Today the media is suggesting that Celtic and the SPFL are trying to block legislation that proposes to enshrine, in law, the right of football fans to greater representation at their clubs.
Already the spin machines are working overtime on this one, and I’m not interested in who’s right or who’s wrong as regards all the fluff.
The media is accusing Celtic of leading the line on this one.
Celtic are saying that the media is misrepresenting their position, and that it’s a decision backed by the SPFL itself.
You know what?
As far as I’m concerned the media and Celtic can fight this out between them because I personally don’t care who wins this war of spin.
There are facts here which aren’t in dispute and one of those facts, stripped of all the nonsense, is this; neither Celtic nor the SPFL want the fans to have a greater say in the running of clubs. When everything else is said and done that’s what matters most.
All the rest of it is “he said, she said” and it shouldn’t be allowed to distract people from the core issue at stake here.
Celtic, very publicly, commissioned a seven page report on this matter and the upshot of it is that they’re telling us they don’t support great engagement with the supporters and they’re not interested in discussing it further.
I love the way they and some others are trying to dress this up as “government interference in the running of Celtic.”
They can stow that crap right now.
I’ve heard the same shady language before, in particular from the City of London gangsters who almost brought the economy to its knees in 2008.
They too wanted to be allowed to “run their businesses” without government poking its nose in.
You know what? Not all government interference is a bad thing.
Football clubs belong to the fans. That’s the bottom line. They are community organisations; they are not the personal plaything of directors and “investors” and that so many people, for so long, have been content to leave them as such is part of the reason football is a shambles. If those people want to shut out the fans and it takes legislation to unlock the door for us, then so be it. I’ll support that legislation wholeheartedly.
And no, it doesn’t matter to me who proposes it.
The people who are trying to make hay out of the fact that this comes from the SNP – the people who brought you the Offensive Behaviour Bill – are either missing the point or trying to get your eyes off the ball. One has nothing whatsoever to do with the other.
Perhaps they have their own reasons for not wanting to see fan involvement at clubs; either way, the people proposing this are less important than what’s being proposed.
Hey, it’s the Tories who are pushing this scheme in England.
You know what I say to that? What we should all say to it?
So what? So goddamned what?
The Tories and the SNP … those are the parties of government. There are no others. This isn’t a coalition country any more. I might not like it, but it is the job of the government to propose legislation. Some of it we’re going to support, some of it we’re not.
Are we supposed to reject the good parts just because we don’t like the bad ones?
Isn’t there a word for that? Isn’t that word “stupid.”?
Football in this country is corrupt to the core.
I have no problem using such inflammatory language.
Those of us who constantly question why nothing ever changes, why people like Doncaster and Regan are still in post, who wonder why Ogilvie was allowed to swan off into the sunset with his pension pot and his EBT (for now), why there’s a reluctance on the part of our club to tackle issues like LNS and Resolution 12 … do you think football here would look like this if fans were allowed to scrutinise the process, or even take part in it?
Of course it wouldn’t.
There’s a reason why the SPFL are hiding behind Celtic tonight and Celtic are hiding behind them.
The sad truth – it’s taken me a while to realise it – is that those running the game, Celtic included, don’t want real, radical change.
The governing bodies will never reform on their own.
Real change will only come from the clubs.
But so many of them don’t want reform either.
That will only change when there is greater input from the fans in how decisions are made.
Right now the only weapon open to supporters who want to influence how their clubs are run is to withdraw financial support. A lot of fans who might otherwise want change won’t push for it because the ultimate consequence is to weaken the club itself.
Directors know that, and they depend on it.
For years clubs have ignored the wishes of the fans because they know a lot of them will never boycott.
The closed-shop model on which Scottish football is built has had its day.
Fans deserve the chance to influence the policies of the clubs without being subject to the kind of emotional blackmail that stops things from changing right now.
There are no other issues here.
Don’t let anyone kid you about what’s really going on, or what has to happen next.