Scottish Football Association chief executive Ian Maxwell has defender Celtic’s winter training camp trip to Dubai, saying that they followed protocols and the positive test could have come whilst at home, in Scotland.
As quoted by the Glasgow Times, speaking on PLZ Soccer Maxwell backed Celtic’s corner saying that the Hoops have gone through a full review with a government group and even though it may not have been the best idea to go abroad, but this travel was allowed.
“Celtic went over there and they had gone through a full review with the government group over the weekend.
“They have reviewed all the protocols that have been in place and that type of travel is allowed.
“There are measures in place when they were abroad in terms of how they interacted in the hotel. They had their own protocols in place when they were over there.
“It’s fair to say that if Celtic had been at home, they still would have had potentially one positive case but it would have been one player that was missing.
“That is the danger of travelling abroad. There’s a lot more inherent risk involved in that from a close contact perspective because of the travel on planes and travel on buses.
“From that perspective alone I’m sure Celtic are revisiting the requirement to go and the decision that they made.”
In terms of breaking travel rules, Celtic did not do that after receiving permission from the government around this. However, that probably isn’t the point.
It was a very poor decision from those involved in setting up the trip to go in the first place, putting people at risk by travelling.
We are now facing the consequences from this, having players and coaching staff missing not only this evenings game but also Saturday’s fixture against Livingston.
