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Tomorrow Dominic McKay Will Face Celtic’s Fan Media. It Is A Landmark Moment.

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Image for Tomorrow Dominic McKay Will Face Celtic’s Fan Media. It Is A Landmark Moment.

Tomorrow, Celtic fan media will sit in front of Ange Postecoglou for the first time, and get to question the man, in person, over the direction he intends to take Celtic in. Tomorrow, Celtic fan media will also get a chance to speak with Dominic McKay.

I find that the more interesting scenario of the two, and not because there aren’t things I want to ask Ange or hear other people asking.

He is the manager of the team and is responsible for putting together the side on the pitch and then going off to win things. The direction of the entire club will be set above him, and the man in charge will be McKay.

That’s a fantastic opportunity for us all, and I know other fan media outlets are as excited about the prospect of putting questions to him as I am.

Without it sounding like a dig, this is something that Peter Lawwell would never have done. McKay intends to run a much more open operation. He intends to be much more available and hands on.

I know some of the criticism Peter Lawwell gets in this area is actually over the top.

He’s not as big a stranger to the fan organisations as it sometimes must seem.

He holds regular meetings with the heads of all the associations and fan groups. He has frequently met with bloggers individually and as part of a collective.

He initiated the Fans Forum, of which I hear sadly little but I know that it exists as a gathering of Celtic fan interests.

I’ve met Peter by appointment several times.

He has never been as distant and isolated as some believe, but he knew that a certain space had to be kept between us all and he did that.

I have never held it against him for not making himself more visible to us; this was a busy man who had a lot of plates spinning on any given day.

Dominic McKay will too, but he is personally reaching out.

How long that lasts is anybody’s guess but I cannot ignore that the effort is being made by various people at the club to involve the fans more in these things. Press events are just the start, but they are welcome start and they are something that we have been calling for a long time.

We all know that you cannot get direct information from the media; everything is filtered to give it an anti-Celtic slant … even when people at Parkhead speak clearly the press sometimes finds ways to twist their words against them, and us.

But of course, it’s the possibility of questioning the critical decision maker on matters of interest to the fans that most intrigues me.

There are a dozen questions I’d love the man to be asked, and I’m hoping that others bring along their lists of them as I will, but one or two are of major importance to many of us and not all are to do with the football department.

Celtic fits into the wider sphere of Scottish football.

It is there where I believe Dominic McKay could really prove himself as a different proposition to his predecessor. We have allowed this game to be run on the same basis as it was prior to the scandals uncovered in 2012.

Safeguards have not been put in place. Guardrails which should have gone up did not. Celtic runs on a transparent, open and scrutinised break-even basis, and part of his remit will obviously be to see that we continue to be run that way.

Whatever way you dress it up, this puts us at a competitive disadvantage against other teams who are run in a different fashion. The consequences of that are visible in the league table. It could yet cost us a Champions League bounty worth £40 million next year.

McKay must be put on the spot over this matter in a way that Peter Lawwell never was.

When I think of the AGM’s which passed by in the last decade without his being pinned to the wall on that, I shudder at the wasted opportunities.

He would never have subjected himself to an ordeal like this in front of the fans, knowing his reply was being recorded, knowing that not only his words but that his very expression would be examined in detail in the aftermath.

McKay is willing, and we should all be thankful that he is.

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