Over the last few weeks and months social media has been alive with those commenting on the events in Gaza, and to a lesser extent Syria and Iraq. Sitting in our living rooms venting our spleen on twitter or facebook might release some of the anger but it does little to solve the problems and most of us sit on our sofa’s watching in horror but feeling helpless.
Your views on the rights and wrongs of every such event are naturally coloured by your environment however I’m sure every right minded human can agree that no matter who is to blame and how far back in history you may want to go to justify or blame one side or the other, the one thing we can all agree on is that the children have no fault in this. There is so much all of us can do to pressure our politicians on all these matters, but I was pleased and proud of Celtic when they announced yesterday that UNICEF and War Child would be the beneficiaries of the forthcoming Maestro game.
Over the recent past I have read comments about Celtic’s roots and being true to our founders. Things may not be perfect but the ovation for Fergus on Saturday and McCann’s comments remind us that the charitable work of the club had been diminished over time and in addition to saving the club and it’s history, building the biggest and best football stadium in Scotland and having the largest fan ownership base of any UK club, Fergus McCann also set up the Celtic Charity which is now the Celtic Foundation. Since then the Celtic FC Foundation has raised circa £7m.
For the Maestro Legends Match (McStay’s Maestro’s v Rio’s All Stars on Sunday Sept 7th at 2pm, both charities have agreed to split the net proceeds equally and Celtic FC Foundation have chosen UNICEF and War Child. Not only therefore will those of us with fond memories be able to pay tribute to some Celtic greats, but those in our support under the age of 20 will be able to say that they too have seen, playing at Celtic Park, one of the greatest ever Celtic players. Indeed if I had my way I would get a video compilation of every bit of film the club has of Paul McStay and get our current and youth midfielders locked in a room and watch Paul McStay over and over and over again. If they could become 50% – 75% of the player Paul was…wow, what a team we’d have.
For more information on the Celtic FC Foundation click HERE
For War Child click HERE
For UNICEF click HERE
To do your bit, click HERE. Tickets are £10 for adults and £5 for children
UNICEF CEO Caryl M. Stern receives $1,200,000 per year (100k per month)
war child ceo salary £75,000 a year..
Charity begins at home where these are concerned it seems.