The Herald in Scotland claimed the football club the Celtics furloughed and stopped paying non-playing staff. But, that isn’t true.
The Herald now has published an apology for that error, according to the Celtic Star, a website that identifies itself as “the independent Celtic supporters site.” But the apology was not published online.
Editor Donald Martin told iMediaEthics, “There was no apology online as the correction was only for the printed front page promotional x-ref to a column which was critical of the club. The x-ref said the club had cut the wages of non-playing staff when they had been furloughed with the government scheme providing 80% of their normal pay and the club funding the remaining 20%.”
Martin added, “The column itself was fair and accurate opinion criticising a financially rich club for not using the millions it has in the bank to pay the full wages of their lower earning non-playing staff rather than being a burden on the government.”
The apology, according to the Star, reads:
“On our front page promotion for a column on Saturday, we stated ‘Celtic cutting non-playing staff’s money shows how far football has lost its soul.’ We are happy to clarify that Celtic have not cut any non-playing staff’s money. All staff on the Government’s job retention scheme are having their salaries paid in full by Celtic. We apologise to Celtic for our error.”