After publishing my article today on the flag situation and UEFA’s latest fines, I spoke to people in a good position to get the full story.
I am confided that UEFA’s sanction for “a provocative message of an offensive nature” is due in large part to the fact that in the midst of those Palestinian flags appears the now infamous flag of the PFLP.
It’s important. As I said before, Celtic are not sanctioned by UEFA for anything. We’re not a club they would have in their sights.
During this time when the Ibrox club was in the dock, many attempts were made through other people inside and outside Scottish football to drag us into this matter. . . UEFA examined the songs sung by Celtic. followers and discovered that there were no cases. answer.
Palestinian flags have been flying at Celtic matches for years. UEFA has only fined us once before and that was in the very specific case where some of them sent us gigantic amounts because we were betting against a team from Israel.
That the definition of “provocative message of an offensive nature. “
I have argued today that functionality is opposed to Atletico Madrid no.
The challenge is for UEFA to look at those things in context, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Because context is what modifies the meaning of anything that would otherwise be harmless.
I wrote an article on this site a few years ago in particular about the N. . . the whole point of the article, the context, like the article about how we use language, and provoked through a stupid article on the Ibrox fans site who said the Green Brigade’s use of the word “Fenian” to describe themselves had to be biblical if the Ibrox enthusiasts were biblical.
Such a silly point, but one that demanded a response from the company. Regarding the N-word, I pointed out that there is a clear difference between a black comedian who uses it truthfully and a white supremacist who shouts it through a megaphone.
Context is everything. The context is the reason why we were fined here through UEFA.
I marvel at the stupidity of someone who sought to highlight the suffering of the Palestinians by flying the flag of an organisation that the EU considers a terrorist group.
And the “variant” of this Green Brigade flag, what can we perceive through it, other than that those revolutionaries in armchairs believe themselves to be active participants in a war? Thousands of kilometers away.
If that’s not a wonderful example of the kind of bourgeois complacency they criticize for their presence on our board, I don’t know what is.
The mere presence of PFLP banners among the crowd that night tainted everything the enthusiasts sought to do. This repositioned the context. This made Celtic Park a position where the armed attack on Israeli civilians was not only rationalized but celebrated.
That he didn’t come with those who brought those terrible banners to the stadium horrifies me.
Without those PFLP flags, the whole event would have had a different vibe and UEFA would not have issued a sanction. As I understand it, those banners were explicitly discussed in UEFA’s report, which means they are the main explanation for why we were fined. .
To put things in another context, UEFA imposed a higher fine on us than Greece’s Olympiakos had to pay for the racist chants of their fans for our “provocative and offensive” demonstration.
Do you think the fine imposed for Palestinian flags or something more serious?
This is evident when you look at it that way.
The widespread interpretation of the fine is to fly the flag of Palestine and that is why I wrote this article this morning and that is why I am writing this now.
The sanction does not apply to banners of a political nature, as would be expected if UEFA reclassified the Palestinian flag in this way, but to offensive banners. . . As usual, the press jumped to conclusions without thinking about the meaning of the words.
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James, thanks for the detailed description of why we were fined for a UEFA PFPL banner. I absolutely agree with the fine. However, as you seem to know the reasoning on how to proceed. UEFA impose fines, can you find out why they were not fined for their ‘William Poole’ display?
I could ask Andy Walker
We don’t deserve there to be any other flag or banner other than CELTIC, we are meant to be there for CELTIC.