Former Celtic player John Hartson has implored Celtic fans in Spain to “be vigilant and stay safe” after seeing some of the “unsavoury scenes” coming out of Valencia.
Celtic are due to play Valencia in the Europa League tonight, holding a 2-0 deficit from the first leg at Celtic Park.
The Sun reported violent scenes and some Celtic arrests, although there is no accusation that it is the Scottish fans who are to blame.
Hartson delivered the message to Celtic fans on his personal Twitter page on Thursday afternoon.
Just looked at some of the unsavoury scenes in Valencia, Celtic supporters be vigilant and stay safe.. your safety is paramount.
— John Hartson (@JohnHartson10) February 21, 2019
OPINION
It’s always worrying when you hear about trouble starting up ahead of European football and we hope that all Celtic fans are okay ahead of the crunch game tonight. Clashes have been reported between police and fans, and the Sun report claimed that some Celtic fans had been arrested, but it’s unclear exactly what’s going on. We’re more used to videos of Celtic fans signing and having a good time on their travels, so while we don’t want to make any assumptions, we’d be surprised if they were behind the trouble. We have heard of fairly heavy-handed action from the police though and that’s always the danger when you travel for games. Hartson is right when he says that the safety of the Celtic fans is “paramount”. We hope that the rest of the afternoon and evening passes without further incident and that Celtic can somehow perform a miracle on the pitch and progress through to the next round.