DUNDEE, SCOTLAND - MARCH 22: Celtic Head of Legal and Governance George Campbell, Head of Safety and Security Operations Mark Hargreaves, Celtic Chief Executive Officer Michale Nicholson, Chief Financial Officer Christopher McKay and Interim Chairman Brian Wilson during a William Hill Premiership match between Dundee United and Celtic at the CalForth Construction Arena at Tannadice, on March 22, 2026, in Dundee, Scotland. (Photo by Craig Williamson/SNS Group via Getty Images)
There was a lot of chatter online last night about the Celtic board taking stick after the game. Martin O’Neill was asked about it, and his response was that this is what happens now when you lose matches. To him, it is the usual noise.
Once again, I find myself wondering whether he is completely removed from the reality of this, or whether he is choosing not to see it. Because what we have seen over the past few weeks has not been contentment. Instead, it has been restraint.
We have effectively been in a mild ceasefire.
Supporters have held back, deliberately, to give the team the best possible chance of getting over the line. That does not mean people were happy. Nor does it mean the concerns went away. Instead, it simply means they parked them temporarily.
The direction of the club has never stopped being an issue. It is just that protests and demonstrations were put on hold. Now, that ceasefire looks over and it probably should be. Indeed, I wonder if we ever needed it to begin with.
With the title challenge collapsing in front of us, there is no longer any reason for supporters to juggle those twin responsibilities.
The idea that you have to choose between backing the team and criticising the people running the club was always a false one anyway, and I have never accepted the premise of it.
Most supporters are more than capable of understanding that criticism aimed at the board is not criticism aimed at the players.
But, still, I respect the thinking behind focusing fully on the team for a period. Now, however, it’s at an end.
At the very first meeting of the Collective, I made the point that the exit from the Champions League was not the end of the crisis.
The crisis was live then. It is live now, and it has been with us for a long time.
Those responsible still get to pick the next manager. They still get to shape the summer. That was always unacceptable. It always carried the risk of further damage. Now, we are staring that reality in the face and the full horror of it should be clear.
Martin O’Neill can walk away from this at the end of the season. We cannot. We are the ones who will still be here. The ones who will have to deal with what comes next, not just in the immediate aftermath, but over the summer and beyond.
This moment belongs to the support, and like it or not, it is now up to us to take that responsibility seriously.
Because what I feared about this summer, back when I thought it might take place against the backdrop of another title win, when things were relatively calm, now looks far more dangerous in the circumstances we face.
There will be attempts to spread the blame. There always are.
Some will try to pin this on Brendan Rodgers. Some were waiting to do that from the moment he walked back through the door, and they are not about to let the disaster we’re in, the one he warned against, change their minds.
But their argument does not stand up. Rodgers did call this. He identified the problems. What we saw on that pitch yesterday proves it.
That performance was not an aberration. Instead, it was the consequence of decisions taken over a sustained period, and that brings us to the core of this.
These people in the boardroom are not responsible for the crisis.
They are the crisis.
These people have not made mistakes.
They are mistakes.
In any serious, merit-driven organisation, even the possibility of a third-place finish this late on would be catastrophic. Heads would roll. Accountability would follow immediately and unavoidably. Think about it in any other context.
If Coca-Cola suddenly slipped to third place, not just behind its main rivals at Pepsi but behind an unexpected challenger, the response would be brutal. Senior leadership would go. They would restructure entire departments.
Every decision that led to that outcome would come under scrutiny. Marketing teams would take the hit. Shareholders would eviscerate the upper executive. Only a bloodbath would restore company credibility.
At Celtic, however, people expect us to accept it.
They expect us to carry on as if this is just one of those things.
It is not. This crisis has faces. Brian Wilson. Chris McKay. Michael Nicholson. The structures they represent. The decisions they have overseen and the system they continue to protect. It all comes to bear. It all sits on their watch.
Even the appointments the club is making now reflect it.
At a time when the club needs leadership, we are getting more of the same.
Tweaks. Adjustments. More Friends of the Man. We need real leaders, with vision, not a glorified customer sales rep.
If he was stepping into the role as CEO, that would be a win.
But instead he’ll be working under the most discredited individual in the recent history of Celtic, lightening his workload, acting as a buffer between him and responsibility, and all the while the guy will have to account for his own performance if it does not generate more in bonuses to swell Nicholson’s already bloated salary.
This is the preservation of a system that has already failed.
That system is the problem. And unless we give it a shove, it is not going to change.
There will be cosmetic alterations. There will be talk of lessons learned. However, there will be no meaningful structural reform. No genuine shift in policy. No willingness to rethink how this club operates at a fundamental level.
Original thinking? Forget it.
Instead, we are likely to see another low-ambition managerial appointment. Someone tasked with assembling a squad as cheaply as possible. We know this because that is the road the club has followed for years.
And they do not recognise that it is the policy that has brought us here.
They do not recognise that it has taken exceptional managers to hold this together in spite of that approach, nor how their own actions are precisely why we will struggle to find one. They do not want to share power let alone relinquish control.
