TalkSport host Jim White has condemned any Celtic fan who abused Kieran Tierney on social media shortly after his move to Arsenal.
The Scotland international left his boyhood club to join the North Londoners in a £25 million deal last summer.
It remains Celtic’s record transfer sale and although many fans of the Parkhead club were gutted to be losing him this early in his career, having come through the ranks at Lennoxtown and made his debut at the age of 17, others harbour a sense of resentment against the 22-year-old for leaving.
Speaking to The Open Goal podcast this week, Tierney opened up on the abuse he received online, revealing: “People were like that ‘you’re a rat if you go, you’re terrible, you’re never a Celtic fan. I’m like ‘this is breaking my heart reading this’ and as soon as this gets announced it’s going to blow up. The worst thing I did when it got announced was go on Twitter, thousands of tweets, threats and all sorts.”
In a passionate defence of Tierney on his talkSPORT show this morning [broadcast 10am, August 20], White, a Rangers fan, said: “Kieran Tierney loves Celtic. He was in the middle of a tug-of-war and Arsenal got their man because Celtic accepted £25 million! End of story. It is [a minority of Bhoys fans], absolutely.”
In fairness to White, he’s spot-on.
Celtic don’t operate on the same financial level of Premier League clubs, so if they receive a £25 million bid then in all likelyhood they’re going to have to sell.
It’s a huge sum of money for the Hoops and whether Tierney wanted to go or not is immaterial – the fact is that he was sold to the Gunners.
He didn’t engineer the transfer himself, or go on strike as many players have done down the years, and hopefully, in time, the supporters who criticised him will learn to love him again, albeit from a distance.
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