NEIL LENNON has accused the Scottish Government of double standards after heavily criticising Celtic for Coronavirus restriction breaches, but not publicly condemning Rangers players George Edmundson and Jordan Jones this week for attending a party.
Lennon says that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon threw Celtic ‘under the bus’ after Boli Bolingoli flew to Spain and then played against Kilmarnock upon his return to Scotland without self isolating back in August, saying that ‘privileged footballers’ were now on a ‘yellow card’.
Ibrox pair Edmundson and Jones were suspended immediately by their club when their actions came to light, but while Lennon didn’t want to discuss the Rangers players, he was more than willing to bite back at the government for their treatment of Celtic in the summer.
“I can’t comment on what the Rangers boys did,” Lennon said. “What I can comment on is the reaction from the government, which I find bewildering.
“Considering the way they treated us after the Bolingoli incident. There seems to be double standards at the minute as far as we’re concerned.
“For the spokesperson…[to criticise us], I found it strange to say the least. We as a club did and I’m sure our supporters did as well. I’m not happy about it.
“We were thrown under the bus. We were subjected to ‘privileged footballers’, ‘yellow card’ and blah, blah, blah.
“We have been treated in one way and other clubs have been treated another by the government and that’s unacceptable from our point of view.”
Lennon says that there is no prospect of his players repeating the mistakes of Bolingoli, Edmundson or Jones.
“We’re three or four months down the line since what happened with Boli,” he said.
“We’ve been very rigid on it. The players have been very rigid on it. In our bubble, we’ve had no positive tests, so the players are being exemplary at the minute.
“The reason we lost players was that they went out of our bubble [on international duty]. Three of them picked up the virus.
“Ryan Christie didn’t pick up the virus, but he still had to miss out due to protocol, which was bitterly disappointing from our point of view.”
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