Celtic’s executives can hate fan media, but they will not get rid of us.

Like almost everyone involved in Celtic fan media, I have been dismayed by the club’s attitude towards its own supporters and horrified by the extent of its petulant rage at fan-media outlets for daring to suggest that Celtic should be better run, that its executives should be accountable and that accountability should extend beyond the small circle of people sitting around the boardroom table.

There was little doubt in my mind that the effective ban on fan media came about because so many outlets signed the open letter which ultimately led to the formation of the Celtic Fans Collective.

In another example of the club’s increasingly familiar approach to supporter relations, this was initially presented as some kind of administrative review of the way fan-media access operated.

I did not believe that explanation then, and I doubt many others did either. There was certainly very little expectation that what eventually emerged would constitute some improved form of fan-media access.

For those who do not know the background, I was one of the first people invited to attend Celtic’s fan-media press conferences.

The very first involved the introduction of Dom McKay and Ange Postecoglou. In the run-up to it, Dom himself called me to introduce himself.

I remain convinced that Celtic would look very different today in outlook, attitude and ambition had Dom McKay remained in that job.

We will probably never know exactly what happened. He has never spoken publicly about it, and he is too much of a professional to do so. There may well be confidentiality agreements and other arrangements ensuring that remains the case.

But from the moment he left, I suspected the fan-media initiative was living on borrowed time because it had largely been his project, and initiatives like that tend to survive only as long as the people who genuinely believe in them remain in positions of influence.

Nevertheless, I persevered for a while.

I attended Brendan Rodgers’ second unveiling and, afterwards, asked him a question away from the microphones. His response was a fabulous rebuff to his critics: essentially, tell them I will see them in May.

I might never have written about that because it was said away from the formal press conference had Brendan not subsequently gone outside and essentially delivered the same message publicly to supporters.

There was a time when I believed the whole fan-media endeavour had real value and might actually develop into something positive.

At the end of that same season, it was a genuine pleasure to see Brendan again and congratulate him on making good on what he had told us. I did not know it then, but that was the last fan-media conference I would attend.

I missed a couple because of other commitments and eventually withdrew from the entire thing after the contemptuous way Peter Lawwell spoke to my friend — and now podcasting colleague — Joe McHugh of Video Celts at the following AGM.

I already had serious reservations about the whole exercise, and at that point it became impossible to put them aside. The club clearly viewed certain elements of fan media with contempt and was perfectly prepared to demonstrate that publicly.

I was no longer willing to pretend that an occasional Q&A with a player or manager had tremendous value when the people responsible for the most important decisions remained safely hidden somewhere in the background.

I have not changed my mind. If Celtic invited fan media back to press conferences tomorrow, I would not go. I have no intention of legitimising another exercise in supposed supporter outreach which primarily protects the people behind the scenes while putting the manager in front of microphones every week to answer questions about decisions which frequently are not his.

That is what the exercise increasingly became during the closing period of Rodgers’ time as manager.

I understand why others want access restored. I understand why websites and podcasts believe their audiences are well served by their ability to question the manager and occasionally interview players.

But this is primarily an opinion site, with only occasional ventures into that sort of coverage, and I do not believe readers are being short-changed by my refusal to participate. I simply do not believe it adds anything essential to what this site does.

It would be different if we had access to the real decision makers; but we don’t, and there is no version of fan media which ever will. So, when I say I do not really have a dog in this particular fight, what I mean is that getting back into Celtic press conferences is not personally important to me.

The original purpose behind the initiative disappeared with Dom McKay. After that, much of it felt like going through the motions.

The fact that Celtic will apparently never put a genuinely important executive decision-maker in front of fan media renders much of the exercise moot anyway and the merest suggestion that continued access might depend on “good behaviour”, or on outlets moderating criticism of the club, would make the entire arrangement unacceptable to most serious independent fan-media organisations.

But the contempt now appears to go much further than simply denying access to players, coaches and club officials.

Celtic is perfectly entitled to decide who it accredits. But if criticism of the club is the standard by which access is withdrawn, then half the mainstream Scottish press should be sitting outside Celtic Park as well.

A significant number of mainstream outlets published nonsense about our club and our supporters during the campaign, and some continue to repeat things which fan media has challenged. That is why the latest story involving A Celtic State of Mind is so disturbing.

According to John Hughes, ACSOM paid to bring Didier Agathe over to participate in one of its events, only for him to end up on Celtic’s own official platform and behind the club’s subscription service. If that account is accurate, it is astonishing.

A fan-media organisation incurs the cost and does the work of bringing someone here, and the club then benefits from access to that person for its own commercial content. At the same time, that fan-media organisation remains frozen out.

That is an extraordinary way to treat people.

More troubling still are reports that former Celtic players have been contacted and discouraged from working with ACSOM if they hope to retain future opportunities involving the club. If that is happening, it goes far beyond a simple disagreement about accreditation.

Former Celtic players are adults. They are entitled to speak to whoever they want, appear on whichever podcasts they choose and associate with whichever supporter organisations they please. The club does not own them after their playing careers are finished.

It is an insult to them as well as fan media for the club to attempt to restrict their options in this way. It would be a flat-out disgrace.