And we have already seen what their version of this looks like.
We have already seen the type of manager they will appoint. We have already seen the level of decision-making they are capable of. Anyone who still believes these people should be leading the next phase of this club has to be ignoring the evidence in front of them.
You judge people on what they have done, and what they have done does not inspire confidence. It does not offer reassurance. It is a warning.
Because this has not happened overnight.
Instead, this has been a slow erosion. Piece by piece, they have weakened the club. They have lowered standards and reduced the quality. They have redefined what failure looks like in a Celtic context. The last two heads of recruitment have set a new benchmark for how badly things can be done. Tisdale and Lawwell are lines on the same continuum, and we’re still progressing down that self-same road.
And the most worrying thing of all? It is hard to see how they fix what they have broken.
They simply do not know how. We have glorified, over-promoted lawyers and accountants running this club, and they have demonstrated their ignorance of football matters over and over again. That is why we are here.
And the longer they remain, the worse this is going to get.
Today feels like a low point. But we are not at rock bottom, not even close.
That still lies ahead of us if these people are allowed to continue running the show.
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Brendan Rodgers is not an innocent party here. He quite unequivocally promised the fans that he would stay for his full three year contract….he didn’t, he fkd off out of Dodge, and because of that we ended up with Nancy in charge of the team for that disastrous spell in mid season, and he caused us, what is now plainly evident irreparable damage. Thanks for that Brendan.
Agree Johnny, he could have stayed and highlighted what was going on, instead he ran away, and like the last time had found himself another well paid job.
Unless you have been living without any access to the internet then you would have seen Rodgers constantly highlighting the problems all last summer.
Please try and keep up.
Very well said Chris, you have got this spot on. Both Johnny and micmac usually write good sensible posts. If Brendan got what he needed, it would just be a matter of how many points that we win the league by right now, at this time.
Brendan was badly let down by Lawwell the first time and the Moustache this time.
Unsurprising that Rodgers gets the blame from the biggest twat on here.
He didn’t say Rodgers gets THE blame he said and I quote “Brendan Rodgers isn’t an innocent party here” – stating that his leaving resulted in us getting Nancy etc which had a huge effect on the season – and that’s undeniably true!
Clearly the largest issues are at Boardroom level and until they are sorted whichever manager we have will never be able take us to the levels we all think we could and possibly should be BUT anyone that thinks Brendan isn’t partly culpable for this season’s shambles ( which started with losing last season’s Scottish Cup Final) is the biggest twat on here!
Yes Woodyiom, that is exactly what I said.
Can’t argue with that I suppose Chris, as you are obviously an expert on twats with your undoubted inside knowledge.
blame it on BRs eh ? johnny yer so innocent you shouldn’t be left out on yer own , at least without yer carer !!! BRs fucked off because the ship was sinking and in your childish reasoning he should have stuck with a promise to stay while pl was briefing behind his back to the s un along with other acts to undermine him , like not backing him for several windows , pl jumped ship and left bug eyes the other rat to see out his instructions including keeping the GB out at any cost who he saw as his mortal enemies , grow up ffs and live in the real world , who among us would have tolerated that shower of cnuts on that board , if nancy was the right choice who’d be looking for BRs as a scapegoat now
I remember well when Brendan was smeared by an insider at the club to the Sun, accusing him of engineering his way out of the club. I also remember him pointing the finger at that person or persons and calling them cowards. However, what I remember most of all was, when the Collective had their first meeting with the board and when the Collective armed with that info took them to task over that particular episode, Brendan backed down, said it wasn’t an issue any more, move along there’s nothing to see, and he let the fkn board off the hook. Why? That was when I started doubting him. Why call them cowards and then let them wriggle off the hook. Why?
Disagree, he was in the end forced out, left with no option, briefed against by lawell et al in the press and had no support from the board.
Why stay when both he and the club gave commitments to the support when he came back only for one side to keep to it?.
Why stay when his advice and concern on how to run the football dept was questioned then ignored by accounts and legal.
Personally i would have told them all to fuck right off and keep going and print it!
As for now?, no matter if a bloodbath at board level ensues this is going to take years to remedy and only then if cnut desmond sells up. As it stands right now Celtic as a force in football are fucked and what footballers would want to come to play except those at the level playing for us already.
The club ,as a going concern are at serious risk now if this is not repaired and CL is back.
We have 3 seasons to restore the club and our pride and you lay all that at brendans feet?
Come mate do your proper research, dont be lazy your better than that.
It was all falling apart under Brendan johnny. We are probably in a better position now than if Brendan had stayed on….hope he is enjoying his sports washing project in his bomb shelter in Saudi!
I’m usually a glass half full guy, sometimes too much so, but today I fear for the club. If the failing people at our club are still in place in the summer then the future is bleak. If the richest team in Scotland with the biggest budget, largest Stadium, largest attendances by far, and an enthusiastic support, that most teams in the World would envy, are to finish 2nd or even 3rd in a very average SPFL, it is a real failure.
