GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - FEBRUARY 01: Celtic fans hold a banner with Chief Financial Officer Christopher McKay, Security Operations Mark Hargreaves and Celtic Chief Executive Michael Nicholson (L-R) reading "Banish the Traitors, End the Bans" during a William Hill Premiership match between Celtic and Falkirk at Celtic Park, on February 01, 2026, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Craig Williamson/SNS Group via Getty Images)
Last week, the site Celtic365 did a piece on the first crack to appear in Brian Wilson’s excuse that it is SAG who are keeping the Green Brigade from attending games. It dropped at the worst possible time for the club.
There are six league games left. Four of them are at home. This is the point in the season where every advantage matters, where atmosphere matters, where pressure matters, where you use every weapon you have to drag yourself over the line.
And yet Celtic are still persisting with this Green Brigade nonsense. So let me ask the question plainly.
Celtic, why are you lying to us?
Because that is what more and more supporters now believe is happening here. We are long past the stage where vague explanations, soothing noises and passing the buck are good enough. The fans are onto this. The fans do not believe that this is simply some unfortunate process playing itself out, nor that the club is powerless here. And the longer Celtic keep pushing that line, the more insulting it becomes.
There are four home games left. Four occasions where the stadium should be a weapon, where the club should want every ounce of atmosphere it can generate, every decibel, every surge of energy, every bit of hostility directed at the opposition. This is the business end of the season. This is where you should be doing everything possible to maximise the advantage of being at Celtic Park.
Instead, the club is persisting with its foot dragging, with its efforts to keep people who want to attend games and lend the team support the opportunity to do so.
The board is making one of the most self-defeating decisions imaginable in the middle of a title race, and it is obvious that the story we have been told about why the Green Brigade are still out is not the full truth.
Because here is the thing Celtic cannot wish away, no matter how much Brian Wilson talks, no matter how often the club tries to hide behind SAG, Police Scotland, the council, or any other convenient body they want to drag in front of them like a human shield.
The truth will out. I said this in the podcast last week. I’ve been saying from the start. This club is blaming an external body for their own divisive decision. There is no way that this stays under wraps. The facts will emerge one way or another.
Whether it reveals itself now or later, we will get to the bottom of it.
There are freedom of information laws. There are records, minutes emails and paper trails.
If the Safety Advisory Group really made this call, that can be shown. If Police Scotland really put its foot down, that can be shown. But if Celtic made the decision itself and then dressed it up as something else, that can be shown too.
So how do they think this ends? That’s the question I cannot get out of my head.
If they are telling the truth, then prove it. Put it out there. End the speculation. End the mistrust. Show supporters exactly who said what, who demanded what, who took the decision, and why. It is nonsense to hide this under a veil of secrecy.
But if they are not telling the truth, then what is the strategy here? Drag it out until the season ends? Hope the title race, the cup, or the summer chaos buries it? Hope fans forget or that nobody bothers pulling at the thread?
Even if this doesn’t cost us the title, that is not going to happen.
This issue is too big now. Too many people are asking too many questions. Too many supporters have already started connecting the dots. The board may think it can ride this out, but all it is really doing is deepening suspicion among its own support at the exact moment it should be pulling everyone together.
This is not some dead period in the season. This is not a quiet fortnight in November.
We’re in the run-in. This is when the club should be acting like it understands what is at stake. Instead, it is behaving like a club with other priorities, like a club more interested in proving a point or winning a political argument than in doing what is best for the team. That is why so many of us no longer buy the official line.
Because the official line makes less and less sense the longer this goes on. Without a football banning order, the police have no business telling the club who can and cannot enter a ground. The club itself cannot claim the council can do so either. There are laws. There are rules and regulations. On the face of it these people have done nothing wrong.
So again, how do they think this ends?
If they keep them out until the end of the campaign, then they are wilfully weakening Celtic Park’s atmosphere, at a point in the season where every edge matters. If, later on, the FOI trail or some other evidence shows that the board was less than honest about any part of this, then the damage to trust becomes even deeper than it is already.
This is what makes the whole thing so absurd. Whatever short-term advantage the board thinks it is gaining by dragging this out is nothing compared to the long-term damage it is doing to its own credibility if the truth emerges.
The truth is going to come out anyway.
So, if you are telling the truth, Celtic, show us.
If you are not, stop lying to us … because we’re going to find out you did.
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They (our fuckin utterly Scummy ‘custodians’) have done everything possible to hand the title to Sevco this season…
Why oh why would they change now then…
They DETEST The Celtic supporters with a passion…
Compare and contrast with Cavanagh who will defend his club’s thugs “ROBUSTLY”
There’s a million more times of Decent DNA in Cavanagh’s fu kin septic tank than their is in Brian ‘Butchers Apron’ Wilson, Lucan and Sly Guy McKay’s whole stinking bodies !