There will doubtless be some argument that Celtic has commercial interests which it is entitled to protect. Of course it does. But that defence has limits.

Fan media does not threaten Celtic’s commercial operation merely by interviewing former players, criticising executives or providing alternative coverage.

There is direct commercial pressure supported by many of the fan media outlets; it has come through supporter campaigns such as Not Another Penny, and the board has only itself to blame for creating the conditions in which supporters felt such measures were necessary.

If supporters believe they are being ignored, ostracised and targeted, what precisely does the club expect them to do? Not Another Penny is part of a broader supporter protest movement designed to force meaningful change at executive level.

Behaviour like this does not weaken the case for that campaign.

It strengthens it.

Because this is no longer simply about Celtic defending its own interests. It increasingly looks like an attempt to interfere with the ability of independent supporters to speak to who they want, say what they want and hold powerful people accountable.

That is not merely petty. It is vindictive.

And I could not give a toss if some people inside Celtic are irritated because their names appear constantly on blogs and podcasts and they are relentlessly criticised. It goes with the territory. It especially goes with the territory when the people criticising you believe that you are doing a poor job running an institution they love and financially support.

There is an old Russian joke about a landowner who falls on hard times, loses his house and wealth and eventually has to share a stable with a pig. The pig snores, farts and stinks the place out with its piss and shit. The landowner hates it.

But eventually he learns to live with it.

That is roughly where Celtic’s board finds itself with fan media.

They do not have to like us. They do not have to enjoy what we write. They do not even have to respect us. But they are going to have to learn to live with us because we are not going anywhere. The smart thing to do would be to find a way to make this work.

Bans, suspensions, exclusions and other petty measures will not close the websites, turn off the microphones or shut anybody up. If people inside Celtic want to treat fan media with contempt, that is their choice.

We will reflect that contempt straight back at them.

Their names will continue appearing on websites. Their decisions will continue being dissected on podcasts. Their failures will continue being examined because that is what independent media does.

The pressure will continue for as long as the underlying problems remain.

Their fundamental mistake is believing that the way some of us feel about them is somehow the way we feel about Celtic. Nothing could be further from the truth.

They confuse their interests with the club’s interests. They imagine that because criticism makes executives uncomfortable, that criticism must somehow be damaging Celtic. That is an astonishing error of judgement.

Celtic Football Club and the people temporarily entrusted with running it are not the same thing. They never have been. They never will be.

Paulina, who writes for this site, is a Polish Celtic supporter, and you would struggle to find a more enthusiastic advocate for this football club anywhere.

But Celtic did not find her. She found Celtic.

And one of the ways she found Celtic, remained connected to Celtic and immersed herself in this football club was through sites like this and through the wider Celtic fan-media community.

There are thousands upon thousands of people exactly like her across the world. They do not live within the orbit of the Daily Record, Radio Clyde, Radio Scotland, Tom English or Keith Jackson. And lucky them.

For many of those supporters, we are the gateway to Celtic. Whether the people inside Celtic Park like that or not, fan media comprises some of the club’s most effective ambassadors and salespeople.

We talk about Celtic every day. We promote matches, players, history, merchandise, European nights and the experience of following this club. We bring Celtic into homes thousands of miles away from Glasgow.

And the fact that we are not subservient, crawling subjects of the people running the club is precisely what gives that relationship credibility.

That is part of what makes Celtic different.

Even during periods of enormous domestic success, supporters demand more because they want the club to remain strong, ambitious and vital. That is sometimes dismissed as entitlement or ingratitude. It is neither.

Some of us simply want Celtic to become the best version of itself that it can possibly be.

And despite all the trophies, we are still some distance from that.

More than anything else, fan media helps keep the wider Celtic family plugged into the club.

Celtic’s in-house media team might resent that. I do not care.

Some of the material they produce is excellent. But nobody seriously expects Celtic’s official channels to provide an independent, alternative or critical account of what is happening inside the club. Nor should they.

That is not what in-house media exists to do. Their job is to promote Celtic and present the club positively. Our job is different.

That is exactly why independent fan media will always have a role.

Celtic can recognise what it brings to the table and find intelligent ways of engaging with it, or the people currently running the club can continue pissing on us from a great height.

Either way, we remain.

And those inside Celtic Park who imagine that they and the institution itself are indivisible had better understand something. They are not. They never will be.

What has apparently happened with ACSOM is especially ugly when you consider some of the people who remain welcome inside the Celtic press room every other week.

When sections of the mainstream media publish falsehoods about Celtic, it is often fan media which challenges them. When narratives are distorted, fan media corrects the record. When our club or supporters are smeared, fan media frequently provides the strongest defence. And we will continue doing that regardless of what the small, thin-skinned group around Celtic’s boardroom table thinks of us.

Because the difference between us and them is apparently one they still do not understand.

For us, the institution comes first. Celtic itself is what matters. Not the temporary occupants of the boardroom. Not their bruised egos. Not their irritation at being criticised.

The people who run this club are a disgrace, and worse; they have forgotten who this club’s friends are. They have forgotten who are its loudest, strongest advocates. It is just one of the ways in which they fail to understand the club they are tasked with running. If they cared as much as we do they would make way for better people.

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