You may recall an article on this website from earlier this month when we brought you the story that three Celtic players were on the verge of a Europa League suspension.
Scott Brown, Christopher Jullien and Odsonne Edouard were all on two bookings in the competition after four matches. A third yellow would mean a suspension in the following match. Do you see where this is going?
We simply brought up a scenario where the Celtic stars would pick up a deliberate booking in the Rennes game in order to serve their suspension in the meaningless clash away to Cluj. Following that, bookings would be wiped with the players back to square one and not walking a disciplinary tightrope in the knockout fixtures.
Well it appears that one Celtic man may have got the memo. Scott Brown picked up a pretty needless booking in the Rennes win, following a number of bitty fouls around the pitch.
And some Celtic fans reckon it was a deliberate act. Surely not.
https://twitter.com/Chris886402/status/1200161247423082505
Many saw the funny side of Brown’s attempts to get his name in the referee’s notebook.
https://twitter.com/TheCelticWiki/status/1200161794758782985
Not many of the Celtic first-team contingent will fancy Cluj on a cold Thursday night in December. The beauty of already having first place assured is that we don’t need them to travel out. Happy days.
Back to Brown.
UEFA could choose to look at Brown yellow
The only slight fear is if UEFA look at Brown’s booking as a deliberate act. They view such an offence as an illegal one in their book as it is seen to be against sporting integrity. They could choose to increase the captain’s ban as a result, if he is indeed cited.
They have done this on a number of occasions recently – most notably with Sergio Ramos.
The Real Madrid defender was given a two-match ban for “clearly receiving a yellow card on purpose” (BBC) during a game against Ajax last season. Ramos took the booking with Real 2-1 up in the away leg in Amsterdam – with the idea that he would miss the return clash but be back for the quarter-finals.
Unfortunately for the Spaniard, Madrid were thumped 4-1 at home in the second leg as Ramos sat in the stand helpless. To make matters worse, he had to miss his side’s first Champions League game this season.
Valencia man Geoffrey Kondogbia was another UEFA casualty last year – ironically in a game against Celtic. The Daily Record reported that the midfielder was charged with being deliberately booked in his side’s 2-0 win at Parkhead. Hopefully the same fate doesn’t befall Brown.
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