Clement’s future is now in the hands of the mob. That’s a bad, bad place to be.

By the time you read this, it may already be over.

By the time our game kicks off today, the Clement “Reign of Error” may have ended.

Yesterday, the Ibrox board held an emergency meeting to decide Philip Clement’s future. The meeting wasn’t called because they were eager to act but because all the major Ibrox fan organizations have now released statements demanding his dismissal. Not politely requesting it—demanding it. The statement from the Union Brats alone deserves an article of its own and it’s getting one.

The board has tried its best to get its message out through media allies. Tom English has been banging the drum, loudly and persistently, in Clement’s favour. Others have joined in. Some journalists even seem to feel genuinely sorry for the man, recognizing that his only real mistake was joining a club with wildly inflated expectations and a sense of self that no longer aligns with reality.

But none of that matters.

The loudest voices in the stands and the angriest ones on the forums have taken over, and they’re determined to have their way. Patrick Stewart will face the media at 11:00 AM today. By the time you read this, that meeting may already be over. Unless Stewart issues an unequivocal statement of support for the man in the dugout, Clement’s days at the club are surely numbered. This isn’t a board that will fight tooth and nail against its own fans—because it simply can’t afford to.

This is an aspect of the situation that’s often misunderstood.

Yes, it’s entirely possible that a multimillion-pound payoff to Clement could push the club perilously close to financial disaster. That’s an undeniable fact. But losing even a fraction of their season ticket base would be a crisis on a whole other scale. That’s when the crisis turns existential—when the club’s very survival is at stake.

The harsh truth is that keeping the Ibrox operation running costs a fortune before a single penny comes through the door, and the simple, ugly reality is that not enough money is coming in to sustain it.

The debt continues to pile up, year after year after year.

They have never posted an annual profit in the entire existence of this iteration of the club. They can’t pay the bills now. If they lose a significant portion of their season ticket base, the crisis will deepen into something far worse, threatening the financial viability of the club itself. The board knows this. Their fans either don’t understand it or don’t want to, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

I have no sympathy for the Ibrox board—not in any traditional sense. Frankly, I feel nothing but contempt for people who’ve fostered, nurtured, and unleashed the hatred in their fanbase, directing it at journalists, officials, SFA executives, and, of course, everyone connected to Celtic Park. It’s difficult to summon the milk of human kindness for individuals like these.

Still, it would be churlish not to acknowledge a few simple truths, one of which is this: these people are doing the best they can in the circumstances they find themselves in. They are out of their depth, no question about it, but I’m not convinced there’s anyone out there who could come in and do a better job.

As I said at the outset, by the time you read this, it might all be over. By the time our game begins, the Ibrox club might already be searching for a new manager.

Or perhaps Patrick Stewart will stand in front of the cameras and deliver some hard truths to the fans demanding heads roll.

That would be a good start to his tenure. It would be the smart thing to do—but it would also require bravery. And that’s why I suspect there will be no reassurances for Clement. Instead, Stewart will likely pander to the mob.

I’ll be writing about his comments later, of course, analyzing what he leaves vague or ambiguous. Few in the mainstream media will bother to parse those parts, especially if the truth is likely to upset the fans.

Those fans will undoubtedly get some of what they want in the days and weeks ahead. Clement will swing, and the board will have to dig into their own pockets to pay him off. But this won’t end the way the fans hope.

I’ve often warned against celebrating the toppling of a regime because you never know what will replace it. In this case, though, I can confidently predict that what comes next will be more of the same—if not worse.

The Ibrox fans always get what they want. Very rarely do they want what they get. If they can’t see the myriad ways this could go wrong, I have no sympathy for them. Then again, I have no sympathy for them regardless. No fanbase in football has ever deserved hardship, suffering, and pain more than they do.

Photo by Rob Casey/SNS Group via Getty Images

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