Nail-on-Head: “It is not a Celtic-Rangers thing, this is a Rangers thing,” Brendan Rodgers | OneFootball

Brendan Rodgers was absolutely magnificent this afternoon as he nailed the principal reason for the ongoing Glasgow Derby away ticket controversies.

It goes all the way back to 2018 when theRangers support had had enough of Celtic winning at Ibrox, with Brendan Rodgers’s Celtic team winning a number of consecutive fixtures at the home of theRangers, including a 5-1 hammering during Celtic’s Invincible season.

That campaign piled pressure on the Ibrox board to reduce the away support at Ibrox, which traditionally filled the Broomloan Road stand on match days when Celtic were the visitors. Indeed older Celtic supporters will recall Celtic supporters getting allocations for the Enclosure in their main stand and also on occasion in the Govan stand too for Rangers v Celtic Old Firm matches in the early 1980s.

Queen s Park v Celtic –  Brendan Rodgers ahead of the pre-season friendly match at The City Stadium, : Wednesday July 10, 2024. Photo Andrew Milligan

The logic behind the campaign was not only to stop Celtic fans celebrating in large numbers at Ibrox, but to create an intimidating environment for the Celtic teams so that they would take very little from Ibrox.

There was an acceptance that their team would take next to nothing from their away games at Celtic Park, but if their plan to stick the small number of away fans down in that corner between the Broomloan and Govan stands worked, then they could cancel out the impact of the fixtures against Celtic in terms of the league title race. This would mean that if they could achieve consistency against the other teams in league then they could be in with a chance of winning the title.

Desperate stuff certainly, but that was exactly the plan and it came from the Rangers support. So Brendan Rodgers was spot on today when he said: “It is not a Celtic-Rangers thing, this is a Rangers thing.”

Brendan said: “Clearly disappointed for both sets of supporters. It’s been a long time now since we had a decent allocation for both clubs.

“Listen, it’s not complicated. I believe there was an agreement in place to carry out work to ensure that it was in place for both sets of supporters to come. Celtic has been working on that for a number of months, I know that, with the investment that went into it to ensure that everything was right for this fixture.

“You can only do that if the agreement is upheld by both. So, we can’t guarantee that and sadly we aren’t able to open the gates for the away support for this one.

“I think the statement said it was for the next two games, so, fingers crossed that after that we will see in the final couple of games that we can get supporters back in.

“I think the board has made a really good decision in terms of it’s the club’s job to protect its support. And if they don’t have the guarantee that come the second fixture, then I think it’s only logical that you wouldn’t reciprocate.

“Celtic have played their part in what they were asked to do. Nothing of this was Celtic’s issue when you go back to when all of this started. It’s nothing to do with Celtic.

“Celtic is getting dragged into this here as a ‘Celtic vs Rangers’ thing. It’s not a Celtic thing. This is a Rangers thing.

“So, when Celtic is asked to make the stadium safe, we plow money into that and we do the works, which started months ago. As I said, both parties haven’t agreed upon it. So, it’s not complicated. It hasn’t been done (at Ibrox).

“‘Good faith’ or whatever way you want to put it, there was still an agreement for both, and it’s not been done. It’s not good faith if we allow Rangers supporters in and then we get to January and our own supporters can’t get in.

“The agreement hasn’t been upheld, so Celtic rightly has to defend their supporters and club. Sadly, like I said, Rangers supporters have to miss out on this game and Celtic in the return game.

“Let’s hope after that, we can find a way to get the supporters in.”

Listen to Brendan speak brilliantly about this, a nail-on-the-head moment for this entire fiasco.

And if there are still any Celtic supporters still harbouring any grudges against Brendan Rodgers coming back to the club, then surely that ends today. Well done Brendan!

Meanwhile Adam Idah was speaking to the Celtic fan media at Celtic Park yesterday afternoon, here’s everything that was said…

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