They may have won 5-2 on Wednesday night to put one foot in the group stages of the Champions League but off the field matters hang over Celtic Park like a dark cloud once more.

Uefa announced that Celtic will face punishment after fans holding a political protest inside the stadium against the Israeli government and its treatment of Palestinians, Europe’s governing body is expected to charge the Glasgow side with another fine for breaching their rules.

A brace from Leigh Griffiths and goals from Tom Rogic, Moussa Dembele and Scott Brown secured victory in the first leg of the Champions League play-off tie against Israeli side Hapoel Be’er Sheva. 

But despite the impressive nature of much of Celtic’s play, once again Celtic’s participation in a European competition will be accompanied with a punishment that could very well end up with a significant fine, partial closure of the stadium or a ban on away fans travelling to games.

Both Celtic, Uefa and Police Scotland issued warnings to the Celtic support in the run-up to the game, highlighting their opposition to any political protest whether it was pro-Palestinian or not. 

The group responsible, the Green Brigade, along with Palestinian solidarity groups, ignored those calls and handed out free Palestinian flags ahead of Wednesday night’s game. The Ultras group subsequently displayed a number of Palestinian flags and banners showing their support for the Palestinian people.

The Scottish media and rival supporters were quick to jump on the display with some labelling it anti-semitic and provocative to those Hapoel supporters in the ground — just a shame that the visiting supporters didn’t feel the way of those disgruntled Rangers fans who were looking to take the moral high ground for the first time since their fans rushed onto the pitch at Hampden to attack Hibernian fans following their cup final defeat.

In fact, the only violence to take place on Wednesday involved Rangers fans in replica tops with some wrapped in Union Jack flags, who attacked a number of fans with Palestinian flags in Glasgow city centre and several supporters’ buses being targeted as they left the surrounding areas of Celtic Park.

Unfortunately though it seems at least one Jewish group thinks that Celtic supporters showing solidarity with the Palestinians is tantamount to anti-semitism and labelled them nazis. 

The English-based organisation Jewish Human Rights Watch (JHRW), fuelled by social media comments from “outraged” Rangers fans, posted a number of images up on their twitter timeline superimposing nazi flags over the Palestinian flags that were actually held up, claiming that this was what the Green Brigade were actually standing for.

Just to correct Robert Festenstein, the so-called principal of the JHRW who also wrote a letter to Celtic and Uefa to lodge a formal complaint, the Green Brigade are a left-wing organisation. 

They are not racist, nor are they right-wing nazis despite his pathetic attempts to label them as such. One thing is evidently clear, Festenstein is using the age-old scare tactic of labelling anyone who speaks out against Israeli government policy as anti-semitic or a nazi.

It’s a shame for Festenstein that he is in the minority of Jewish groups that believe Wednesday’s protest and display was anti-semitic. In fact he seems to act more like a Nick Griffin character than a crusader for Jewish rights and justice. 

There are tens of thousands of Jewish people worldwide and living in Israel itself who have huge problems with the treatment of the Palestinians and the totalitarian policies of the Israeli government, are these people anti-semitic also?

The Green Brigade were not showing support for Hamas, they were not showing support for Isis, they were not showing support for any terror group, they were not showing hatred for Jewish people, they were showing solidarity for a group of people who are being oppressed, subjugated and treated no better than vermin by a police state masquerading as a democratic country.

Any state that discriminates against a section of its citizens, no matter the reason, is an apartheid state and when ethnic cleansing, torture and systematic night time round-ups of men, women and children take place on the say-so of a government fuelled by pathological paranoia, then you have to ask yourself who are the real criminals? 

Those showing support for a subjugated race of people or those perpetrating a modern-day prison camp named Gaza, deemed to be the largest open air prison in the world.

While I am of the belief that Wednesday’s protests should have taken place outside the ground, as it will see Celtic hammered by Uefa for the 10th time in five years, morally the Celtic support did nothing wrong and broke no laws as Police Scotland confirmed on Thursday, despite begging from the outraged people — who descend into sectarian and racist bile every matchday — to arrest the flag bearers.

A flag recognised by the United Nations and a state recognised by many except for Uefa, who see the Palestinian national flag as “a political and contentious symbol.” 

For many across the world, the Union Jack was held aloft by many an invading British army with much colonial gusto, as they subjugated indigenous people and committed their own acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing. 

Will Uefa ban the Union Jack? Or any other national flag given most nations are not squeaky clean? 

Even Switzerland, where Uefa are headquartered, has a stain that remains from the days of the nazis controlling Germany. 

Then there is Fifa and Uefa themselves, two organisations that have been infested with corruption scandals over the past few decades — should our football stadiums unfurl their flags above our heads? 

After all their flags are “contentious symbols” of corrupt bodies, with Fifa likened to a mafia organisation by the US Department of Justice.

Celtic legend Davie Hay claimed in an article yesterday that the Green Brigade has further damaged the reputation of the club with this latest political protest but I have to disagree with him. 

Look at social media and the hashtag #thanksCelticfans which went viral as people around the world — including in Israel and Palestine — showed solidarity with the Celtic support’s pro-Palestinian protest. 

The reputation of the club and its supporters has certainly not been damaged, it has been elevated to a new level of enlightenment and ordinary football fans show support for a group of people that is being subjected to a campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

The Israeli state has been complicit in settlers forcing out Palestinians from their own homes, an act that was perpetrated — following the conclusion of the second world war — by the United Nations and Britain who collaborated to force out the indigenous people of Palestine.

Those in the wrong, morally, are not the Celtic support for holding up a Palestinian flag but those who perpetrate, who turn a blind eye to genocide, to ethnic cleansing and to those who continue to deal with a police state that treats a large section of its citizens like vermin, thinking nothing of murdering them, herding them like cattle into camps and in turn fuelling further hatred towards them.

When innocent men, women and children are being murdered and treated worse than slaves, then you have to sit up and question those in power and their failure to hold such a state responsible for its crimes.

Celtic will be punished by Uefa for the political protest by the Green Brigade, the severity of the punishment will be up for debate, but in my opinion the group responsible should pay the fine — if that is what Uefa hit the Scottish champions with. In fact, they should approach the club to say they will willingly pay the fine. 

I suspect that if this fine payment was crowdfunded, such a campaign would raise funds significantly more than what was needed to pay the Uefa fine with the remaining funds handed to a charity closely linked to helping the Palestinian people. 

I for one would gladly put my hand in my pocket to donate funds.

Morally, the group has done nothing wrong and have been rightly praised by people worldwide — including within the corridors of power at Holyrood by MSPs.

As for matters on the field, while Celtic’s form away from home is patchy to say the least, under new manager Brendan Rodgers they have been reinvigorated with fans buoyed by the performances of a team that has not played this well or this determined since the days of Martin O’Neill.

While it is still early days for Rodgers’s tenure at Celtic, the fans have bought into his philosophy and the signings of Kolo Toure, Dembele and Scott Sinclair has further strengthened an already talented side which took a battering under previous incumbent Ronny Deila.

Barring a capitulation of epic proportions, Brendan Rodgers should be managing Celtic in the group stages of the Champions League this season, with a three-goal lead going into the second leg next week. 

If that does transpire, Celtic’s reputation in European football as well as the world stage will be further heightened and will show once again why they are more than a football club.