For the past week, I have, I think been suitably gracious in my praise of Kazakh champions Astana, ahead of and after the first leg of our Champions League qualifier.
There are good reasons for that. Firstly, they are a good team as their home results against top-class European opposition have shown.
Secondly, the caricaturing of Kazakh people by Britain's best-loved racist comedian since Bernard Manning, Sasha Baron Cohen, with his Borat character has heaped humiliation on that nation in a way that has disadvantaged the country and, especially its young people.
Related to this is a sneaking suspicion that journalists in the tabloids that I do not read would not hesitate to big up those racist epithets with all the grace and dignity of an infant shouting, “funny wee man” at someone with an apparent physical handicap.
Kazakhstan is a nation asserting its confidence and its football teams are instruments of that.
Unfortunately, the country is also one of the most corrupt in the world.
Transparency International rates the country as coming 123rd (out of 167 listed states) in terms of above-board dealing. In other words, Kazakhstan hovers around the top 25% of the world's most corrupt countries.
Why is this relevant now? Because, when the referee was adding five minutes of injury time to a match that Astana had to win, that didn't seem to fit with the pattern of play during the match – but it would have seemed churlish to pick up on it at the time.
But when Astana are publicly issuing footage of Leigh Griffith wrestling off the attentions of Astana defender, Igor Shitov, – and claiming the clips showed a punch and red-card offence, you can tell that something from the darker side of football is afoot.
The referee on the night, allowed Patrick Roberts to be hacked down almost every time he made contact with the ball. Kieran Tierney was the subject of a ridiculous claim of a foul worthy of a face-holding.
These incidents are not coincidental. Astana identified Celtic's key players before the match and sought to neutralise them for the second leg.
In the case of Griffiths, he received a yellow card for the shoving in the box and therefore it should be impossible for UEFA to review the “incident” as if it had been missed.
But we now know the nature of Astana and, in terms of goodwill, at least, the gloves should be off.
That is to say that they will come to Celtic Park next week, where their players, staff and fans will enjoy a safe environment in arguably the best football arena in Europe.
But the underhand efforts of the club and its coaching staff should be seen for what they are – a bid to rob Celtic of our best players.
60,000 fans at Celtic Park? I wonder how the Astana players will enjoy their evening.
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4 comments:
Let's give these bad losers an unusual Celtic welcome, when the teams emerge from the tunnel wall to wall hisses and booing should reverberate around the whole stadium to show our contempt for their foul tactics!
Then rattle in at least three goals to send this Asian team back home with egg on their corrupt faces!
I certainly expect a hot atmosphere. Let's see how well they handle it.
I hope that you aren't asking us to lower ourselves! Let's give them our own very very (Xtra) loud welcome, Hail! Hail!
Nothing wrong with expressing support for the team and our feelings about the opposition at equal volume. I expect the first foul on Patrick Roberts to create a bit of noise. I certainly hope so.
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