Let’s get it out on the table, before we start, right?
From what I’m led to believe, Ian Maxwell is a Sevco fan. This is what I’ve been told. I’ve been told that Leeann Dempster at Hibs is as well. There are directors all over the country, at clubs everywhere, who are. There are players who are. There are managers who are.
If I was going to complain about them I would do nothing else all day.
Being a Sevco supporter does not make you automatically biased in favour of their club. Some people have a sense of professional responsibility.
Sevco fans have scored important goals against their club, have managed sides which have beaten them, have even gone on to play for Celtic. There is, allegedly, one of them on the board at Celtic Park right now, and I’ve never cared about it. Back when there was a club called Rangers we used to have one as head of events and he did a good job. There are probably fans of that club in every department at our stadium and training ground.
If you do a good job, a professional job, if they try to do their best and give the best they can, then why should I or anyone else complain about it?
Why should we have a problem with it?
Sevco fan sites have a problem with Ian Maxwell. Their problem with him appears to be that Celtic fans do not. It appears to be that Celtic does not. Maxwell was supported by Peter Lawwell, on the basis that he is a man who wants to see things get done, a man who thinks the game has been stagnant too long, that issues have been missed, that problems ignored, that reforms have to be made, and he wants to spearhead that drive.
And because he does, Celtic is supportive of it.
What exactly is it that people think Celtic want to do here?
To bend the game to our will? We’ve won six trophies out of six; what do they think we could get that we don’t already have? I’ve got news for these yahoos; if we win nine trophies out of nine it won’t be because we made the goals bigger for opposition teams and shrunk them for our own.
It won’t be because we’ve bent the rulebook to allow us to play with 14 players on the park.
What are they so afraid of us doing if we “take control” of the game?
We have nothing to hide. We aren’t doing anything wrong. We’ve been historically honest and forthright in our dealings.
We’ve been run properly. There are no hidden scams or dodgy finances or secret owners or any of that nonsense.
We have nothing to gain. We’re not suddenly going to loot Scottish football of all its money and run off into the sunset with it. We’re not going to award ourselves more points or deduct them from other clubs. Why would we? We’re far enough in front without that.
Celtic wants the game run clean. It wants everything transparent and in the open. It wants regulations to be robust and for transgressions to be punished. It wants to know that the people running things have the best interests of the sport in mind.
And if that’s how things are being done then we don’t care who does it.
There are no agendas here.
Even if we wanted to, we could not do any of the things I’ve mentioned above; we’re one club, with one vote, and if we did start to behave like Donald Trump after a good night’s sleep and a burger breakfast, throwing our weight around, trying to bully people, trying to make the game run for our own benefit … I’m sure the media and all the other clubs would have something to say about it. And our reign of terror would last about two minutes.
Not one person – not one – has raised a single legitimate issue about Ian Maxwell and his fitness for this post. Not one person has made a single allegation about him that stands up to even the slightest scrutiny. There are innuendos and rumours, but none has a concrete form. There are some who rightly point out that allegations are easy to make, but they are harder to prove. Those who make them without truth as a support structure should remember that there are legal remedies for any and all who want to make use of them.
Many people would ignore such allegations, especially online. The risk you take in throwing them around is that there are many other people who won’t. The people who threw them at Martin O’Neill, for example, got the shock of their lives.
Ian Maxwell is in the job. He is not going to be forced out of it by raving lunatics or demands that he “prove” his independence. Were he even to start, were he even to engage with this kind of puerile nonsense from people who should be more concerned with the con-job going on inside their own club, he would be engaged in a self-defeating exercise.
Even if he could somehow demonstrate his independence, I get the feeling a lot of Peepul wouldn’t be satisfied anyway. The best thing he can do, from the standpoint of simply getting things done, is to ignore them, completely, and carry on with his work.
And yes, a lot of us wish him well … but not because he’s going to give Celtic a goal of a start every game or because he’s going to hound Steven Gerrard to a tearful, televised, resignation protesting at the bitterness that exists against his club … that is paranoid lunacy that could only come from people who’ve spent too long in rooms which are either too bright or too dark.
Some of us think Ian Maxwell cares about fairness and doing it right.
In his very first act he has behaved responsibly.
He has refused to be cowed or bullied.
He has said he will have an open door to anyone who wants to talk, but he will not allow anyone to dictate terms.
And that, to me, is an excellent start and it is a joke that there are some who are pursuing a vendetta against him on the basis that he says he wants to be fair and honest. Why does that bother some Peepul so much?