Sky Sports made a huge mistake in the early stages of Celtic’s clash with St Mirren in the Scottish Premiership as they cut to a commercial break after the match had started. And some viewers were left raging.
Celtic arrived at SMiSA Stadium in Paisley aiming to close the gap to league leaders Hearts.
The Glasgow side endured a miserable start to the campaign under Brendan Rodgers but had recorded back-to-back 4-0 victories in the Scottish Premiership under the guidance of temporary manager Martin O’Neill ahead of their clash with St Mirren.
And supporters watching the encounter on television had just about had time to settle into the match when coverage was abruptly halted and adverts came onto the screen.
Fans on X (formerly Twitter) were quick to react to the disruption, with @AJ_CELTIC writing: “Aw aye. Nice one Sky Sports main event.”
Meanwhile, @KevinTwist67 wrote: “Sky????? Gone to an ad 7 mins into the Celtic game.” And @WFCConor asked: “Why have Sky gone to an ad break 10 minutes into the Celtic game?”
Fellow football fan @Omaghbohy67 merely exclaimed: “Did Sky just show a f***ing ad during the match???” And @obrien_jonathan posted: “Two ads have just been randomly plonked into Sky’s live coverage of St Mirren v Celtic. Is this a new thing? God help us.”
Celtic went into the match with 23 points after winning seven of their 12 league encounters and drawing two others.
And ahead of the clash, O’Neill explained: “I just put my focus on it, working on the understanding that I’m here until I’m told not to be. But I’m naturally still surprised, I must admit. But I’ll just focus on that.
“[I’m expecting] a really tough game, really tough game. I went to watch them against Hibs – two sides we have in consecutive weeks.
“It could well be [my last game]. Not only am I going sort of game by game in that sense and a new manager coming in, but obviously you can outstay your welcome here as well until you lose the games. People will want to try and make a change pretty quickly then after that, which I understand because we are in the results business. We have to try and win.”
The first-half of the clash proved to be a cagey affair, with both sides struggling to carve out opportunities in front of goal. And St Mirren held firm, with the teams entering the interval level pegging at 0-0.
