GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - MARCH 16: A general view of Celtic fans during a William Hill Premiership match between Celtic and Rangers at Celtic Park, on March 16, 2025, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Rob Casey/SNS Group via Getty Images)
Next month, season ticket renewal forms will start dropping through doors. Under normal circumstances, that’s a moment most Celtic supporters barely think about. It’s routine. It’s automatic. Renewal is just part of life. You don’t debate it, you don’t analyse it, you don’t sit weighing up the pros and cons.
You renew beause that’s what you do.
Celtic isn’t a subscription service. It isn’t a luxury purchase. It’s not something you pick up and put down depending on how things are going. For most of us, it’s woven into the fabric of who we are. But this year feels different.
This year, that envelope is not just going to land on the mat and get dealt with in five minutes. This year, it’s going to sit there for a while. It’s going to be opened, read, put down, picked up again. It’s going to start conversations that people never thought they’d have to have. Because this is not a normal moment for the club.
There is uncertainty everywhere you look.
We do not know who the manager will be next season. Nor do we know who will be shaping recruitment. We do not know what the recruitment strategy even is. We do not know how many players will need to be replaced, although most people would agree the number is not small. (Paulina estimates a dozen or more.)
We do not know where we will finish in the league, and that means we do not know what resources will be available, what competitions we will be in, or what kind of rebuild is realistically possible.
That is a lot of unknowns.
But the football side of it is only part of the problem.
The deeper issue, the one that has turned this from a routine renewal into something far more uncomfortable, is the relationship between the club and its supporters. Because the club has damaged that relationship.
Mistrust has replaced faith. Distance has replaced connection. A growing number of supporters now feel the club talks at them rather than listens to them, manages them rather than respects them.
That changes how people feel about everything. Including that envelope.
Because for the first time in a long time, some supporters are going to look at that renewal form and hesitate. Not because they love the club any less, but because they no longer know what they are being asked to support.
That is the dilemma.
Buying a season ticket has always been an act of loyalty.
A statement of belonging. A commitment to the club, regardless of results. But it has also, traditionally, been an act of faith.
The song might say “faithful through and through” but that is not, and it has never been, a suicide pact. Faith is a two-way street, and when the board treats fans like mugs it is not counting on faith, it is counting on habit. It is taking people for granted.
In the current climate, sending back that form does not feel, like some, like a show of faith. It risks feeling like endorsement.
Endorsement of decisions people disagree with. Endorsement of a direction they do not trust. An endorsement of a way of running the club that has created the very disconnect they are now struggling with. Worse, it feels like justifying the contempt those in charge at Celtic hold us in, and that is a horrible position to put people in.
Because, I’ll tell you, there are no easy answers here.
Some will still renew without hesitation. They will separate their love of the club from their frustration with the people running it. They will say that Celtic is bigger than any board, any manager, any moment in time.
Others will pause. They will wait. They will want to see what happens next, to see if there is any sign of change, any indication that the club takes their concerns seriously. Some, perhaps more than many would like to admit, may choose not to renew at all. Not out of apathy. Not out of disloyalty. But because they feel they cannot, in good conscience, continue as if nothing has changed when so much clearly has.
That is the real cost of where the club stands.
Not just results. Not just league position, but the emotional toll this is taking on the support. Because for a lot of people, this is not a financial decision. It is not even a football decision. It is a personal one.
That is why that envelope matters more than it ever has.
Because whatever people decide to do, renew, wait, or walk away, it will not feel routine. It will feel like something heavier, something far more complicated this time around, and it is our so-called leaders who have made it like this.
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This doesn’t affect me and hasn’t for ten years or so…
But a couple of hundred on official club merchandise certainly does…
And they are getting sweet fuck all of that from me…
Clachnacuddin FC can have it in polo tops and malt whisky for their fundraising dance raffle instead!
We are a small group of supporters who have decided enough is enough.
Not renewing this year.
Will buy tickets when we can and decide at the time which games to attend,if tickets are available.
All done with a sad heart.
Can’t take anymore of this board and their constant lies.
Will still travel in Europe as the away days are a joy.
It has really been a complete and utter shambles of a season,win the league or not.
Yep James a hard decision awaits quite a number of us, There are so many issues with the way this board have mismanaged our club for the past year and a half. As an auld guy the issue that really annoys me, and worries me, is the mistreatment by this board of the younger fans in the GB.
My short term memory may not be what it was, but my long term one is pretty good, and going to the match with my brothers and pals, through our 20’s and even into our 30’s, singing the rebel songs, the Celtic songs and sometimes acting a bit daft, bordering on criminal, is still there. With most of those guys not around anymore, I like to recall those days with a smile on my face.
We also had strong political opinions surrounding Left Wing Politics,Trade Union issues, especially in the Thatcher years, and all the worries and awareness of what was happening in Ireland over the years.
The Celtic board in those days may not have been rebels, but they were Labour Party supporters in the days when Labour had a social concience.
