We Have A Green Brigade Shaped Problem

It's becoming almost tedious now. Big European occasion at Celtic Park, UEFA sanction for banner flown in Green Brigade section.

The Green Brigade bring a lot of positives to the club. They create so much noise and colour. They create an amazing atmosphere (most of the time). They do a lot of work for charidee (and they *do* like to talk about it).

But it has to be said that along with the positives comes one pretty serious negative.

They cannot be trusted not to bring the club to the attention of UEFA with attention-seeking, provocative "political" displays at every conceivable opportunity.

They have to realise, surely, that UEFA will not restrict themselves to fines for Celtic indefinitely? Sooner or later, if they don't stop with the self-indulgent political nonsense, UEFA are going to close a stand at Celtic Park for an important European match.

This "ultras" group, which is supposed to be about supporting Celtic, is going to end up hurting Celtic.

They concoct so many excuses for what they do. So many reasons to feel aggrieved at UEFA for enforcing their own competition rules, and none of them actually hold any water.

We hear about how they are somehow honouring Celtic's origins with their left-wing, faux-Irish Republican displays. As if the founders of Celtic were Marxist agitators whose purpose was to raise the class-consciousness of the proletariat of Glasgow's East End, rather than to raise funds to feed the poor.

Or Irish Republican Brotherhood operatives infiltrating Scottish football in order to bring about an independent Republic, at a time when the Irish Nationalist movement was focused on Home Rule. Brother Walfrid may well have enjoyed a rousing rendition of God Save Ireland, but that in no way means he would have approved of taunting Linfield fans with a banner glorifying the IRA.

It is ahistorical nonsense to justify left-wing and/or Irish Republican displays on the basis of the founders of the club and their motives. I've read so many times over the past 24 hours the claim that Celtic was, "born out of politics."

Celtic's founders did so not to seek election to political office, or to influence government policy. They were acting out of Catholic charity.

Our founders were not the kind of people who wanted the state to help the poor, they were the kind of people who got up off their backsides and did it themselves because that's what their Catholic faith taught them to do.

So if the Green Brigade and friends are so keen to express pride in our origins, when can we expect them to wave Rosary beads and Sacred Heart banners at opposition fans?

That's a rhetorical question of course, I very much doubt many of them could tell you what the First Sorrowful Mystery is, never mind own a set of Rosary beads.

It's The Agony in the Garden for anyone who's interested, or for fans old enough to remember the late 1940's, whoever was playing outside right that day - Hibernian had the Famous Five up front, we had The Five Sorrowful Mysteries.

But I digress. The understanding these people have of our origins as a club is seriously flawed but it hardly matters in the context of what is and is not acceptable in UEFA competition.

The actual rule UEFA have is against banners "not fit for a sporting occasion."

So let's forget about what our founders stood for (or what you think they stood for). When you fly a banner glorifying paramilitaries (and spare me the wounded innocence, they knew exactly what they were doing), UEFA are going to hammer that and no one should be in any doubt about it.

This is not about our identity, or our right to political expression. It's about Celtic playing in UEFA competition and UEFA having rules which we all need to abide by.

It really doesn't matter what anyone thinks of UEFA's rules. We know by now (or we should know by now) that UEFA enforce their rules. So please Green Brigade, spare us your pointless, needless student union political posturing.

We're not all left wing politicians. We're not all Irish Republicans. We're not all of Irish descent. We're not all Catholics. The only thing that unites us is a love of Celtic. Let's focus on that.