Keevins embarrasses himself again with another anti-Celtic rant.

Yesterday someone pointed me in the direction of Hugh Keevins’ latest piece of self-serving dreck. In it, he claimed he had riled Celtic fans with something he’d previously written and now felt vindicated.

Except no, he really hasn’t been vindicated at all. He argued that the balance of power has shifted from the East End of Glasgow to Ibrox.

There are seven games left in this league campaign. We sit a mere two points behind them. That’s after knocking them out of the Scottish Cup and the League Cup. So, what exactly has he based this theory on? A share issue and a rise in season ticket prices.

As incredible as that sounds, I am not kidding.

Keevins writes this stuff from the safety of never being properly challenged on it. If you asked him what relevance a six percent season ticket increase and a share issue have to the balance of power, I doubt he could answer it.

He could rack his brain for days and still come up empty.

If Celtic wanted to launch a share issue, we could do one tomorrow. If Dermot Desmond put shares up for sale, there would be a queue around the block. Celtic will probably raise season ticket prices in line with inflation, although they shouldn’t when nobody knows what they’re actually buying. We also sit on a huge cash reserve. What Keevins seems to be talking about, though, is unity and loyalty.

That’s where he sounds, as ever, like a complete fool. That’s where he exposes how little he understands. I can explain it to him easily.

Ibrox fans have always shown a willingness to swallow whatever their club serves up. Their unquestioning, subservient nature has always created the illusion of stronger commitment. In truth, what it reflects is tribal loyalty and a refusal to question anything. Celtic fans have always been different. We question our club and hold it to account. We do not simply accept everything without challenge.

Right now, Ibrox looks united because their fans believe they still have a chance this season.

If that chance disappears, watch what happens. The anger will erupt. The idea they wouldn’t buy season tickets was never realistic anyway. They bought them when the club crawled out of the grave of Rangers. That behaviour was never going to change.

“If you want the bragging rights then you have to pay the going rate to obtain them,” Keevins says, as if that line settles the argument. It doesn’t even make sense. Bragging rights don’t go to the club that spends the most money. They go to the club that uses its resources best. So, what happens if Hearts win the title? Hearts have spent less and operate with far fewer resources. Where does his theory land then?

The man is so far off the mark he should have been retired alongside Tutankhamun. As I’ve already pointed out in previous pieces, what Andrew Cavenagh and his group are doing looks very similar to what past Ibrox regimes have done. They are using equity to fund the business while increasing prices beyond inflation. That is money over and above what the club can generate organically.

Celtic won’t get much praise from me right now for how things are being run. But I am still proud that we operate within our means. I am still proud that we are a self-sustaining club. You cannot say that about any Ibrox side of the last generation.

Their model has remained the same for decades.

Spend, fail, spend again, fail again, and repeat. That pattern drove the original club into the ground. The new one has managed just three major honours in fourteen years. Fourteen out of the last fifteen titles have gone to Celtic.

If this Celtic side hadn’t spent so much of the season shooting itself in the foot, this wouldn’t even be a contest.

Keevins thinks this represents a shift in the balance of power based on a title that hasn’t even been won yet, in one of Celtic’s worst seasons in that entire period. That’s not how power shifts. You don’t redefine the balance by winning one league title. Nobody would claim Hearts have shifted the balance if they win it. Power is established over sustained success, not the possibility of stumbling over the line once.

He also talks about stability. Celtic are a mess, no question about it. But there is no real stability across the city either. They haven’t purged their boardroom recently and haven’t sacked a manager in a few months. That doesn’t mean stability. The entire Ibrox operation sits on fault lines. There is nothing stable about it.

As I said last week, Celtic’s problem is leadership, not structure. Structurally, we remain the biggest, richest and most powerful club in this country. Poor leadership has allowed others the chance to crow from the top of their dung heap.

Fix the leadership and Celtic will reassert itself quickly. It really is that simple when the right people are in charge. There has been no shift in the balance of power. That claim rests on one chaotic season and a narrative nobody applies to Hearts.

Finally, Keevins claims that Celtic have been excluded from discussions about potential title celebrations.

That’s nonsense. It’s a barefaced lie. We have held discussions with the council about how our fans would celebrate a title in exactly the same way the Ibrox club have. His own newspaper reported that just last week.

He knows that. He’s not that stupid. Which leaves only one conclusion. He chose to lie. And I have no problem calling that out. Keevins has never let the facts get in the way of the story. It is one of the many reasons that I refuse to acknowledge him as a journalist.

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