Let’s talk for a minute about loyalty.
Every single one of us is devoted to something.
That is a strange concept when you really think about it, because it forces us to separate the thing itself from the people who temporarily inhabit it.
A lot of Celtic fans get stick because they still buy season tickets even though they know the leadership of this club stinks, that it has failed and continues to fail, and that one day those failures could have catastrophic consequences.
Nobody seriously argues any longer that Celtic is a well-run club.
So why do people still buy tickets?
Why do they still go?
You might as well ask a practicing Catholic why they continue going to church despite everything the Catholic Church as an institution has done, allowed or failed to prevent throughout its history.
The answer is that the institution exists separately from the people running it.
The thing is bigger than the individuals inside it.
Where it becomes complicated is that sometimes you fall in love with the individuals as well.
People admired Pope Francis. Others still speak warmly about Albino Luciani, John Paul I, whose papacy lasted barely a month.
Those men came to represent, for admirers, something about what the institution itself was supposed to be.
The same principle exists in secular institutions.
John Adams wrote his famous blessing for the White House: “May none but honest and wise Men ever rule under this roof.”
Franklin Roosevelt later had those words carved into the State Dining Room mantel.
We know dishonest men and foolish men have occupied that building.
But the presidency remains an institution larger than any one president.
There have also been decent, capable and beloved men who occupied it.
The danger comes when people can no longer distinguish between the individual and the institution. Celtic has that problem. Our board of directors sometimes appears to believe that it is Celtic. It isn’t.
People who buy season tickets do not buy them to support Michael Nicholson or Chris McKay. They buy them to support Celtic.
But there is also such a thing as misguided loyalty, where people place the interests of an individual above those of the institution, or come to associate a particular person so completely with an institution that they begin to confuse the two.
Pope Francis represented the Catholic Church.
So did Roderic de Borja, Pope Alexander VI.
One may have embodied everything people admired about the institution, while the other came to symbolise some of its darkest excesses. But neither man was the Catholic Church.
The institution was there before them.
And it remained after them.
And it does not matter how much you love one individual.
The institution has to come first.
Paulina wrote a beautiful piece about Martin O’Neill this morning. I can agree with every word, but still think of the institution first.
There are too many examples around Celtic of individuals being protected, defended or indulged long after the interests of the institution should have demanded something different.
That is part of how we got here.
Too many people confusing their own interests, or the interests of people they admire, with the greater interests of Celtic Football Club.
This support may divide itself hopelessly over the next few days over the fate of Martin O’Neill.
We divided ourselves over Brendan Rodgers.
We divided ourselves over Neil Lennon.
People have their favourites.
And once someone becomes a favourite, some supporters will hear no criticism of them, even when legitimate questions arise about whether that person is still good for Celtic.
Likewise, there are people who tell supporters to walk away from Celtic because of the men running Celtic. But those men are not Celtic either.
That is precisely why many supporters refuse to go anywhere.
They are loyal to the institution.
We need to learn to separate the institution from the individual and then be ruthless in pursuit of the institution’s interests.
One of the allegations many of us level against this board is that too many of its members put themselves above the institution.
If any director reaches a point where he is no longer a suitable, effective or appropriate custodian of Celtic, then loyalty to Celtic should mean recognising that fact.
The same applies to manager and players.
None of this requires believing that somebody is a bad person.
That is where these debates so often become ridiculous.
Over the next few days, I would urge everybody to think about the institution first.
It does not ultimately matter whether you believe Martin O’Neill is a good man.
It does not matter whether you believe Michael Nicholson is a bad one.
It does not matter whether you regard Dermot Desmond as the benevolent, wise custodian of Celtic or something approaching the devil himself.
Forget the personality.
Assess what they are doing for the institution.
Then ask yourself whether it is enough.
Because someone who believes he’s doing the right thing can do the wrong thing, and I think people with the best intentions can still do enormous harm.
