If you follow online events closely you’ll know that the Resolution 12 guys had their meeting with representatives of the Celtic board. According to some reports it didn’t exactly go well. Over on E-Tims a prominent poster says that the board’s appointed representatives were grossly underprepared for the meeting and un-necessarily aggressive. Over on CQN one of the requisitioners has said the issue is now dead, that Celtic has no intention of taking this matter any further and would prefer it if the issue went away.
The anger this has generated online is substantial, with message boards filled with people expressing their disgust. Some are debating whether to renew season tickets next year. Others are planning to purchase shares and join the Celtic Trust with a view to one day moving us towards fan ownership and the removal of certain people from the board.
That’s a long term goal, of course. A campaign of not buying season tickets would have more immediate consequences.
This is clearly factored into the response. The board is betting that the number of fans who actually takes that step will be very small. Brendan is here now, and the club is on a better footing – on the pitch – than it has been in many years. The Feel-good Factor is what they are counting on, and the willingness of fans to see past “the political stuff.”
Because to many of our fans that’s all this is; a sideshow, something they don’t pay much attention to. Indeed, even amongst our online supporters I am surprised by how many people don’t actually understand the issue or why some of our number have spent so long investigating it. This must be especially true of those fans who don’t use the internet.
I support the Requisitioners, who have fought the good fight and gone where the club itself would not and where they’ve faced a barrage of criticism from some inside our support for not having done enough or being too trusting, and some have even accused them of being involved in an effort to dupe their fellow fans.
To me it’s clear that they’ve taken this as far as they can. There’s no hope, I don’t think, of a legal challenge to the SFA; they will say that issues like this have to be taken up by the clubs themselves and I think they’ll be on solid ground. If Celtic refuses to act that pretty much leaves these guys high and dry, and faced with limited options for moving the campaign along, which will bring this to a close on a sour note.
And I take no satisfaction in UEFA’s contention that Rangers died in 2012. First, this isn’t exactly news. All UEFA has done is state the bloody obvious and tell us what we know. On top of that, we’ll see how committed they are to the line if and when Sevco qualifies for Europe; I suspect there will be a nasty sting in that tail too, with UEFA accepting they’re a NewCo whilst giving the Ibrox club Rangers’ history regardless. I’ve looked into this issue recently and there is precedent in this, with Derry City. I would not be surprised to see them do it here.
Our club is going to get major stick over all this. I will explore some of the issues in greater detail in articles over the next couple of days, but as far as this one goes I will say this; if our club does not, now, take the next step there will be no excuses. The Requisitioners have raised enough doubt over the UEFA license in 2012 to require action.
No-one is asking our club to take on the SFA or UEFA in a full frontal assault, and this matter has the sum total of nil to do with a certain other club. This is a governance issue, and that’s the bottom line. All these guys have asked the club to do is refer the matter to UEFA for further examination. It’s as simple as that. What UEFA decides to do is their affair.
Our fans have to ask themselves a question though, especially those who’ve accused our club of collusion over the existence of a club called Ranges; they need to decide what victory looks like. To me this has never been about the so-called continuation of history – that’s something that belongs with the fans more than the “official record” – but about what the cumulative effect of the events of 2012 has been. Sevco arose from the ashes of Rangers, but history or not, they bare not the slightest relationship to the club that came before them.
Our club did not “save” Rangers. We couldn’t if we had tried. We do not sustain Sevco. The only way we could do that would be to write them a cheque.
But we have not done enough – not nearly enough – to make the game better or fairer or to assure that a Rangers type situation never arises again. We have certainly colluded in lending support to men like Doncaster and Regan, who in another association would have been gone.
I am appalled at the things we have failed to do … and I will be disgusted if we don’t do the one simple thing the fans are asking for here.