The final details remain vague. But the principle and the overarching message it sends out could not be any more clear.
When it was confirmed this morning that the first raft of victims of the Celtic Boys Club sexual abuse scandal have finally settled on financial compensation, the Scottish game in general ought to have heaved a sigh of relief.
This abomination of a saga has filled Scottish football’s nostrils with a toxic stench for more than 50 years.
And, at a variety of moments over these five decades, Celtic’s reluctance to confront the awful truth and, furthermore, their attempts to deny responsibility for the monsters who once roamed freely through Parkhead’s corridors has been a dreadful, horribly thought out mistake.
And one which was made for all the wrong reasons.
Yes, of course, it will be argued that the club, in its present form, had a responsibility to listen to legal instruction and to act in the best interests of their overall business and its shareholders.
The people in charge today most certainly cannot be blamed for the behaviours of those vile beasts who prayed on the very teenagers they were supposed to be protecting and nurturing into well adjusted young men and potential first team players.
However, rather than having the moral fortitude to take ownership of those despicable deeds, Celtic argued that the Boys Club was an ‘entirely separate entity’ to the club itself, thereby cynically attempting to distance itself from potential litigation somewhere down the line.
And, to compound matters, this position was adopted at a time when the likes of Jim Torbett and Frank Cairney were finally being convicted in court for their heinous crimes, many years after their reign of evil and rampant paedophilia.
The truth is, rumours of exactly what these putrid individuals had been doing to the children in their care over the years were already well established.
And that leaves another indelible stain on the reputation of all of those who failed to act over the years or to alert the police to what was going on behind their own club’s closed doors.
Some of these people were guilty, at the very least, of wilfully assisting in a cover up. Others, it stands to reason, may have been even more complicit.
That the likes of Cariney and Torbett were still hanging around the main body of the club near or around the turn of the century presents another circle which simply cannot be squared.
In 2019 Cairney was eventually convicted for abusing a string of teenage boys between July 1978 and June 1989.
Torbett – who founded Celtic Boys Club in 1966 – was jailed in 2018 for a string of offences against a number of young boys. He was later found guilty of further sex crimes against another victim.
When his sentence was increased by three further years behind bars Judge Andrew Cubie said Torbett had used the youth set up as, “An elaborate front for recruitment of your young victims”.
The judge added: “You have enjoyed 30 years of avoiding responsibility for your conduct but the impact on your victim has been lifelong. You caused significant damage, incalculable harm and blighted his life.”
That verdict was handed down in April 2023. In the same year another judge gave the go-ahead for a US style “class action” group litigation to proceed against Celtic for alleged abuses at Celtic Boys Club.
And in 2024 Celtic finally indicated a willingness to seek the financial settlements which have now been agreed with 70 per cent of the claimants. More settlements are expected to follow in the coming weeks.
When all of these cheques are signed then today’s Celtic will finally emerge from more than five decades spent in the very darkest of places.
But they may have to live with the regret of knowing they could and should have acted spooner and a great deal more compassionately when they first realised the true scale of the undeniable horrors which were committed under the club’s crest.
The current regime cannot be blamed in any way for the criminal and repugnant actions of these ghouls and bogeymen from Celtic’s past. On the contrary, like all decent human beings, they will have been horrified and haunted by them in equal measure.
But, even so, these settlements and the others which will follow somehow feel as if they have been agreed through gritted teeth.
And that’s a very regrettable look for a modern, progressive, front-facing football club which places such importance and significance on the value of its own moral compass.
Most importantly, these men and their families can hopefully now claim some form of closure after all the years of trauma they were forced to endure.
And Celtic can move on from it all too, finally, freed from fighting a battle which ought never to have been fought.