Celtic shut down mischief-makers trying to draw club into fresh pandemic scandal

By John McGinley

December 6, 2020

Celtic have been forced into issuing a statement on a recent club photograph after online mischief-makers tried to draw the club into a fresh pandemic scandal.

The club have already hit the headlines this season with regards to COVID-19 breaches after Boli Bolingoli took a secret trip to Spain, resulting in games being postponed after Scottish Government pressure.

Dundee United were under the spotlight late last week after some of their personnel tested positive for the virus in the days after a club squad photo taken at Tannadice.

In the wake of that, mischief-makers on social media circulated a similar annual team photo taken by Celtic at Lennoxtown (BBC).

The club had also published coverage of the event to the official YouTube channel, which you can see here.

Asked for comment on the issue, a Celtic spokesperson told BBC Scotland: “The photo was taken and published weeks ago and undertaken within all established protocols. We will happily discuss this with the Scottish government should they wish to do so.

“Celtic’s own stringent protocols have ensured that, to date, following thousands of individual tests, we have recorded no positive cases within our squad, with the only cases affecting the club being recorded while our players have been on international duty.”

The phrase ‘mountain out of a molehill’ springs to mind here, especially in the wake of Celtic’s explanation.

The club have received a lot of flak recently, and rightly so, but you can’t really argue against the way they’ve approached this societal crisis.

Celtic Park / (Photo by Alan Harvey/SNS Group via Getty Images)

They were one of the first teams in the country to return to training after installing specialist testing facilities and since then, as they note, there have been no outbreaks within the Celtic camp.

If the team are training together and travelling together with little issue, it’s hard to see why such a drama has been made of a squad photo.

Celtic have done well to shut down the media enquiries.