SCOTT ALLAN did not play for Celtic on Saturday after completing his transfer from Hibs just the night before but you can be sure he still had butterflies in his stomach as he strode on the pitch shortly before kick-off to be introduced to the crowd.
There has been no hiding from the fact that Allan grew up a Rangers supporter and had hoped to sign with them this summer but, if he had expected that to be an issue with the Celtic fans, then there was no sign of it as the matter was danced around with varying degrees of subtlety.
The stadium announcer’s welcoming remarks that Allan was “stepping into Paradise for the first time as a Celtic player” was presumably not a reference to his performance in a 5-1 Dundee United defeat back in 2011, Allan’s only first-team match at Parkhead.
The Rangers thing will crop up again today in more direct fashion with the player scheduled to speak at a media conference. It will be a slightly awkward moment for Allan and the club but he will do his best to be diplomatic and nimbly tiptoe around the subject, trying to be both respectful to his new employers without betraying his past. Those pictures of him as a young boy dressed in a Rangers strip can't be unseen, the comments about growing up worshipping Gazza at Ibrox not easily forgotten.
The truth, however, is that none of that stuff really matters. Supporters like to think players share the same passion for their club and could therefore never sign for their rivals. It is rarely the case. To become a professional, most players would have been playing Saturday afternoon football since they were in primary school. Few are the cases of players who spent every weekend on the terraces with the fans who would subsequently worship them.
Even if Allan has been a regular at Ibrox over the years, then it has little significance now. Being a professional sportsman is a career like any other and Allan will have had ambitions of making it as far up the ladder as possible. At 23, he could play against one of the biggest clubs in the world in the Champions League this season, two years on from featuring in a Capital One Cup tie away to Yeovil. Should he have turned down that opportunity just because he grew up supporting a different team? Badge-kissing never paid the mortgage.
Plenty of Rangers supporters have joined Celtic in the past and made a more than decent fist of it. Some, like Jock Stein, Kenny Dalglish and Danny McGrain, went on to become club legends. Allan might never join such hallowed company but you can be sure his personal back story won't stop him from trying.
AND ANOTHER THING
Stewart Regan further endorsed the candidacy of Michel Platini last week ahead of the FIFA presidential ballot early next year. The SFA's chief executive believes the Frenchman is the "stand-out candidate" at this point in the process and expressed his confidence that, should Platini win the race to succeed Sepp Blatter, he would give smaller European nations like Scotland a greater voice on the world stage. Maybe so.
It would be naive, however, to view Platini as some sort of virtuous white knight, ready to swoop in and rid world football's governing body of its many ills with wide-reaching reforms.
This may not be the all-encompassing regime change that many wish for. The UEFA president, after all, voted for Qatar to be awarded the 2022 World Cup Finals, has seen no reason to subsequently reverse that call, and whose son took a job in the Middle Eastern country a year after the World Cup vote and who now works for a company with Qatari links.
There is nothing inherently wrong with any of that, of course, but it does not suggest any huge change of direction is imminent on FIFA's moral compass.
Similarly, Platini's UEFA should not be viewed as a paragon of virtue in a world where corruption and wrong-doing happens only in other places. You only need to look to Greece where Olympiacos are set to compete in this season's Champions League despite ongoing investigations into some fairly serious match-fixing charges.
When similar allegations were made of Fenerbahce several years ago, the Turkish FA were warned they would face sanctions if they did not voluntarily remove their club from European competition. Fenerbahce were duly forced to sit out the Champions League for a season.
That order came from Gianni Infantino, UEFA's general secretary, who is yet to make a similar demand of Olympiacos or the Greek FA. Coincidentally, his deputy, Theodore Theodoridis, is a board member of that same Greek Football Federation, while Theodoridis' father is vice-president of Olympiacos.
Platini's appointment may ultimately be good for Scottish football. That does not mean it would be a victory for all.
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