It has become clear Celtic won’t be excluding BBC Scotland from match coverage at Celtic Park, after the broadcaster had a full team at the stadium for today’s win over Ross County.
On Friday evening, BBC Reporting Scotland stated that their journalists had been denied access to another press conference involving Brendan Rodgers – a situation that stretches back to the unveiling of his second spell in charge.
Having received no response from Celtic as of Friday night, that doesn’t appear to have been resolved. But it also doesn’t appear to be causing issues with their access to matches.
Commentator Liam McLeod, reporter Martin Dowden, as well as pundits Pat Bonner and Michael Stewart, were all in place for live commentary on BBC Sportsound.
Dowden interviewed Rodgers exclusively twice, before and after the game, so the manager doesn’t have a problem with speaking to them on match days either.
So, that big unknown has been cleared up. This isn’t going to be a row on the same scale as the one Rangers had with the BBC. The broadcaster was shut out of Ibrox for years, playing havoc with their productions and coverage of Scottish football.
If it’s simply the case that the BBC do not get pre-match press conference access then there won’t be too much disruption, while Celtic can still make the point they haven’t been happy with aspects of their reporting around the club.
Having quick access to Rodgers’ comments on matchdays is useful for supporters. It’s a way for the manager to directly communicate to fans. For instance, today’s Carl Starfelt news was broken live on radio – so it’s heartening to hear this service will remain in place.
The BBC said on Friday night they continue to try and resolve the situation involving press conferences, so we’ll see how it plays out over the coming weeks and months.
In other news, Brendan Rodgers confirms Celtic will enter transfer market to replace wantaway star.
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