Alan Brazil: Jason Cundy is just an ignorant balloon

SCOTTISH football isn’t short of critics.

But when a guy like Jason Cundy opens his mouth, we should all close our ears.

My talkSPORT colleague should have known better than to attack the Scottish game on the radio after Celtic’s midweek win over Inverness Caley Thistle.

He branded our Premiership “embarrassing”, hinted that Glasgow was a dump, and suggested Celtic have fewer fans than clubs in League One in England.

It was all laughable – especially coming from him.

Celtic are bigger and have more history than any club Jason managed to play for during his modest career as a centre-half – and I include Chelsea in that.

Let’s be honest, the guy was no Billy McNeill.

Working for the same radio station as Jason, I understand why he said what he said – he wanted a response.

He certainly got one.

But he has made a complete fool of himself in the process.

I present the breakfast show on talkSPORT – a major programme with a huge audience.

But Jason is on in the middle of the night, with a cockney Manchester United fan called Andy Goldstein, and they try to have a laugh.

That’s all well and good.

But there’s a line between joking around and being disrespectful.

By knocking Scottish football from a position of total and utter ignorance, Jason and Andy crossed that line.

Cundy said the other 11 teams in the Scottish Premiership were “embarrassing”.

By doing so, he was knocking hundreds of professional football players and hundreds of thousands of football fans.

But they are not the ones who should be embarrassed.

Quite frankly, Jason and Andy have shown themselves to be a pair of balloons.

Fortunately, balloons are easy to burst.

Jason Cundy supports Chelsea – a club that has only become a big deal outside London over the last couple of decades.

They may be cash-rich, but they are not a bigger club, fan-wise or history-wise, than Celtic.

Andy Goldstein is a Manchester United fan.

Fair enough, United are arguably the biggest club in the world.

But Celtic won the European Cup before they did, and if the financial playing field had been level since then, I guarantee the Bhoys would have racked up another few.

Scottish football gets a raw deal from a section of so-called “football people” in England.

But you won’t find guys like Ray Wilkins and Terry Butcher, who have experienced it first-hand, piling on.

The Scottish game has its issues, but branding every other club as hopeless is not the way to have that conversation.

Doing so is disrespectful. It is cheap. It is lazy.

Brendan Rodgers was quite right to respond by calling Jason Cundy “ignorant”.

The Celtic boss was spot on to criticise the former defender for his “lack of football knowledge”.

And when I walk back into talkSPORT towers tomorrow morning after a well-earned fortnight off, you can bet I will be echoing Brendan’s views to my misguided colleagues.