Celtic FC - Two Minutes Left
Article by James PayneClick here to follow e-Celtic on Twitter for the latest news!
The crowd at Murrayfield roars Celtic on as it searches for that goal which will cap a storming second half show and send the Scottish champions into the final qualifying round for the 2014/15 Champions League. One more goal. ‘Mon The Hoops! Legia has signalled its anxiety by bringing on another defender, Bartosz Bereszynski, for the closing minutes. With the referee looking at his watch and then nodding to his linesmen the game obviously only has seconds to go. James Forrest goes on a run and when he hits the goal-line he sends a cut back that finds a taker. Celtic’s captain Charlie Mulgrew rather scuffs his shot but it cannons off the Legia sub, loops over the Legia ‘keeper and for a nanosecond the crowd holds its breath as the ball spins onto the underside of the bar and then into the net. Murrayfield goes completely crazy as the Celtic fans and players celebrate. Almost unnoticed the referee has blown his whistle. Bartosz Bereszynski is still lying face down in the turf beating his fists in futile grief... Apologies for the purple prose. Celtic’s qualification didn't happen like that although I would imagine young Bartosz is now one of the unhappiest young men in Europe. But should he be? Should Legia have been punished so heavily for a clerical oversight? Should Celtic have benefited to the extent it has?
I’ll answer the first question by saying that Bereszynski – who has received a further ban - should not have received any further punishment. Like any player the world over he would have assumed that he was eligible to play- it is not his job to know the minutiae of the rules of player registration and he would not have had even the slightest suspicion he was not meant to be playing. What was he meant to do? Refuse an instruction given him by his manager?
Legia made an almighty rickets of this and deserve some punishment. It is not unprecedented for replays to be ordered or a really big fine to be handed out and even these rulings seem pretty stiff penalties in this circumstance. The Polish champs have not just been stripped of their win but chucked out of both European competitions- proportionate? UEFA have I think got this wrong because whatever else it is bringing on a player who is ineligible because of an administrative howler is not cheating. Rules is rules as they say but UEFA really do need to take a look at the way this particular rule is applied.
Celtic has of course been unbelievably lucky this time and unlike the Sion affair of three years ago Celtic was not in any way impeded by the administrative failings of their opponent as the arrival of Bereszynski came far too late to impact on the outcome. The performance of the team and, once again, the new manager were deserving of nothing but scorn far less a tilt at getting into the competition proper. Celtic’s ‘strategy’ was exposed clinically by a team that played better than it did in Warsaw.
Whether Celtic deserves this incredible slice of luck is debatable but those who have fumed at the outcome in Scotland- i.e. everyone interested in football who doesn’t support Celtic – should acknowledge that it was not Celtic that cocked up Legia’s player registrations and the rule and the statutory punishment, draconian though that seems to me to be, are there in the rule book. It was not Celtic that told UEFA about Legia’s error- Celtic was as uninformed on this matter off the park as it had been abject on it. Fifty years ago when Bob Kelly was running Celtic with romantic principles about how the game should be played Celtic did actually have one of the very few club chairmen ever who would have contemplated telling UEFA that it was more morally right for Celtic to miss out on the chance of playing in the biggest club competition in the World (probably) but Celtic’s current regime, pragmatists fixated on cash, are unlikely to have spent another one of those nanoseconds debating whether to accept the unexpected reprieve. If you are reading this and support another team would you want your board to do anything different from what Celtic’s has? No? I thought not. Bring on Maribor!
I have to admit to extreme unease about what has happened. Leaving aside the possibility that Peter Lawwell really has entered into some Faustian pact to ensure Celtic’s progress- C’mon three years in which 2 teams outplaying Celtic have been chucked out of Europe as well as your greatest rivals not just going belly up but when that rival reforms the powers at be deem it (Rangers) have to start off in the fourth tier of the league does suggest either diabolic or even divine intervention surely. Domestically the usual lunatics will give us their customary rubbish about the fabled ‘Unseen Fenian Hand’ but in Europe the reaction will be harder to predict. Celtic may be in for some bumpy trips this autumn.
The aftermath of Wednesday’s match has, I say, left me extremely uneasy. Should Legia’s appeal – if it materialises- be successful neither I nor many Celtic fans I know would feel aggrieved although I now pray that it won’t succeed. Should the verdict stand then it opens up the distinct possibility of several more clubs- many of them with competent administrators –giving Celtic further humiliating lessons especially as we will probably be even weaker in terms of personnel by the end of this month. Above all, and I have no evidence for this I must stress, I have a suspicion that in Eastern Europe (and perhaps beyond) some deeply dishonest men will have made rather a lot of money as a result of Bartosz Bereszynski being brought on as a substitute. With 2 minutes left.
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