief executive is firmly of the belief the club should be nowhere else other than rubbing shoulders with the illustrious elite.
When the opening sequence of action blasted out on screens just after 6pm in the glamorous Draw Hall inside the lavish building on the coast with the big yachts docked just outside, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi were sat in front-row seats watching replays of their goals from last term.
Gigi Buffon was there watching himself make the saves that earned him Champions League Goalkeeper of the Year for last season.
Sergio Ramos was sat directly in the row behind the famous trio looking back at clips of the tackles and interventions that won him the Champions League Defender of the Year.
Bang in the middle of the massive montage Moussa Dembele’s bicycle-kick finish in the 3-3 draw with Manchester City that almost lifted the roof of the stadium in Celtic’s second group stage game last September. Lawwell didn’t need to see that goal or recall that night to feel his club deserve to be seated at this top table.
He feels it as soon as he walks into places such as the Grimaldi Forum and the warmth comes from the chief executive’s peers from all corners of Europe.
Standing in the Grimaldi Forum just seconds after the conclusion of the draw he said: “We belong here. In terms of the financial discrepancy between us and the big teams, it is massive.
“But for who we are, the size of our club, the traditions we have, the facilities we have, the brand we have and the global reach we have, with our reputation and that of Celtic Park, this is where we should be.
“Are people glad to see us here? Absolutely. Celtic are still regarded as a top-class European professional club in everything that we do. There is a real,