Scott Brown would’ve been mad to leave behind what he had at Celtic Park.
Scott Brown has revealed to The Scottish Sun that Celtic fans played a significant role in his decision to stay at Parkhead.
The 33-year-old Hoops captain turned down a lucrative move to Australian side Western Melbourne and signed a two-year extension in Glasgow instead [Independent]
They are the A-League’s newest franchise and the Celtic midfielder admits that he did not want to swap the atmosphere at Parkhead for a stadium with no fans in it.
He told The Scottish Sun: “When you go to Celtic Park and see the full stadium it was going to be hard to move to a new club with no fans.
“Western Melbourne were going to lease a stadium for two years. They were going to build a fanbase, pretty much starting from nothing and hoping for up to 20,000 after a season.
“They might do that but it was going to be hard, whereas at Celtic you’ve already got the history and I didn’t want to miss that.”
If it wasn’t already incredibly obvious during his 12-year stint in Glasgow, Brown loves Celtic and its many supporters.
The former Scotland international, a £4.4 million signing from Hibernian in 2007 [The Guardian], is adored by the Paradise faithful and he’s right, trading this for a half-empty arena every other week would have been madness.
The first item on Brown’s agenda since getting the new deal will be to keep his place in Brendan Rodgers’s best XI. Callum McGregor had deprived him of it a couple of months ago, but he is now starting games with McGregor in midfield and it’ll be interesting to see if Rodgers keeps that axis, even when Olivier Ntcham returns.
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