Clubs can’t tap into punters’ emotions to open

THERE have not been so many folk on high horses since the Charge of the Light Brigade in the wake of some Celtic fans going on the offensive the other night.

Parkhead chiefs were quick to point the finger and plenty of others have piled in with their condemnation of the crew who hurled barriers, roughed up cops and lobbed missiles at cars.

Rightly so. Let’s get the highhorse stuff out of the way first.

The behaviour was beyond offside. These folk shouldn’t be out the house during a pandemic never mind giving the bobbies extra work to do.

But let’s hang on a second. Football clubs can’t have it both ways. They can’t tap into the emotions of supporters in a bid to trigger them to open up their wallets and pay fortunes to watch games on their laptop – and then complain when the same punters get a bit carried away and care too much.

These are not mushrooms. You can’t just feed them s*** and let them sit in the dark.

If you want them to be all in when it comes to buying the club jammies, you need to accept there are demands that come with it. The way it has been framed this week by some is these Celtic fans are entitled, they have been spoiled, the reaction was way over the top.

Perhaps. But this isn’t a unique situation to Celtic. Supporters go over the score all over the globe.

You know fan is short for ‘fanatic’, right? It happens all over the place.

Last week Inter Milan ultras turned up to their training ground going tonto – they even had a banner saying they’d be back with baseball bats if the results didn’t