Good intentions are not competence. Decency is not effectiveness. Past service does not confer permanent entitlement to future service.
And I am not unsympathetic towards some of the people inside Celtic this morning.
But the institution comes first.
There is a reason military personnel and public officials in many countries swear loyalty to constitutions, laws or offices rather than pledging themselves personally to whoever happens to occupy them.
You serve the institution. Not the man.
I believe there are good men inside Celtic.
I can believe that while simultaneously believing that some of them are no longer doing Celtic any good.
I can look at careers spent fighting for this institution while also recognising that those same people may no longer be its best guardians or its best hope for a prosperous future.
That sounds cold. Sometimes it has to be.
Because there is a higher loyalty than loyalty to an individual. That higher loyalty is one of the reasons institutions endure.
Celtic survived generations of managers, directors, players and owners because none of them was ever supposed to be bigger than the club itself.
This is not a personality cult. This is Celtic Football Club.
It is not the Martin O’Neill Appreciation Society. It is not the Callum McGregor Fan Club. It is not the Neil Lennon Cheering Section nor the Society To Promote The Greatness Of Brendan Rodgers. All of those men served Celtic. Some served it brilliantly.
All gave it great moments. All earned enormous affection. Even devotion. Loyalty, yes, and sometimes misplaced loyalty.
But Celtic did not exist to serve them.
They existed to serve Celtic.
That is the higher loyalty.
And over the next few days, when emotions are running high and people inevitably retreat into camps around individuals they admire or dislike, that is the only question which really matters.
What is best for Celtic Football Club?
Not what is best for Martin O’Neill. Not what is best for Michael Nicholson. Not what is best for Dermot Desmond.
Celtic. The institution. The thing that was here before all of them.
And the thing that will still be here long after they are gone.
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Unfortunately what most of us believe to be the best for Celtic doesn’t matter because it won’t happen. Desmond is going nowhere, Nicholson, McKay, Wilson and the other parasites in the boardroom aren’t going anywhere either. This is the way celtic have been run for years and will be for years to come. As much as we hate it, that’s the way it is. The top is rotten and it’s made it’s way onto the pitch, it was always going to happen eventually and it looks worse because the huns seem to have finally gotten their act together, which was always going to happen eventually also. We have been winning title after title which papered over the ever growing cracks for years and nobody cared because we were winning things without any serious challenger. Europe was proof of how good we really were, not. But we’ve run out of Brendans and Anges to bail us out now. The cracks that have slowly opened for years now look like the grand canyon and we will continue to deteriorate unless change is made at the top, which would require a miracle. A new manager ‘may’ produce better performances and get a bit of the spark back that we badly need, but it will only be short term. As soon as they get scunnered with a transfer window or get a better offer from a club who actually functions properly then they’ll be off and we will be back to square one again. So get used to it guys, we are in for a rough ride for the foreseeable.
Yes, the institution is what should be served.
I’m still wondering what could Martin O’Neill do for Celtic in this context. Taking all the blame and resigning like that surely isn’t the best move, as it would leave all members of the board in a comfortable situtation, where they can avoid taking responsibility – again.
If O’Neil goes — and he must / along with the coaching staff — the the focus has to be on McGregor as his collapse in form and capability. We have no leadership from the sidelines and we have no leadership on the park
Things were so bad yesterday that I would be checking the betting markets to see if any interesting patterns can be determined from the money wagered on the game. Bit leftfield but after yesterday’s performance everything should be in play.
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O’Neill — finished / the magic has gone / the joke infused excuse-mongery for the board was a big fail and he has painted himself into a corner with no way out.
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McGregor — seemingly in shop steward mode once again with a trip to the boardroom to complain about training / tactics / coaching. Not his first rodeo and with a lack of self awareness that is Donny John in its scale. As it stands he isn’t playing well / he looks as if he can’t be ersed / he is offering no leadership / he has a petted lip regarding where we find ourselves. Might be time for a tactical injury to take him out of the team and out of the limelight.
