Quite a few of you have interacted with Celtic via e-mail and telephone regarding the Resolution 12 issue. Thats not entirely unexpected, as the Celtic support are a little different from, say, the support of at least one other club.

We fight battles before they are lost. We just need to make sure we fight the right people. And we fight them together.

The club issued a standard reply to anyone who emailed them over the subject.

You’ve probably all seen it by now, and it goes like this;

Thank you for your email, as a rule the Club has a policy not to comment on internet speculation, however this is a sustained campaign against the Club, which has no foundation.  The Club has for some time been addressing the issues raised by Resolution 12 and supporters can be assured it will continue to do so in the best interests of the Club.

 “A sustained campaign against the club which has no foundation ”  

Now, is he referring to the accusations of inaction, and the desire for the club to do something about the events surrounding the collusion ( well documented ) between the authorities and a club on the brink of liquidation ?

In which case, they ( I’m not going to personalise this note, as it is clearly from a template ) are  saying that the club are on the case, so to speak.

Its just that we, the supporters as a whole,  haven’t seen any evidence of this.

If , however, they are on the case, why have they not made it public ?

The secrecy around the actions of the SFA and SPFL is part of the problem, and when the club adopts a similar tactic, naturally , suspicions will be aroused.

All most of us want to do, as with any scandal, is to keep it in the public eye,  which should lead to those involved being forced into explanations for their actions, and if they have been the wrong actions, either legally or morally, they must be held accountable.

I’m also a little concerned about the wording of the last line.

  supporters can be assured it will continue to do so in the best interests of the Club. 

I have absolutely no faith in the idea that when they say club, they mean supporters, or, which is equally important, in the interest of the game as a whole.

They seem to be missing the point.

Its all about fairness, integrity and transparency.

And , of course, accountability.

There are several other emails, and records of telephone conversations, including a response to Whoriskeys comments in yesterdays Diary replies, which make for interesting reading.

What we now have are a number of conflicting views, and it would be unfair of me to take everything as it is written.

So, I’ll speak to all parties first, and try to draw my own conclusions.

You see, the last thing I want is to see the support polarised, because I get the feeling that the real enemy will be hoping that is exactly what happens.

Its what people in authority do when they’re making an arse of something, and have been found out. They deflect and divide.

The SFA haven’t had to deflect as yet, and they haven’t had to try to divide us.

So lets make sure we’re all clear on everything before we come out swinging.

Yesterday, on a serious note, a corrupt and inefficient police force was finally proven to be a corrupt and inefficient organisation, which would have come as a great relief to those affected by the terrible tragedy at Hillsborough, in Sheffield twenty seven years ago.

Instead of lessons being learned from those events, the cover up and culture of blame afterwards prevented many families from finding the truth, which became the priority , as opposed to dealing with those whose actions and decisions  had contributed to terrible events that day.

One might venture that the current law in Scotland, which treats football fans apart from society is an indirect consequence of what was the establishment led media campaign of the day, and perhaps its worth taking that into consideration when petitioning for the removal of the OBF act.

We’ve spoken about the really serious stuff today, and without taking anything away from the first part of the Diary, and trivialising them in any way, we’ll move on to the Completely Ludicrous bit…

American power broker wants to see Celtic v Rangers at

Wembley  

The organiser of the International Champions Cup, Charlie Stillitano, is hatching plans to have Celtic take on Rangers – at Wembley stadium.

The New Jersey-based football tycoon believes there would be worldwide interest in a first-ever match meeting of the Glasgow rivals outside Scotland and insists the national stadium would be a sell-out.

The International Champions Cup, involving 17 of the world’s best teams, will take place this summer across the globe, focusing on matches in China Australia, the United States as well as Europe. 

He obviously hasn’t seen the figures for the last game between the two, which were only around 500,000.

To put it into perpspective, channel 5’s recent offering about Henry VIII and his six wives drew 1,2m viewers, Can’t Pay ? We’ll Take it Away 640,000, while over on BBC1, the real event of the week, Countryfile, dwarfed everyone with just shy of  six and a half million watching.

Maybe they should put that on at Wembley.

But the bold Mr. Stillitano, and one suspects he hasn’t looked too closely into this, continues…

“Celtic v Rangers would fill out Wembley, 100 per cent. That would be wonderful. 

“We had Manchester United v Liverpool as the final of this tournament in 2014. They didn’t want to play each other but they ended up meeting in the final in Miami and it was a great occasion.

“We have the Manchester City v Manchester United in China this year. If we can put on a Manchester derby in Beijing, we can put on a Glasgow derby. I think Wembley would be perfect for it.  

I suppose we could play them on the moon, and offer to pay not only their travel expenses, but all the expenses of their supporters. I could start one of those crowdfunding things, if need be.

Just don’t tell them we’re not actually going to be in the next shuttle, and neither is the team…

As an added bonus, we could get virgin to include it in their spaceflight venture. Judging by their trains at the weekend, they wouldn’t even get anywhere near the moon, and would spend eternity in perpetual motion circling the sun…

On the subject of the new manager, yes, i know we weren’t, but doing these fluent links isn’t always easy, we have a quote from Martin O’Neill, regarding the specualtion about Roy Keane… (I use speculation quite loosely here, in fact, i haven’t even spelt it correctly )

“I can’t speak for him, and possibly can’t even speak for myself either All my concentration is on what’s ahead in the next couple of weeks. There’s always going to be a bit of speculation and probably because I played for Forest, and Roy had some interest from Celtic the last time around before the manager got the job,”  

There’s a lot of nonsense surrounding the club at the moment, and one almost has to remind oneself that there’s a big game at the weekend.

Whilst this promises to be an interesting week off the field,  there are still matters on the field to take care of.

Celtic, battered and bedraggled on the pitch, need to pull themselves together and get a win at Tynecastle to secure the fifth title.

Now, when Ronny tries to motivate the players for this one, it should be fairly simple, where else would be a better place to win the league ?

It may give us further indication of which players hearts are with the club, and which aren’t.

Yesterdays caption, which according to Sue showed the restricted view seats at the upcoming Barcelona game, and as such deems here a worthy winner.

Today, here’s an interesting and somewhat provocative pic…