Celtic are waltzing to the Scottish title: unbeaten thus far, and are a gargantuan 27 points clear of second-placed Aberdeen. Celtic's utter dominance has led to heavy criticism of the Scottish league, with the most egregious criticism coming from Jason Cundy.
Cundy was bloviating on TalkSPORT about the current state of Scottish fitba', and veered off into a weird tangent on exactly how big a club Celtic actually are. To meditate on this, Cundy cited Celtic's twitter following:
I’ve looked on Twitter about how many people follow football clubs.Newcastle United have 1million followers, Celtic haven’t got half of that. There are some Championship clubs and I reckon even some League One clubs that have a better Twitter following than Celtic.
I know it’s not a science but it’s a barometer. Put me and Andy [Goldstein, his co-host] together and you’ve got half of Celtic.They wouldn’t get anywhere near the top. You’re not Barcelona. I just don’t see it. I don’t doubt they’re supported well, but outside of Glasgow? Really?
Cundy also took a really weird dig at the city of Glasgow, in explaining Celtic's consistently high attendances:
What else are you going to do in Glasgow? It’s either drink beer or go to football.
He then aimed his ire at Scottish football in a whole:
If you watch Celtic the standard they are up against, they are of course head and shoulders above everyone else. But the standard is shocking, it’s embarrassing as the league table will show you that. It’s an appalling league.
Rodgers was asked about Cundy's comments in his press conference this week, and his response was superb, managing to reduce Cundy's character to nothing, carefully-chosen word by carefully-chosen word.
I know Jason, I worked with him at Chelsea so I know what he is like. He obviously has to create a programme which stimulates conversation. It’s ignorance really. With all due respect, it’s a lack of knowledge of football.
The footballing world is more than the Premier League. But if your eyes are only on one league then of course you tend to ignore what’s around that.
We all love to see the Premier League and I was part of it but football is global and Celtic is one of the biggest clubs in the world. It [the Scottish Premiership] is not as prestigious as some of the other leagues and that’s purely on the basis of finance.
Financially, Scottish football doesn’t have the same rewards or the same propaganda that surrounds some of the other leagues, but it’s still a very, very competitive league. “He is a good boy Jason, I know him well but I probably understand what he is trying to do with his comments. He will always be welcome to Celtic Park and he would be surprised I am sure.
Well played, Brendan.
[Scotsman]
