The Celtic Collective will not be broken by smears or dangerous lies.

So, as every Celtic fan knows, this has been another week of smears against the supporters.

We did an emergency podcast following the Peter Lawwell resignation letter, in which Lawwell himself made allegations against fans. Then, on Wednesday night, Celtic lost to Dundee United. In the aftermath of that game, fresh allegations surfaced, and two things were immediately obvious.

The first is that this is an orchestrated campaign.

First there was that preposterous “bladed weapon” allegation which we’ve already exposed amongst the fan media outlets as nothing more than a bad joke. Shame on the hacks for pushing such an obvious fiction.

Then the Daily Record ran a report about an individual Celtic fan’s Twitter feed. That is not something that appears by accident. Someone has to go looking for it, and they made damn sure they found something.

This is not scattergun. There is a clear objective here, and that objective is to make Celtic supporters look and sound as bad as possible.

Once it becomes clear that this is organised, the next question is obvious. Where is it being organised from? The most obvious answer is Celtic Park.

Police Scotland becoming involved in this latest nonsense about the blade only deepens the concern, because there is absolutely nothing to see.

There is no knife in that notorious photograph.

Whoever circulated it alleges it shows a man holding a blade. The confusion appears to come from the yellow of a police jacket behind his hand, which could only resemble a weapon if someone was determined to see one.

Even the briefest examination of the image makes that clear.

It is easy enough to understand the media running garbage like this. Being anti-Celtic and anti-Celtic supporters has long been their favourite sport.

What is much harder to understand is why Police Scotland became involved at all, unless they were given a push. The head of Celtic’s security, with his Police Scotland background, inevitably raises questions in that regard.

There is nothing in this story. Anyone who looks at the image can see that immediately. Yet the story exists. It circulated. It made national newspapers and national headlines. If this narrative originated inside Celtic, if this is a PR push from the club itself, then people inside the building have completely lost their minds.

The reason is simple. They fundamentally misunderstand group dynamics, just as they have misunderstood so much else.

Smearing people and accusing them of intimidation and harassment, escalating to claims of physical threats, carries consequences. Anyone engaging in that behaviour should understand what those consequences might be.

This is a textbook Boy Who Cried Wolf scenario. Inventing threats or exaggerating those that exist poisons the well. When the moment comes to urge calm, nobody will be listening. These allegations have become so frequent and so widespread that they lost their shock value. They are also failing in their apparent purpose.

These stories are not changing the narrative. They are not dividing the support.

They are not causing people to reassess their backing of the Collective.

In fact, the opposite is happening. Some of the claims are so overblown that they are actively pushing people towards it.

What should worry the board is what this is doing to people who were never members of the Collective at all. There are supporters who simply believed the club needed to change, without being actively involved in sustained opposition to the board. Increasingly, those people are being radicalised into viewing the directors as enemies of the support. That makes escalation more likely, not less.

Persistent moral condemnation, especially when it is groundless, radicalises people. This does not only affect those already on the fringes.

When a large group is told daily that they are the bad actors, that guilt is collective and unavoidable, the incentive to behave responsibly disappears. Self-policing breaks down when accusations are made regardless of behaviour.

There will always be individuals who decide that if they are going to pay the penalty anyway, they may as well commit the sin. This approach also silences voices urging restraint rather than empowering them.

Most people avoid radicalisation because they expect to be treated fairly. When supporters are unjustly accused, smeared, and maligned, decent people who do not recognise themselves in the behaviour described disengage. They stop listening. They stop engaging. The only voices left are those already angry.

Disengagement, however, is not even the worst outcome.

When people are treated as dangerous regardless of how they behave, and when restraint earns them nothing, restraint itself stops being meaningful. Calm discussion produces the same condemnation as confrontation.

Voices are dismissed because they are deemed part of a hostile mob. This treatment removes any incentive people have to behave reasonably or act responsibly.

By accusing people of acting unreasonably, it increases the likelihood that some of them eventually will. As a strategy for lowering the temperature, it is disastrous. That some in Celtic thing is a sane course of action defies belief.

When everyone is labelled an extremist, the distinction between moderates and extremes disappears. If all behaviour is branded the same, more people will inevitably drift towards extremes. This is uncomfortable to say, but it needs to be said. The reckless conduct on display is inviting the very outcome these people claim to fear.

Glasgow is a volatile city. Football supporters can be volatile at the best of times. Treating them with sneering contempt is one of the most foolish strategies imaginable. If safety and de-escalation are genuinely the concern, this approach achieves the opposite.

It will not succeed. Even if intimidation of harassment is going on now, many people will believe it was invited by smears, contempt, and a refusal to engage honestly. Figures like Chris McKay spending the Dundee United match photographing supporters and smirking at them can only raise the temperature further; are they oblivious to this?

But nobody is leaving the Collective because of lies. They will not move the needle. They will not make this go away. The Collective will remain. Smears will not end the scrutiny. Every story like this only strengthens the resolve of those demanding change.

This board can lie about supporters. They can smear them.

Hell, they can condemn them endlessly. They will not silence them.

The harder the pressure becomes, the harder the resistance will be.

The behaviour we’re seeing only increases our conviction that these people must be removed from office.

This club will not heal until they are.