Andy Walker’s diagnosis of Celtic’s ills is right on for once.

It is not often that I find myself in total agreement with Andy Walker. If you want to know how regularly that happens, the phrase “a cold day in hell” comes most readily to mind. Walker has been a persistent critic of Celtic and everything Celtic has done for years, so it is no surprise to see him turning on the board. Any excuse to have a kick, I suppose. But that does not mean he is wrong.

And he is not wrong at all.

This site, and others in Celtic cyberspace, have built their reputations on defending this club when others subject it to unfair or over-the-top criticism. What we are seeing right now does not fall into either of those categories. The criticism aimed at Celtic is not unfair. It is not exaggerated. It is entirely justified.

These days, when people hammer the board, I do not particularly care where that criticism comes from. I look at what people are saying and ask a simple question: is it accurate?

Right now, the answer is yes.

The uncomfortable truth is that Celtic fully, richly, and thoroughly deserves the criticism it is getting. Whether it is the players, the management team, or the board of directors, there are failures at every level of this club. Nobody escapes their share of responsibility.

Several recent pieces have alluded to something deeper than poor performances on the pitch. This is not just about the football department. It is not even simply about incompetence among those running the club, although there is plenty of that to go around. The problem is bigger than that.

People can disagree about whether Celtic is still a well-run club. They can argue over whether managers have been supported or whether some of our problems lie at their door. Those are debates that can go either way.

But there are individuals at this club — and I will be writing about one of them later today — whose behaviour has been so appalling, so contemptuous, and so arrogantly dismissive of the support that even those who once defended them now feel utterly disgusted. That kind of damage does not disappear overnight. It lingers. It sticks.

And members of the wider commentariat are now picking up on it, beginning to recognise that the club’s conduct towards its own supporters is not just shocking, but actively harmful. It is self-defeating. It risks deepening a crisis that is already serious and already widespread.

Walker, for all his usual shortcomings, has at least grasped the fundamentals of that.

He understands that this is an act of self-harm. He understands that those running the club are not acting in its best interests when they attack their own fans. Strip away the mystique, and it becomes obvious. Celtic, like any institution, relies on the people who sustain it.

Celtic is more than a football club. It is embedded in its community. It is rooted in shared identity, shared purpose, and shared belief. As Paulina pointed out recently, that only works when everyone involved feels part of the same thing, when there is a sense that we are all pulling in the same direction.

That sense of togetherness is what keeps institutions strong. But the contempt shown by the board of directors has shattered that.

It has turned what should be a unified structure into something adversarial. It has created an “us and them” divide where none should exist. Not everyone believes the board has done a terrible job, but everyone can see what has happened.

The club has locked out supporters. It has targeted fan media. It brought the AGM to a premature close and denied shareholders the chance to ask legitimate questions. We have seen Celtic directors stand behind police lines, sneer, and make faces at supporters.

We have seen a culture of dismissiveness towards anyone who dares to question decisions, even when performances on the pitch clearly justify those questions.

Nobody believes that is acceptable.

For those of us on the receiving end of that contempt, it breaks something fundamental. It breaks the bond between club and support. As Paulina highlighted, people no longer feel like stakeholders. And the reason they feel that way is simple.

They have been told, explicitly and implicitly, that they are not.

The message has been clear. This is no longer a collective effort. This is no longer “all in it together”. It is us and them.

Most commentary so far has focused on how this affects the team on the pitch. That is understandable. But Walker, who is not usually the sharpest voice in the room, is one of the few who has recognised that something much more serious is happening.

He has warned the board about the way it is treating supporters.

He understands that the real, lasting damage will come if the Celtic support as a whole begins to feel that it is operating at cross purposes with those running the club.

That is the tipping point, and for once, Andy Walker has seen it coming. So yes, this is one of those rare occasions where the broken clock is telling the right time. For once, he is right on the money.

You don’t need to be a weatherman to know which wind the wind blows.

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