This board are lying through their teeth, they have handicaped our club all season. banning the GB for sx month and continuing is just wrong, and has no justification. The Onion Bears will be in our stadium in the last Glasgow Derby and it looks like the GB won’t be, an absolute disgrace from this Board once again.
They’re
“A Board Like No Other” right enough, what a horrible lot.
I think that there is too much credence given to the GB. Celtic survived before them and will survive if they cease to exist. Celtic is bigger than any group and I personally believe that the GB think that they’re more important than they really are. I accept that they create a great atmosphere and their charity work is exemplary, but that doesn’t give them special privileges, they still must abide by the T&C’s, which they seem to think do not apply to them. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no apologist for our pathetic board, and the sooner DD and his cohorts go, the better it will be for Celtic. But the GB are not the be all and end all, Celtic are bigger than them. As I said, this is my personal opinion.
From Liewell lying to shareholders/supporters as CEO then as chairman about not reading the 5(6)WA then what chance do we have of them telling supporters the truth at any point.
These parasites are in privileged jobs at Celtic so if they can’t speak to us or if they do they tell lies why don’t they just GTF and let proper people in who know what they are doing and how to speak to the life blood of the club in a proper manner.
These A*seholes are out of their depth and don’t know what they are doing and slowly killing our club.
Brian Wilson a 2bob politician who is now chairman of one of the biggest clubs in the world is a F*cking joke
James, the GB have been told they can comeback but must accept increased security, and stop their infantile pig campaign. Whats wrong with them? Come back if they want. If not give them their money back and sell their STs.
Just because Ibrox is not accepting police and SAG advice doesn’t mean that’s the correct approach. Ultras are getting banned all over europe. We should be banning all away fans for the derby too.
Where is the GB minutes from the meetings with Celtic?..top fucking secret. What happened at the important collective meeting the other night?… again top fucking secret.
Tell the kids if they want back to accept the rules and behave themselves and ban the fucking onions and all other Ibrox fans from our stadium for the foreseeable.
Its that fucking simple. Sick of the bleating about this with no transparancy!
They GB are not getting back unconditionally to run about like delinquent kids…end of!
This transparency issue is starting to turn my opinion on the GB being allowed back in.
I can’t support something if i don’t know the full position.
The fact certain meetings are being kept “secret” is highly suspicious to me.
Yes, i want them back in, but i first want to know the outcome of meetings.
I’ve got £40 million in a foreign bank, and if you give me your bank account number I will give you half.
It should work with people gullible and stupid enough to believe any old keech that they are told like you.
Mr Dafty
Do you think if the GB had banners and songs praising how brilliantly the board of directors run Celtic that they would be banned?
Surely even you can see through the bullshit you have been fed.
Mojorism, what club has banned their Ultras? Fans being banned by Football authorities happens, I don’t know of any being banned by their clubs.
Micmac the GB are not banned. They want back on their own terms unconditionally with reduced security. They want no police in their section. They want to be able to carry on the pathetic pigwatch campaign.
Why didnt the fan media interviewer ask these questions? I’d like someone in fan media to ask these questions but I guess most have little to no access to the GB.
The GB cant choose who works for the club. They cannot run about unpoliced.
Im no fan of the board but celtic fc should be proactive in this matter regarding who they let in to the stadium. UEFA will soon ban our entire away support, they are already on a suspended sentence.
I also think there will be serious trouble at CP for the next derby and the club have no excuse to let the onions in, on this we agree.
Ps do your homework. Several clubs have banned ultras but get it in your head the GB are not banned. The conditions of their entry is not suitable to them…they are choosing themselves before Celtic!
Mojorism you’re the guy who said that clubs in Europe had banned their Ultras, surely you can tell me who they are, and I mean the individual clubs not their Football Associations’
Our away fans are under no threat of being banned in Europe.
micmac, Real Madrid wiped out their far right ultras for a start. Resold their seats to nicer people.
Barca did similar.
And btw, Brian Wilson is a Unionist. A liar to his core. Enough said.
