Brendan Rodgers issues Green Brigade warning as Celtic boss offers peace but tells ultras they can't push their luck

Brendan Rodgers has extended a hand of peace to the renegade Green Brigade – but warned the controversial ultras not to rip the whole arm off.

The Celtic boss is aware of the fallout behind the scenes at Parkhead with around 200 fans banned until further notice after a succession of incidents at Celtic Park and at away grounds in Scotland and in Europe. The club have also been hit with fines by UEFA for banners and fireworks in the Champions League and the catalogue of flashpoints saw the board’s patience finally snap.

Rodgers wants the support united again – but he insisted the group can’t push their luck after being given the first standing section in UK football. He said: “The club, and hopefully the guys who are out of the club, can find a solution. Because they are amazing, I will say that. I just think in life you always have to be careful. If you offer a hand, make sure they don’t want the arm.

“So, you put out your hand to help supporters, and they take the arm, not the hand. For me, our club’s strength is being together behind the team, and hopefully very, very soon we can find that, and we can support the football.

“Football clubs are about football. That’s the simplicity of it for me. When you come to the football, you’re coming to watch the players on the pitch and support the team.

“The social media stuff, gladly I’m not involved in it and I have no interest in it, so a lot of what goes on in and around that I actually don’t know about.

“I’m not naïve, I know what’s there, but there’s no way I am trawling through stuff to understand it.

“But I understand what’s happened, and at any club – especially at a club like here – that synergy is so important because it is such a force, Celtic.”

The Celtic board