If Celtic fan media is welcomed again by the club it must not be with restrictions.

Last night on the podcast, we had a very interesting discussion about Celtic fan media and the role it plays. I made a prediction which, to me, was an easy one to arrive at. I am so certain of it I would stake the mortgage on it.

Fan media has a role to play at this club. A very big role. And eventually, the club will realise that again. Even the people sitting in the executive suite right now will have to accept that locking fan media out is doing more harm than good.

That is not the prediction though.

What follows is some advice to my fellow fan media outlets. They are free to take it or leave it. They are free to agree or disagree. In the end, I am not in the same position as many of them. I will not set foot in a fan media press event again while the current leadership is in charge. I do not believe there is anything to be gained from working with these people, or even pretending to.

Nor do I believe they will ever operate in good faith.

That is why I am convinced that when fan media is allowed back into Celtic events, it will be under a more openly restrictive regime than before the ban.

Let’s be clear about something. There were always conditions attached to fan media access, even if they were never written down. They did not need to be. The people who created those opportunities understood that fan media could help sell their vision of the club to supporters. That was the thinking around Dom McKay’s time.

When he left, the nature of the relationship changed.

Fan media became something the club could use to push messages it did not want to push too aggressively through the mainstream press. Once that shift happened, it became obvious to anyone paying attention that the club no longer saw fan media as independent. It saw it as a tool.

From that moment on, the boundaries tightened.

Step outside the narrow range of opinion the club was comfortable with and you were no longer welcome. I know of outlets that lost access for exactly that reason.

My own breaking point is well known.

It came at the AGM where Peter Lawwell publicly attacked Joe McHugh from the top table. The contempt he showed that day was unmistakable. It has remained evident ever since. I emailed the club and asked them to remove me from the list. I was not going to play along with something that was so clearly one-sided.

So when fan media outlets came together as part of the Collective and signed that open letter, what happened next did not surprise me.

The club reminded everyone of something it had always believed. It controls access. Criticise the club and you lose it.

That is why I believe what comes next is inevitable.

When the club restores access, I suspect it will attach explicit conditions.

It will introduce a code of conduct and set clear limits on what people can and cannot say. It will stop pretending those limits do not exist. They may even write those limits down, force people to agree to them, and then enforce them.

And that brings me to the advice.

If the club does that, every single fan media outlet should reject it. Publicly. Immediately. With their reasons clearly stated. Let their readers know it.

For those who want to return, who believe there is value in being in the room, there is going to be a choice. Do the job properly, or accept the terms and conditions of doing it.

To me, it is a simple decision. If you accept those conditions, you know exactly what it means. You are not there to hold the club to account. You are there on their terms.

Fan media does not exist to serve the club. It exists to serve the supporters. That is the distinction the people running Celtic do not understand.

We represent the views of ordinary fans. We provide perspective, scrutiny, and accountability. Fan media outlets are not cheerleaders. Yes, we will defend the club when it is necessary. We will stand up for Celtic when others will not. But that is not the same thing as acting on its behalf, and that is the mistake they keep making.

They believe fan media should reflect the club’s voice. When you start from that assumption, it becomes logical to try to control it. To set limits. To define what is acceptable.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media operates without restriction. The same outlets that mislead supporters, twist quotes, and manufacture controversy are given full access. No conditions. No codes of conduct and no limits.

Only fan media is treated differently. Because only fan media is seen as something that can be controlled.

That is why I am certain of what is coming next. When the club finally sets out its new approach, it will try to box outlets in. It will try to formalise the control it has always sought to exercise informally. And when that moment comes, every outlet has to ask itself a simple question. Who are you doing this for?

Because if the answer is the supporters, then the decision should be obvious. Reject it. The club will only change when it understands that it cannot control fan media, cannot shape its output, and cannot turn it into an extension of its own messaging.

Only then will there be a relationship based on respect.

Anything less is not access. It is an insult.

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