Its been obvious for some time now that the green brigade are not going to be allowed back ,the alleged incident at the Falkirk match has been blown out of all proportion with no-one ever being convicted of anything from that day. The GB are out because they were too vocal in their opposition to the Celtic board. Now that they are out the board will now cut off the fan collective .I watched on the Celtic Star the clip of Brian Wilsons interview with Gerry McCulloch regarding his meeting with the Celtic Supporters Assocaition.What struck me was his description of them as long established,highly respected and able to make sound arguments.To me this was him saying they are going to be the go to group to meet regarding fan issues and not the Fan Collective and maybe like Gerry McCulloch they will never ask hard questions. I reckon the board will never meet with the Fan Collective again so the Collective will have to evolve to stay relevant or spend years shouting in the wilderness until they wither and die.By evolving I mean the Collective will need to become more political as a local party taking on more than protesting against the Celtic board .I made my arguments on how I believe how this should be done in previous posts so I won’t go over them again here. i just hope the right people saw them and are giving them some thought.
The collective have achieved nothing. They had a meeting last week supposedly, but are operating under the radar also with zero info for the fans. They only got 40 per cent support for their scottish cup boycott. Probably similar to the not another penny campaign. That campaign also achieved nothing. The GB got banned after that, so things have got worse since the collective was formed. They have no teeth, no direction, no word on season ticket renewal, no solidarity. They have become a silent irrelevance.
If the GB say they will stop their hate campaign against the police and accept the security measures they have been told they can come back tomorrow. They want back unconditionally and think they come first before the club. Nobody is backing them with any real purpose. The GB refuse to show the other fans the details of their meeting, instead giving an interview to the cynic podcast where the interviewer blew smoke up their arse and asked no hard questions.
The GB should put Celtic first or leave forever!
Celtic plc are blatantly throwing the league this year. No striker or right winger with 70m sitting in the bank is a disgrace. Banning the supporters who make the atmosphere is madness unless it’s on purpose. Getting rid of a manager mid season who had the team flying and replace him with a dud only to wait til he has caused enough damage to make it near impossible for him to come back in again to fix is a joke. F@ck every single one of the suited b@st@rds
Aye John they have mismanaged the club so badly you would swear blind they had made the decision to throw this Title. At a time where we need unity amongst the support, we’ve got nit picking boring eejits who call themselves supporters, backing the board in their campaign against a group of our most vocal and committed young supporters.
I think the title “Safety Advisory Group” tells us that they advise but don’t make any rules. I think the police do something similar with football clubs, they leave it to the club to set the rules at their own stadium. So these are unacceptable lies by Wilson.
I think the GB should be allowed back, but based on following the same rules as all other Celtic ST holders.
I also feel that a lot of Celtic fans are reliant on the GB to create the famous Celtic Park atmosphere, as they feel a bit self conscious about singing their heart out without the GB leading them.
It can be difficult sitting amongst other fans you don’t know and deciding to burst into song, even when the game isn’t going as planned. So it’s human nature to wait for the GB to lead the way. However it shouldn’t be a carte blanche reason to absolve them of any responsibility.
The GB want back unconditionally. No police working in their section. They want the head of security sacked and to be able to run about an overcrowded section without reproach.
If this was allowed to happen and they got hurt due to no police or safety they would be the first to start crying about it and blaming everybody else.
Let’s not forget more than once the GB have injured celtic employees (including woman) while celebrating in their corner…they don’t give a fuck!
I’m all for them coming back but they must accept some rules.
When was the last time u were at a game? When was the last time you were kettled. ?
Your nothing but a shit stirring hun apologist , a contraian for the sake of it and nothing more that a weevil.
Get real draco. You hate “pigs”, you hate jews. You think the GB should be allowed to do anything they like. Your views have little relevance to the discussion.
I’m a fan of the GB and want them back, however, the pyro at the Albion Rovers game is really not helping their case! Pyro is illegal, they’re just giving the board another excuse FFS!
Also, I’ve been a fan for 55 years and had to give up going to away games because I have COPD and heavy pyro could actually kill me. If I died at a game would the GB have a minutes applause for me!!
I’m sorry James, but you are losing credibility here with your unqualified cheerleading for the GB. I understand that the club has offered them the right to return on basis of accepting the same T&Cs as the rest of us (“us” being loyal Celtic fans). Why is this so difficult for them to accept? They would be just like us – Celtic fans? Please explain before you start apportioning blame.
And yes, I also want out board to be refreshed with fresh, ambitious and talented people.
Portojoe. I listened to the soft interview of the GB representative. They are not willing to accept the extra security in their area. They are not willing to have ex cops employed at CP. They basically want to be unpoliced and to be allowed to carry on with their pigwatch campaign. If Celtic agree to all these conditions the GB will agree to come back.
Listen to the interview, it is a bit of an eye opener even though the interviewer had obviously agreed to ask no awkward questions.
Don’t be fooled the GB are not the victims they profess to be and are as secretive as the Board.
They won’t be back and are toast ………just a bunch of entitled NEDs.
John C – Shame the Board ain’t toast then innit !