The Scottish Mail on Sunday

Gary Keown Celtic board must get tougher Celtic board must get tougher

Onus is on club to change — because Green Brigade won’t

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IS IT any wonder the little darlings of the Green Brigade are feeling confused and let down? One minute, Celtic are encouragin­g them to roll over and have their tummy tickled. The next, they’re locked out and in the doghouse. In a footballin­g environmen­t riddled with dysfunctio­nal relationsh­ips, this one really takes the biscuit.

Even at the club AGM on Wednesday, the messages were mixed. On one hand, chief executive Peter Lawwell, all strong words and indignatio­n, is insisting there was no option other than closing down their section for the Europa League visit of Rennes because of fears over further punishment by UEFA.

On the other, manager Neil Lennon is expressing his hope that they promise to play nice and get back into the stadium ‘ASAP’.

Mind you, it is little other than Groundhog Day with the Green Brigade right now. We’ve been here with them on more than one occasion in the past.

Banned for a bit, allowed back with the protests and the pyro, praised for improving the atmosphere and then shoved outside in the cold again.

Usually, when UEFA have stepped in to administer a fine and remind everyone — because it is so easy to forget — that setting off smoke bombs in a confined area and lionising terrorism just isn’t cricket.

That, of course, is becoming such a regular occurrence that Lawwell would be as well setting up a direct debit. He probably qualifies for a Prompt Payer discount by now, with a 20th charge — for letting off fireworks away to Lazio — already in the post.

The Green Brigade deserve criticism. They understand why they get it, accept it and probably revel in it. Their position has been consistent from the off, though.

When it comes to this particular tie-up, it is the club that is all over the shop. And that, surely, has to come under the microscope in a debate in which most of the flak seems to be fired in one direction by so many of the usual suspects — towards the north-east corner of Parkhead rather than the directors’ box.

The Green Brigade are not going to change. Much the same as the FTP brigade across the city at Rangers. We know this because they have told us. Over and over.

When they were handed a twogame ban in 2017 for flying banners at a home match with Linfield that included a paramilita­ry figure and a clear play on a ‘Sniper At Work’ sign, they even went as far as to issue a statement.

‘We can assure all that we will be back in Celtic Park soon enough and that we will never allow our style nor our politics to ever be diluted,’ they said. No wiggle room there, then.

Celtic can talk tough all they want, but they gave them the section they stand in. They let them back in with that style and those politics undiluted, right enough.

Presumably, someone at the club gives their banners the once-over before they hold them high. If they don’t, they probably should.

We’re 13 years on from the formation of the self-styled ultras group and going round in circles.

Back in 2011, the club first threatened to disband the Green Brigade while Lennon, in his first spell as boss, pleaded for an end to IRA singing. At the end of the 201112 season, though, he planted the SPL trophy on the turf in front of them as a thank you for ‘changing the culture of the stadium’.

If it was a peace offering, it didn’t work. The group earned the club a £42,000 fine for a display involving IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands in 2013 and had their section closed ‘for safety reasons’.

Lawwell reiterated there was no room for politics within ‘a nonpolitic­al organisati­on’. Yet, they were back in Section 111 in September 2014 as if nothing had happened, months on from earning another fine for a pro-Palestine display against KR Reykjavik.

Bad guys when they get the stencils out to tackle ‘Hun Scum’ or ‘Bloodstain­ed Poppies’, they become great craic when Kieran Tierney is shouting through their megaphone after games.

The contradict­ory messages go beyond that. The club desire an end to the paramilita­ry songbook, so why play Daniel Boone’s Beautiful

Sunday over the tannoy last term when they knew parts of the ground would pepper it with IRA lyrics? It’s like Rangers playing Sweet

Caroline against Hearts at Ibrox today, following their travelling support’s ability to somehow squeeze ‘F*** the Pope’ into the melody away to Feyenoord in midweek.

These guys would turn Agadoo by Black Lace into a celebratio­n of punishment beatings and gelignite if you let them. They do not need encouragem­ent.

Likewise, don’t the powers that be at Parkhead realise the issues raised when footage emerges of the ludicrous Rod Stewart, when he is not getting drunk at Scottish Cup draws, demanding Lawwell and chairman Ian Bankier stand up around the dinner table for a song set against the backdrop of the 1916 Easter Rising?

As Donald Findlay QC, the former vice-chair at Ibrox will testify, you have to be particular­ly mindful of your karaoke choices as an Old Firm director. Particular­ly when there are recording devices around.

When you are railing against sections of your support over political expression, or whatever you wish to label it, you can’t play at it.

The ball lies firmly in Celtic’s court right now with the Green Brigade under an indefinite suspension from Parkhead.

Refuse to readmit them to their safe-standing section and an atmosphere now driven completely by one area of the stadium suffers.

Stop their organised displays and the chances of you winning those coveted ‘Greatest Fans In The Solar System’ gongs lessen — such as the one awarded by FIFA shortly after some geezer had invaded the pitch against Paris Saint-Germain to swing a boot at Kylian Mbappe.

Yet, let them back in as before and the brand, the thing that matters most in modern-day football, risks greater damage.

The Green Brigade have no interest in becoming happyclapp­ers who tug their forelocks and toe the line. However you view their ethos, they have, at least, made that clear.

Therefore, the focus should not rest upon them as Celtic wrestle with the thorny problem of being stuck on UEFA’s watchlist.

It should be on the board that helped create a monster — and the question of whether they really are willing to confront it for good.

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