As prices rise, it’s clear that Celtic fans have become victims of the club’s success.

There’s no getting around it anymore: Celtic fans are being asked to pay more and more money to support their club. We discussed this on the podcast the other night.

Season ticket prices are rising, individual matchday prices are creeping up, and the cost of club merchandise is – let’s be honest here – absurd. Even if you’re buying the cheap shirts from JD Sports, you’re parting with over £70 for a piece of polyester. Want a kid’s kit? You better hope they don’t grow this year.

The Green Brigade has rightly brought attention to this. They’ve protested about it, they’ve spoken out, and they want to see real change. But the problem is – and this is the hard part – they’re not protesting in a vacuum.

They are doing so in a world where things are genuinely getting more expensive across the board. Celtic is not a club operating in some kind of fantasyland. It’s a business trying to keep up with skyrocketing costs in a country that isn’t exactly awash with disposable income. The fans may well be bearing the brunt of it, but we’re not the only ones being squeezed here.

Let’s face it, Scottish football is broke. We’re a country without a meaningful TV deal. We do not benefit from billion-pound broadcasting contracts like they do in the English Premier League. Our sponsorship deals are ludicrous. The SFA and the SPFL are run by rank amateurs whose willingness to accept monies which would be laughed out of the room by any other football body is abysmal.

We don’t have the luxury of global merchandising empires or a steady stream of tourists lining up to buy overpriced pies and mugs. We can’t rely on some sugar-daddy billionaire pumping endless funds into the club either, and most of us have enough self respect and love for our club that we don’t want that.

Celtic is a club with history, pride and independence, and the idea of being a toy for some sheikh or hedge fund just isn’t how most of us see the future.

But that leaves the obvious question – who pays?

We do. The fans. The supporters who show up week in, week out. The season ticket holders, the ones who scrape and save and sometimes sacrifice other things to stay involved in the life of the club.

Whether we like it or not, that’s the model. And with that in mind, it’s not surprising that the club feels like it can keep turning to us.

But that model is creaking. It’s creaking badly. And in time, it may break.

Let’s look at what we used to get for our season ticket money. It wasn’t just league games. There were friendlies thrown in, usually a European qualifier too, and even the odd cup match. For a while, we were getting Celtic Shop vouchers as well – a little token to help take the edge off the ever-rising prices.

Not anymore. All of that has been stripped away.

What we’re left with is a season book that costs more than ever, and offers less value than ever before. Sure, you still get to watch Celtic – and that’s worth a hell of a lot. But there’s no pretending that the “deal” is what it used to be.

In England, prices are even more staggering.

Arsenal’s most expensive season ticket this year is over £2,000. Chelsea’s cheapest adult season ticket is more than £700. Even Championship clubs are now asking for north of £500 in some cases. Yes, the money is bigger down there, but so are the prices. The gulf isn’t closing – it’s widening. And it’s not hard to imagine a scenario where we start drifting in that same direction.

We don’t have the revenue streams they do, so every penny matters more here. And when a club like ours is trying to retain top players, hand out improved contracts, and keep Brendan Rodgers happy with funds to compete in Europe, well … it doesn’t take long to work out where they’re going to get that cash from.

It’s us. Always us.

Some folks still believe there’s a magic solution out there. The media believes the same. They look across the city and imagine that a saviour might appear. That some big investor will come riding over the hill, wallet flapping, ready to bankroll everything from a new stadium roof to a £20 million striker.

That’s nonsense. Dangerous nonsense.

Dave King – who’s been out the loop for years and is currently living in some South African fever dream – last year took it upon himself to promise Ibrox fans a 40% discount on their season tickets if only they’d support his return, a strategy I bet he didn’t share with his American pals. It was a stunt, pure and simple.

He knows full well he won’t be the one footing the bill. He doesn’t need to balance any books or make good on any pledges. It’s tokenism at its most cynical.

The reality is that slashing prices without having a serious plan to replace that revenue would be lunacy. Celtic doesn’t operate on moonbeams and fairy dust. We want to see Maeda kept. We want to see Hatate on a long-term deal. We want Brendan Rodgers backed and for him to extend his stay. These things cost money.

You don’t get success on the cheap. Not anymore. But here’s the thing. That doesn’t mean this is sustainable. It’s not.

We can’t keep putting up prices year after year and offering less and less in return. There is a breaking point coming. It might not be this season, or next, but it’s coming. The cost of living is already grinding people down. Utility bills. Food prices. Council tax. Fuel. Rent. Everything is going up. Football can’t be immune to that forever.

Even our own support – passionate, loyal, obsessed – has its limits.

The club has to start thinking more strategically. If prices continue to rise, fans will find other ways to watch games. Illegal streams are everywhere now. Sky’s coverage is patchy at best. People will pick and choose what they pay for.

Football isn’t the only show in town anymore. The club needs to make sure that supporters feel valued, not just exploited.

That’s what the Green Brigade is trying to say. Maybe their approach is too confrontational for some people’s tastes, but the underlying message is bang on. Something has to give.

Down in England the cost of watching Premier League football has skyrocketed in the last decade. Now we have something called “dynamic pricing” on the horizon; that’s where the moment a game becomes a high demand fixture the cost of attending it starts to rise until the point where only those willing to pay lunatic sums can get tickets.

The BBC reported in 2023 that the average adult season ticket price across the league had risen by around 40% over ten years. Add in the rising price of matchday food, merchandise, parking, travel – it’s now estimated that following a club like Tottenham or Liverpool home and away for a season can cost upwards of £3,000.

That’s before European trips.

Celtic might not be there yet. But let’s not pretend that we couldn’t go the same way. In a league with no TV money, the temptation to squeeze the fanbase for every penny will only increase. That’s why this conversation matters now. We do need to draw a line. We need to start asking where this is going, and how we stop it from going too far.

We’re not stupid. We know money needs to come in. We also know that the prices of things like gas and electricity are rising for the club as well as for the fans. How much cutting prices and rising costs could we realistically do before something broke in the other direction? Before the team started to suffer.

But maybe there’s a better way to structure this. Maybe there is something that clubs, and our club in particular, can do to make fans feel valued. Why not bring back some of the incentives that used to come with season tickets? Why not offer more transparent pricing models – let fans choose from a tiered package system, with benefits built in? Why not reward loyalty with actual discounts, not just lip service?

And above all, why not communicate more honestly with the supporters? If costs are rising, say so. Show us the figures. Explain the decision-making. Don’t just slap on another £50 and hope nobody makes a fuss.

Because people are making a fuss. And rightly so. Football clubs talk a lot about community. About being more than just businesses. About being rooted in something deeper. I understand where the club is coming from to an extent … when do they show that they also understand the position of the fans?

If we’re going to be the ones who pay the bills, the least we deserve is respect – and some honesty about where this is all heading. A little humility too from certain people at our club who have taken a hell of a lot out of Celtic, and more and more every year.