Never fan the flames of hate
NEXT time Linfield make it into Europe, they should, at the very least, be playing behind closed doors. Next time their manager, David Healy, is asked about the appalling conduct of their fans, he should take his head out of the sand and get real.
Next time UEFA get round to selecting their referees for Champions League games, they should say bye-bye to Alejandro Jose Hernandez Hernandez.
And next time Brendan Rodgers, or anyone else in Celtic’s senior management, gets within range of Leigh Griffiths, they should boot him up the backside. He will know the position to adopt. He has been there plenty of times before.
What happened to Griffiths at Windsor Park on Friday evening was shameful and Linfield — with their wholly inadequate stewarding — must be hammered for it. Let’s get that straight from the start.
He was almost struck by a missile in the first half. The hail of objects aimed at him, including that halfbottle of Bionic Tonic, as he prepared to take a corner-kick in the second half was disgraceful, like a horrifying flashback to an entirely different era.
That he should have been booked by Hernandez Hernandez for complaining about it defied belief.
You think Scottish refereeing is in bother? Spare a thought for Spain.
This guy was voted best in the country by the national association’s refereeing committee last season — after brandishing 111 yellow cards and seven reds in 22 games.
Then there was the small matter of failing to award a Barcelona goal at Real Betis that was yards over the line and allowing himself to be spotted leaving the second
of the season at the Bernabeu with a signed Real Madrid shirt — provided for him by home captain Sergio Ramos.
He was supposedly running an errand for a hotel owner in his native Lanzarote.
Football is a febrile environment. As in Barcelona and Madrid, every element of the behaviour of those wrapped up in the Old Firm rivalry is under the microscope. They must be acutely aware of that.
Sadly, Griffiths — now 26 and at what is surely the peak of his career as a Celtic player and first-choice striker for Scotland — still seems unable to rein in his infuriating outbreaks of brainlessness that have so often blighted his career, from off-colour tweets and sing-songs to run-ins with managers over his levels of dedication.
Celtic said they turned down their ticket allocation for Belfast because of ‘security concerns’ raised by local police.
Despite some doubts expressed over the truth of that statement, it is looking very much like the right decision.
Certainly, there is no difficulty in believing Rodgers when he states that he was worried about the safety of his players at Windsor Park. Griffiths was silly in winding up the fans who had been targeting him by making a ‘5-1’ signal with his hands, referring to Celtic’s two most resounding wins over Rangers last season.
His actions at the end, tying a Celtic scarf to the goalposts, were idiotic.
One punter got on to the park to confront him. Others looked up for it, too. It worsened an already tense situation and was wholly unnecessary.
Yes, he was wronged by the referee and riled by the home support. His blood was surely boiling. This was his way of having the last word.
However, as Rodgers reminded him after their touchline spat at Firhill towards the end of last season, this is not all about him.
He placed his team-mates in a dangerous position. His antics were inflammatory and foolish. There is no excuse for what he was subjected to and there is already a desire among the support to defend him, but Celtic must demand higher standards of behaviour.
After all, there is no guarantee the matter is closed. The reports to be filed by Hernandez Hernandez and the UEFA delegate will, no doubt, focus on the Linfield fans who also targeted Jonny Hayes and others with missiles.
However, Griffiths’ actions at the end may also merit a mention.
It would hardly be the first time a UEFA delegate’s report has landed Celtic in the soup. The club has been fined 13 times by European football’s governing body in the last decade — 10 of those incidents coming in the last six seasons — because of the behaviour of their supporters.
Part of the problem with PR departments is they often make it difficult to establish the truth and that was certainly the case in the build-up to Friday’s game, with the Police Service of Northern Ireland at loggerheads with Celtic over the role they played in the club’s refusal of tickets.
It is hardly difficult, though, to imagine the Parkhead board being privately happy at the opportunity to prevent a sizeable travelling support going to Linfield at a delicate time of year in Northern Ireland.
They are skating on thin ice as it is. Unlike the impotent SFA and SPFL, UEFA don’t mess about when handing down punishments and Celtic simply cannot trust their supporters to behave at European games any longer.
They can hardly afford their players to be fanning the flames, too — no matter the provocation.