Professor Jason Leitch has refused to enter a war of words with Celtic boss Neil Lennon after the latter launched a blistering attack on the government during his furious tirade last week.

The Hoops manager angrily hit out at what he perceives to be 'double standards' over Covid protocols in Scottish football. He claimed the government had held Celtic to a higher standard and he bemoaned First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's description of their Dubai trip as 'R n R'.

But clinical director Leitch urged the Celtic manager to remember, at the heart of it, two of his players had tested positive for the deadly virus following their winter break and that their health and safety was all that mattered in the fallout.

Speaking on BBC's Off the Ball, Leitch said: "I think the most important thing, and this may seem a little twee perhaps, is that two people have Covid and I hope they make a full and solid recovery. This disease has killed people that age, let's not mess around here. It’s much more likely to kill you if you are elderly, but some young people have died.

“So there are two positive cases in the deep heart of this story, and I’m a public health advisor, so the most important thing I can do is give advice to those people on how to protect themselves, their loved ones and those around them whether they travelled with them on a holiday to Spain last summer, or travelled on a football, trip, or whether they work in a call centre.

“Our advice, and some of the population won’t believe this. Our public health advice is blind to where or how people work. It is based on distancing, and risk, and what people did and that’s the same in a call centre, a food processing factory or football club."

Lennon's raging presser saw him also hit out at other club's protocols as he took aim at Hamilton and St Johnstone over their arrangements on matchday.