Celtic fans aren’t divided. We’re just walking at different speeds.

For some people, there is a strange kind of optimism that takes hold when things are clearly drifting. You see it in politics, in business, in relationships that have long since run their course. You see it in organisations that have stopped moving forward but refuse to accept it. Celtic right now is not unique in that regard, but it is a particularly stark example of it.

Our problems are not hidden. They have never been more visible.

Our issues are not buried deep in data or hidden behind complicated tactical analysis. They are visible every week, in the performances, in the recruitment, in the lack of progression, in the sense that we are no longer setting the pace but reacting to events around us.

That is the reality. It is there in front of us.

Yet a section of the support continues to defend the current structure, the current board, the current trajectory, as if acknowledging those problems would somehow damage the club more than the problems themselves.

For people like me this is borderline insane. It is difficult to reconcile with a stated love for the club. How can people be content to see Celtic in this mess? How can they retain their optimism for the future with these people in charge?

It is worth asking those questions.

This is not about intelligence. It is not about people failing to understand football. It is about how people process uncomfortable truths when those truths collide with identity, loyalty and long-held beliefs. The phenomenon is not confined to our sport, or our club.

For many fans, Celtic is not just a football club.

It is part of who they are. It is tied up in family, in history, in community and in personal identity.

Criticising the leadership of the club can feel, on some level, like criticising the club itself.

And criticising the club can feel like a form of disloyalty. We’ve all come across this.

This is the first reason, I think, why a lot of people resist the idea that we’re in real trouble right now and that this is the result of bad leadership.

So they explain away the evidence. They reframe poor recruitment as bad luck or something that came about because we simply trusted the wrong people; Tisdale, Rodgers, Lawwell.

They talk about transition periods. These people focus on isolated positives and ignore the wider pattern. They convince themselves that things will turn, because the alternative is admitting that something fundamental is wrong.

That is not stupidity. That is human nature.

We all do it in different areas of our lives.

We cling to what we want to believe long after the evidence has turned against us, because changing our minds comes at a cost. It means admitting we were wrong and reassessing decisions we have defended. It means stepping away from a shared narrative that others around us still hold.

Worse than any of that, it means that we may have to confront those problems and take some responsibility for doing something about them.

Football is tribal. Supporters do not just hold individual opinions; they belong to certain groups.

Within those groups, certain narratives become dominant. Once that happens, they reinforce themselves. To challenge them is not just to disagree, it is to step outside the group and human beings are very reluctant to do that.

That is why you will always find people defending the indefensible in any fanbase. It is safer, socially and psychologically, to stay within the consensus than to break from it.

But there is another layer to this, one that explains why these situations can persist for so long even when the evidence becomes overwhelming.

People need permission to change.

That sounds like a strange thing to say, but it is real. When someone has invested time, energy and belief into a position, they do not abandon it lightly. Doing so can feel like defeat. It can feel like humiliation. It can feel like admitting they have been wrong for months, or years.

So they hold on unless something shifts that makes it easier to let go.

You see this in politics. Take the Republican Party in the early stages of its Trumpian takeover. Figures like Sarah Longwell understood that people don’t like going against the tribe even when the tribe itself is being lost to insanity.

So, she helped create a space for Republicans who could no longer support Donald Trump but did not want to abandon that broader identity. She did not just oppose him. She offered people a permission structure, a way to change their minds without feeling like they had to become something else in order to do it.

That is the crucial point. People are far more willing to reassess their position when they feel they can do so without losing who they are.

Celtic does not currently have enough of that. Too often the debate is framed in extremes. You are either backing the board or you are against the club. You are either loyal or you are a “moaner.” If you’re not part of the solution you must be part of the problem.

Those are false choices, but they are powerful ones, and they keep people locked into positions they might otherwise reconsider. Because if the only alternative to defending the current situation is to be cast as disloyal, many will choose to defend it, even if they know, deep down, that it is not good enough.

That is how stagnation becomes entrenched.

Wanting Celtic to be better is not disloyalty. Expecting higher standards is not negativity. Recognising clear and obvious problems is not betrayal. It is the opposite of all those things.

All of us who have formed part of the anti-board movement do so out of a deep love for Celtic. All those who think we have a responsibility to Celtic not to appear divided are doing so for the same reason.

But we are not talking about minor issues here. We are talking about a failure to build on a position of strength, about recruitment that has not delivered what it should, about a lack of strategic clarity that leaves the whole institution drifting.

Those are not abstract concerns. They have consequences. They shape results, performances, and ultimately success, and the longer they are ignored or explained away, the harder they become to fix.

At some point, reality catches up with everyone. It always does. Results turn. Rivals improve. Opportunities are missed. The narrative that once held everything together starts to crack under the weight of what people can see with their own eyes.

In the face of total disaster, even those who wanted to keep on believing eventually have to face up to reality. The question is how much damage is done before then.

The better approach is to recognise the direction of travel early and correct it.

That requires honesty. It requires a willingness to say that something is not working, even when that is uncomfortable. It requires a shift in how we frame criticism, away from this idea that it is somehow disloyal, and towards the understanding that it is a necessary part of holding a club to the standards it claims to represent.

Most of all, it requires creating that space where people can change their minds without feeling like they are abandoning the club. Because they are not.

They are doing the exact opposite. They are insisting that Celtic should be better than this, and that is not a rejection of the club’s identity. It is a defence of it.

But that only matters if we recognise one thing.

The people still holding the line for the board are not our opponents. They are not some separate group with different goals. They are part of the same support, just at a different stage of coming to terms with what is happening.

These folk don’t need to be convinced that Celtic matters. They already believe that. What they need is the space to accept that something is wrong without feeling like they are crossing a line they cannot come back from.

That is what a permission structure provides.

It allows people to change their minds without losing their sense of loyalty, without feeling like they have switched sides, because there are no sides here. Not really.

There is only Celtic, and the sooner more of us feel able to meet on that common ground, the harder it becomes for anyone to pretend that what we are seeing is acceptable.

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