THIS GULF WAR ISN’T OVER YET
• Questions remain over why Celtic were given permission for training trip to Dubai • Now grudge match with Hibs lies in wait after fixture was put back two days
THE f all- out f rom Celtic’s trip to Dubai this week has made the sandstorms that blow through the Emirate in the dry summer months seem almost tame in comparison.
Questioned by Nicola Sturgeon after images of staff and players enjoying a poolside drink appeared online, the Parkhead club’s PR machine responded with a flurry of training ground shots having previously reminded the First Minister that her government had signed off on the trip in November.
Amid the annoyance at Celtic failing to ‘read the room’ as the country re- entered l ockdown, together with indignation at more unvarnished opportunism from the country’s most senior politician, the row over the club’s stay in the Gulf purely on sporting grounds has become somewhat lost.
Intriguingly, however, it is not just Hibernian — whose match with Celtic was pushed back two days to accommodate the Dubai camp — who will have taken careful note of the ongoing rumpus.
Notwithstanding the optics surrounding the situation, many Celtic supporters are also pondering why a week in the sun has taken precedence over the playing of two of their three games in hand over Rangers. To many of them, the exercise is largely self-defeating.
And f or Scottish f ootball supporters at large, there remains a broader question. Why was any winter break for any one club sanctioned in a season when, we were told in no uncertain terms last summer, it simply could not be countenanced?
All other things being equal, the desire of Celtic to return to the place where they’d successfully rebooted in each of the past four seasons was entirely understandable.
After Brendan Rodgers first alighted there in early 2017, the side went on to complete the Invincible Treble. A year later, it put enough gas in their tank to sweep the boards again.
Rodgers checked out of Celtic shortly after leaving his Dubai hotel in 2019 but Neil Lennon still inherited a squad with enough zest to take the run of domestic trophies to nine.
One year ago, the healing powers of the Arabian winter sun were again evidenced. Having creaked i nto the New Year, Lennon’s invigorated side won 12 and drew one domestic match to ensure their dominance continued.
What happened next scarcely needs repeating. Covid-19 changed life as we know it. The safety curtain came down on Scottish football on March 13 with the season called soon after.
When the Scottish Government gave the game a dispensation to resume in early August, those tasked with fixture scheduling looked ahead with the kind of trepidation that normally comes before a walk across a high wire is attempted.
So tight was the schedule, explained the SPFL’s secretary Iain Blair, that it was impossible to accede to the SFA’s request to have a free weekend immediately before Scotland faced Israel in the Euro 2020 play-off semi-final.
As for a winter break? A luxury the calendar simply could not afford.
‘The stress on the SPFL fixture calendar next season is going to be enormous, with a real risk that some clubs will be forced to play four games in eight days, which we always try to avoid,’ he said in June.
‘And that’s even before we consider the impact of the Scottish winter and the high risk of cancelled matches due to adverse weather.
‘We have already been obliged to cancel the winter break next season because we absolutely needed those extra three potential match dates, but even with that, I think it is going to be tighter than at any time in my 22 years working for the SPFL.’
Expanding on the theme the following week, SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster added: ‘We have not been able to accommodate a winter break this year, and it has been extremely challenging to get all of the fixtures away.
‘We have got just 34 spaces for games this side of the split in April and we have got 33 games to fit in, so if there are any delays due to weather or Scottish Cup replays — whatever it may be — then there is a problem.’
It wasn’t, though, the early onset of inclement weather that started Celtic’s fixture logjam. It was selfishness and stupidity.
Boli Bolingoli’s day trip to Spain, which was discovered only after he’d come off the bench at Kilmarnock, led to Celtic’s match with St Mirren on August 12 being postponed until September 16.
That, coupled with the antics of the Aberdeen Eight, meant the home game with the Dons on August 15 was also pushed back.
Celtic’s progression to the delayed Scottish Cup final further knocked out league games with St Mirren and Livingston, ensuring Lennon’s men had the sum total of three games in hand at the turn of the year.
With Rangers setting an unrelenting pace at the top of the league, clawing back those nine points at the earliest opportunity seemed eminently sensible.
Yet, instead of scheduling one either side of the Hibs match that was due to take place this Saturday, they were pushed back; January 20 f or Livingston, February 17 for Aberdeen and March 3 for St Mirren.
And all to crowbar in a week in the sun that’s brought only widespread condemnation, bemusement and anger.
Blair’s justification at the start of December for the SPFL approving a break in a year when they were apparently off limits came after Hibs’ objection had been overruled.
‘As has been the case for 22 years, SPFL policy, where two clubs do not agree about a fixture change and in the absence of any other relevant factor, is to favour the home club,’ he stated. That cut no ice with the Easter Road club, with outgoing chief executive Leeann Dempster as angered as much by how the decision had been taken as the decision itself.
‘Apologies to our supporters and our head coach,’ she stated. ‘This was done without my knowledge — we said no to the original request from Celtic because the request didn’t work for our club.
‘ The SPFL appears to have agreed this without a call to the decision makers at our club.’
Dempster followed up with: ‘We are fizzing about this — @spfl know I am leaving soon (ish) but they still have my mobile number so a call should have been easy to do — or @gmathie82 or even to our Chairman. Not good enough. Move to Monday without asking us?’
As for the normally diplomatic Jack Ross? Going by his remarks at the time, it’s just conceivable the matter might be revisited before the game finally takes place.
‘I don’t think it’s ever been as easy to request a fixture change and f or the SPFL to be so accommodating,’ he stated.
Ross will need no one to tell him that being the first side to meet Celtic post-Dubai is invariably a thankless task. The Parkhead men have won the corresponding game in each of the past four seasons.
Given the consternation this year’s trip has caused, all within Celtic Park had better hope that pattern continues.
A week in the sun that has brought only widespread condemnation