PETER LAWWELL addressed the elephant in the room at today’s Q&A portion of the AGM, the club have taken the step of closing part of the standing section for the game against Rennes on Thursday night.
The chief executive believes the group are breaking the law and the worrying thing from the club’s perspective is they don’t think they’re doing anything wrong.
There has been an outcry from both sides on how best to move forward with some happy the group have been banned for the game and others who can’t believe the club would shut out their own support.
Lawwell does confirm the ban comes to prevent UEFA from imposing their own, perhaps stricter sanctions on the club and calls on the group to clean up their act.
“A small minority are a challenge in terms of safety and protecting club’s reputation.” he told shareholders as cited by Record Sport.
“Societal issues manifest themselves through football. We built the standing section for safety.
“The Green Brigade provide youth, colour and passion but the concern is they don’t believe they are doing anything wrong.
“They are breaking the law. We have closed 14 rows because of this. When you see certain banners and hear certain songs my heart sinks.
“It allows our enemies to put us in with our rivals. We are not the same, we are different.
“We had to take action to avoid stricter sanctions from UEFA.”
The stadium will seem a little strange on Thursday night with some of the standing section sitting empty. It will be up for the rest of the supporters to make the noise and cheer our team onto another victory.
There has to be dialogue between the two sides but if Peter Lawwell is referencing the latest banners at Celtic Park which were anti fascist in nature then he’ll find a lot more support for the GB. If it’s down to pyro being used, a lot of fans want to see the GB stop this and get on with supporting the team.
