Daily Record pro-Desmond hack’s dire article insults hard working Celtic fans.

Once again, we have another very poor media narrative about Celtic supporters. Once again, it centres on Dermot Desmond. And once again, it comes from a Daily Record hack who has spent so much of this season telling us what Desmond will or will not do in relation to the fans that you have to wonder where the journalism ends and the water-carrying begins.

Michael Gannon has an “in” at Celtic. I have known that for a long time. I have also known that Gannon is widely respected by people inside Celtic.

Unfortunately for him, those people are no longer respected by a huge number of Celtic supporters. So carrying water for them no longer gives him credibility. In fact, it does the opposite. The more he does it, the more ridiculous he sounds.

This is what he had to say about the current situation at the club, and he wrote this about his favourite, Uncle Dermot, in Ireland.

“He knows the regular season ticket punters are unhappy. He’s not daft. But he can – and has – dismissed a lot of them as ungrateful and reactionary.

He should be more wary of what’s going on behind him though, in those expensive seats in the directors box. Lord Haughey’s ambitious move to get supporters more of a say probably isn’t revolutionary enough for many fans. They want a stronger power play but Haughey is playing a longer game and isn’t some lone wolf with lofty aims.

There are plenty of other very wealthy and successful supporters who sit in with the suits who believe Celtic can be doing more. A lot of them have built huge businesses and know when to expand and when to batten down the hatches.”

And there it is. That is the part that jumped out at me, and I am sure plenty of you noticed it as well.

Gannon writes off ordinary season-ticket holders as ungrateful and reactionary. But the wealthy supporters in the expensive seats? Ah, they are different. He calls them serious people. He calls them successful people who have built businesses.

Gannon says they can complain and deserve attention because they are neither ungrateful nor reactionary, just concerned about the direction of their club.

That is ivory-tower nonsense. Nothing more.

This is the oldest and ugliest divide in the game.

People at the top treat some supporters as stakeholders. They treat others as noise. They listen to fans who sit in the right seats and hold the right bank balance but ignore the rest, even when those supporters pay serious money and watch the club tear itself apart.

That is not analysis. It is class prejudice with a press pass.

So what exactly should ordinary supporters feel grateful for? Do we thank them when they ignore us? Or when they sneer at us? Do we thank them for taking our money while club executives act as though accountability applies only to other people?

Renew your season ticket, they say, while the team sits third after a season of self-inflicted damage.

This club stripped its own squad for reasons nobody can explain. It failed its manager. It burned through credibility, trust and goodwill. Supporters have every right to be furious about that.

They are not reactionary for noticing the damage.

They are not ungrateful for refusing to clap along while the people in charge set fire to the furniture.

Yet in Gannon’s framing, the men in the executive boxes are the ones Desmond should really worry about.

Their criticism matters. Their discontent has weight and concerns carry authority. Why? Because they are wealthy?

Because they sit closer to the directors and move in the right circles? Give me a break.

I have written a lot this week about the way certain corners of the media and certain sections of the football world condescend to supporters. This is exactly what I mean. It is not even subtle. It is written in big, flashing neon letters. The “ordinary” fans in the stands do not matter. The fans in the expensive seats do.

That is an insult to every supporter who has helped build this club into what it is.

Celtic are not powerful because a handful of wealthy men sit in padded seats and share polite concerns over coffee.

Celtic are powerful because tens of thousands of supporters put their money into the club year after year. They buy the season tickets and the merchandise. They travel and subscribe and show up. We fund the whole operation.

Those people are not an inconvenience or a problem to manage. They are not an ungrateful mob. They are the foundation of the club.

And this is where the media keeps getting Celtic supporters wrong, or at least where it decides what we should and should not express concern about.

They expect us to pay up, sit down and shut up. These people take our money but shut down any attempt to question how they run the club. They demand loyalty but reject scrutiny. They cash the cheques but push back against any demand for standards.

Well, that arrangement is finished.

If Dermot Desmond thinks he can dismiss ordinary supporters as reactionary, then he understands even less than we feared. If the media thinks only wealthy supporters deserve to be heard, then it has learned nothing from the rise of fan media and nothing from the anger now rolling through this club.

Celtic supporters do not need to have built huge businesses to understand ambition. They do not need a seat near the directors’ box to recognise failure. They do not need Desmond’s approval, Gannon’s permission or anybody else’s okay to form a judgement on what is happening in front of them.

Fans, all fans, have the right to speak, and if the club wants to continue taking the piss, and if people in the media want to continue acting like that’s okay, then they are in for one almighty big surprise.

Because the fans are the only ones who matter here, and now that they’ve found their agency they will not go back to being mere passive observers again.

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