I may not agree with the GB in all things, but I still see a lot of the traditional Celtic supporter values and Identity amongst these guys, and to see these rich well paid people, who are in charge of our club treat them with contempt sickens me.
Those amongst our support these days, who say that politics shouldn’t mix with football, really don’t get the history of our club. The founding of our club was a Political statement by an immigrant minority in Scotland, to feed the poor and to make a statement that they were here to stay, whilst working hard and playing hard.
The people on our board along with a minority of supporters are hell bent in trying to change the culture of Celtic, in doing so they’re harming the club our grandparents and great grandparents bequeathed to us. They are the same ilk as the Rat Ratcliffe at Old Trafford .
This is going to really difficult for me. The emotional side tels me, I’ve sat beside my, now adult, son for 20 plus years. I love the fact we go to games together, pick up the odd european trip and spend quality time I never had with my father. My logical brain doesn’t want to endorse these charlatans, withdrawal of spending is my only means of getting a message, however small, across.
Emotionally I would renew immediately, logically the current custodians don’t deserve us. I just don’t know what I will do.
I heard a couple of years ago there was a massive waiting list for season tickets so it is going to be up to individuals to feel they are making a statement and miss out because if there is a queue then it will not make any difference to the club as their places will just be taken up.
There is the old joke where the answer to how do I get to Dublin? is ” Well I wouldn’t start from here”. The trouble is we are where we are and the board are not going any time soon so what can we do to save the season given that we are here!
I have one suggestion and that is when any Celtic player gets the ball he immediately paps it in to the opposition box where there at least 3 players waiting for it knowing that is where it is going. This should be relentless and as soon as the opposition lose the ball they should be put under pressure. It won’t be pretty but something has to be done and anyone passing the ball sideways or backward should be hooked and or fined.
I prefer players running with the ball but we don’t have any midfielders with that skill unlike most of the other teams in the league.
At one time KT would cross into the box from the halfway line and when Scales was at Aberdeen he would do the same and actually scored with a 40 yards “cross” against Sevco.
If not this then anything but the ridiculous passing game where there has been about 3 shots in the last so many games and gives the other team a chance to get organised in defence as we stroll about.
Bring me solutions not problems as they say in business.
I would imagine the fans on the waiting list are just as scunnered and despairing as the rest of us are just now. There is therefore no guarantee, under the present circumstances, that they will automatically be desperate to accept the tickets available, if it comes to that. We are all disillusioned and we are all pig sick of the people in charge of the club who are gambling with our future.
You could be right but I get the feeling if they have waited years and then given the opportunity to buy a season ticket they would grab it and then worry about what to do.
Correct Johnny, I’ve got a mate who’s waited years and says he’ll turn it down if offered one this year.
Some may give up their season ticket but I expect them practically all to be sold if not all. There has been folk on the waiting list for a long time who will snap them up.
The demographics of the support has changed. It is no longer poor Irish immigrants. Most Celtic season ticket holders are relatively well off who dont endure great hardship. There is no solidarity, I’ve said it throughout, and it now looks like the collective have lost their way with few ideas. Please spare us another tennis ball protest.
The GB need to come clean and share the minutes of their meeting with the board.
Celtic comes first not them!
I’ve been on the waiting list for 6 years and I wouldn’t take season ticket now if they gave me it for free.
Happy clappers will exist on the waiting list though. Celtic has never been about JUST poor Irish immigrants so wtf are you on about?
You constantly give off vibes in what you write that you are no Celtic fan
Celtic fans come from all walks of life Volp. Even though there is now attempts to marginalise some groups.
Why not just wait and see how many season tickets are sold?. Then I guess you will find out how many thousands of “happy clappers” there are.
Yep Mojorism, most Celtic supporters are not Irish immigrants, what an obvious statement from you. Do you for a minute think we don’t know that, but lot’s of us are the descendents of Irish immigrants and we know our history.
My Grandfather was one of the volunteer workers who helped level and build the first Celtic Park, he came to Glasgow from Limavady,Co Derry as a child with his parents. There’s now 5 generations of his family in Glasgow and around the World. Thankfully they are not poor Irish immigrants these days, but lots of them support Celtic, and many have season tickets at Celtic Park.
Some like you and our Board seem to be willing to dump our history, which to me would make Celtic just another football club.
I couldn’t give a Fxck what was or wasn’t said at a meeting,
get the lads of the GB back in the ground. They’re proud of their History, unlike a few who seem to want to forget it.
Here’s the other thing, the huns have started their renewals with an increase in price, that lot have accepted it because they have a feel good factor even though they might end up third and trophyless again, their joy comes from knowing we’re in a state. What if our board are planning a price rise? How can they sell that?
They’ll just sell it as less than the 6.5% Sevco are demanding and hope that’ll do…
It fuckin won’t though…
Sevco Hun Hoards will pay a 65% increase if they win the league…
We’d pay a fuckin 65% increase if Lucan and Sly pissed off !