Simon Jordan says that Celtic should’ve prioritised ‘optics’ by getting an earlier statement out about last week’s events at Ibrox.
Usually, Jordan isn’t the kind of guy worth listening to on anything, but his comments on police operations at Ibrox were a rare example of the ex-Crystal Palace owner speaking a bit of sense.
Over a week on, Brian Wilson has now addressed the events, urging authorities not to allow a ‘false narrative’ to emerge around ‘euphoric’ Celtic supporters. Fighting the club’s corner, essentially.
But famously successful owner Jordan doesn’t feel that this is the right way to go, as he articulated in his usually pompous manner on the radio on Monday.
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Simon Jordan on Celtic’s response to Ibrox events
Speaking on talkSPORT, Jordan said: “The Celtic chairman, or whatever role he occupies, is right. It’s not a race to see condemnatory statement out there.
“But in this day and age, it is a part and parcel of the optics of a media-facing business in football. To be up front, to be across things so you don’t find yourself in the crosshairs of people’s judgements.
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“The police officer’s description of the circumstances in whoever she was accounting to is almost a sideshow and distraction, that the two clubs haven’t condemned it.
“Because it’s really about what happened, and how the systems failed, and how the policing circumstances were allowed to be at a certain level, and was there enough police supporting it…
“I think ultimately, in this day and age… I don’t think [a statement] solves anything, because you’ve got to deal with the reasons why it was allowed to happen.
“But from the optics of presenting a conversation to people like us so they can’t be criticised, which is, in part, what the statement would be for, it wouldn’t be anything other than that…
“Jim, with respect, it’s meaningless. Because if they’re going to act behind the scenes and deal with it, what they’re suggesting is.. ‘This is what happened, and this is what we’re now going to say about it’.
“But that time has passed now. That could’ve been two or three days, ‘we’ve done our research, and now we’re going to take action against some of our fans who broke onto the pitch.’
“When you’re looking at the Celtic guy (Wilson), his attitude – and I can’t speak for Rangers, but his attitude was, ‘we haven’t done anything wrong’.”
How can we ensure that the Glasgow derby can continue having full allocations after the latest incident?
The hypocrisy of Simon Jordan’s argument
For a guy who prides himself so much on belittling the opinions of others and simply ‘calling it as it is’, this is a peculiar line of argument for Jordan.
Celtic’s hierarchy may fall desperately short in recruitment and fan relations, but when it comes to toeing a certain PR line, they are pretty sharp. They are not going to respond to an incident as serious as last week’s in an unnecessarily self-critical manner.
Also, if Jordan feels that the club have any remote inclination to defend the Green Brigade, any Celtic supporter could tell you that this couldn’t be further from the truth.
He may think that he’s the only media pundit worth listening to, but Jordan is falling into the same trap as the rest of the media by viewing this as a 50-50 issue.
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