In any other business heads would roll, I’m convinced that Desmond will attempt to keep his lackeys in place. The Season ticket renewals will test his resolve, if even 40 or 50% don’t rush to renew it will put the frighteners on him, and may make him move to make changes.
The situation with the GB is another bugbear with me, every other team throughout the World has Ultras, to me our group are definitely no worse than most and in fact are better behaved in most respects. For our club to act in the way they are, I find strange and I can only come to the conclusion that some in our club, have personal animosity towards this section of our support.
For people to get their doors burst open in dawn raids and then get charged with breach of the peace, is just ridiculous and Wrong! It looks likely that our club co-operated with this by giving private information to the Police. If the GB are not back by the end of this season, which looks likely, then that will be another reason that I may not renew my season ticket. I might be 50 or 60 years older than the guys in the GB, but I do know that I’ve got more in common with them, than Desmond, Nicolson, McKay and the other motley crew of sychophants on the Board.
Micmac, the GB have been told agree to the stadium rules and you are back in…its their own choice. They have gone all in to remove the board that is their choice also.
We will see at ST renewal how much backing they have.
Just a thought….a pretty frightening one though. If BR had not jumped ship and stayed until the end of the season. Might Wilfried Nancy not be shining up a brand new tactic board to take charge of Celtic for next season? Aghhhh God forbid, that’s the stuff of nightmares.
James , is it possible to have thumbs up on supporting the posters on here , i’d like to agree with alot of other posters but it’s impossible to respond to all
Regards bertie
The board has been discussed all season, these guys are not moving, fans need to stay away or accept the board. Don’t renew season tickets and don’t attend games. Chances of that happening are nil, so they will all be in place for the Summer transfer window and next season
Wilson, McKay and Nicholson. What about the biggest culprit of all, Dermot Desmond, he of the iron fist and tight pockets? A billionaire who has barely parted with any of his money to improve the team, unlike billionaire/millionaires of other teams? A man who professes his love for Celtic but then does a character assassination on Brendan Rodgers, the manager HE brought back for a second time? Unlike others, I don’t believe Brendan left willingly, I believe he was pushed by Desmond. He also had his son read a statement at the AGM, attacking the very people who support the team, the long suffering fans! If you want to find the malaise that Celtic is suffering from, look no further than Dermot Desmond! He should either put his money where his mouth is and start spending to bring us success, OR he should just leave Celtic and let us try to repair the damage HE has caused! The man is an autocratic dictator who has no place in an institution like Celtic. In other words, put up or shut up Dermot!
Brilliant post broony, absolutely spot on.
I think it’s fair to say that most of us are beyond anger with regards to the current shit show at our club.
When angry, it is sometimes easy to defer some blame on others whilst losing sight of, or forgetting the real problem and who the main culprit(s) are !!!
BR’s return to our club is the biggest mystery you’ll ever see…undoubtedly brought back with promises of new riches and players that would take us to a higher level.
That he didn’t receive that, falls upon DD and his sycophantic gang of lackeys.
He stated, on numerous occasions what he wanted to do, what he required to achieve this, and was continually denied!
So whether fans want to apportion blame to him or not, he was a proven winner when given the proper tools !
Shame on the barsteward(s) that forced him out, to prove their own parsimonious point.
MON has answered the call twice to help our season and whilst we all acknowledge the football is pretty dire, he has, in the main, achieved small miracles with a very poor squad!!!
Again, this board & DD have hamstrung, rather than helped him and the fact we have nothing up front, bears that out.
In between they hired WN at the most critical point of our season, and their incompetent gamble, allied to his arrogance, ensured that any MON momentum, was swiftly frittered away.
Add to that the continued ban on our most vocal fan group, and you end up where we are today.
So we can get angry, apportion some blame to BR, MON, WN & our players.
However, unless you’re a board sycophant, completely deluded or just back from the moon, 99.9% of our issues lie with this board, led by the main shareholder, DD.
Their contempt for most of us is pretty clear and that in itself is absolutely disgusting!!! RD’s statement at the AGM told us all we needed to know.
The only thing that would possibly make them sit up and take notice, would be for a very large majority of STH’s to refrain from renewing.
If someone was able to organise and pull that one off then maybe we might see some change.
If we are being honest, would it be possible to organise such a boycott of ST’s on a major scale ??
Unfortunately, this board are fully aware how faithful our fanbase are, and if we are being honest, large enough numbers would probably want to renew for one reason or another ! Mostly out of love for Celtic FC! The club we all want in the correct hands !
We are all sick of where our club is presently at, and the regressive policy of this board has ensured that it would hit us firmly on the forehead one day. That day has been approaching us all season.
As James’ title rightly
says …this board are the crisis ! A crisis of their own making and it’s us, that have to endure it !
The question is, when can we end this crisis and get our club on a path of positive change?
God only knows !! HH
Agree 100%
The gutless bastards stared through the fan protest at Tannadice as if they didn’t have a care in the fuckin world…
Absolute wage thieving bastards the lot of them !
I hope they were all fucking shiteing themselves because they should have been. They cannot seriously believe they are doing a good job and if they do then we are truely fucked