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Maloney might have something but he is no figurehead and he is no leader. Being the point man at L/town with O’Neil in FIFO mode and a captain at the scheming is well beyond his capabilities.
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As for the rest — no wonder our B Team was so poor.
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Next steps — if we are to do anything then lets do it quickly.
The Irish Raj is the burden we must carry.
The execs are close to useless and they are using Lawell’s playbook.
Second rate property bean counter who as all ego and no ability — that playbook.
We need Brian Wilson to say something / anything.
We need a total revamp of our coaching and academy staff.
We need to lose the arrogance that we are too good for the SPL.
We need to gain a desire to be the best we can possibly be.
We all too easily laugh at others and now they are laughing at us.
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This shambles has been three and half years in the making — we went “cheap” and easy after Postecoglu left and how we have paid in spades for that laziness and insularity.
Stolen off KDS — copy with pride …
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Welsh is a very interesting case study into how the club destroys talent.
I always that he was a pretty good footballer but a poor /”weak” defender.
Turns out there was a player in there but we couldn’t join the dots.
How much does it shame the club that he bigs up M/well?
But Askou would not be good enough for us — so they say.
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“Weak” — not physically but mentally as in lacked concentration and focus.
It would appear that detailed coaching for defenders is just not what we do.
More evidence — Trusty / Scales / Murray / Ralston. Just left to get on with it.
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https://x.com/scotball_/status/2101702245188239861
Good article James, Martin O’Neill for his own good should ride off into the sunset, before he does his health and reputation harm. He dug Desmond and the Board out of a hole last season, and that should have been tha. They have failed to use the time he won for them, to start the modernisation of the whole club. Desmond or Wilson just don’t seem to have the ambition or will to energise the club, I don’t even count Nicolson or McKay as they are just the yes men employed by Desmond. Maybe the latest two appointees as directors will have a bit of backbone to ask questions of the Board, but more than likely they are a couple of other yes men to Desmond.
Our recruitment team, if we actually have one, need to up their game and a Director of football needs appointed. It is time for a complete overhaul of the running of our club.
Yesterday took me back to the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, pre Big Jock, with the haphazard onfield shambles at the start and finish to yesterday’s game. No wingers on the park and one isolated striker at the start. and three wingers and two stikers at the end of the game. We wanted a change of system, but not around 4 systems in one game. It was mind blowing, and just proved that our management team haven’t got a clue how to get a capable system out of the players available to them.
I am not going to criticise any players, as to me they started the game in a very questionable system, and in positions that a lot of them were incapable of playing in. Two examples Duran on his own upfront with absolutely no support, he ended up being bullied out of the game, wth no protection from the Ref. McCowan on the right wing, A left footed guy with no pace on the right wing, For Gods sake, he is a number 10 in the M/F and nothing more. I could go on and on.
The richest best supported team in Scotland, being mismanaged by the inadequate Board, dominated by the dictatorial largest shareholder. How on earth did Fergus’s legacy end up here.
I like my memories of Martin O’Neill and his Celtic team was easily the best and strongest Celtic team of my lifetime. I worried when he came in last season as I felt winning the league highly unlikely especially the second time post Nancy and yet he pulled it off adding yet another layer to his legacy and truthfully should have stepped aside there and then, with his legacy assured and potentially even statue at stadium worthy.
He should not have returned. If the supporters who regard themselves perfect and guardians of virtue along with the bandwagon jumpers hadn’t shouted down the preferred candidate for supposed political reasons then O’Neil wouldn’t have had a decision to make on returning or not, we may not have been doing any better than currently, but would have a younger coach who you could allow time to build something in a way O’Neill doesn’t really have time on his side for.
In O’Neill’s first era we had essentially an EPL level team as football finances were different then. We essentially have stood still as we are still paying the same sort of transfer fees and wages as we were then, fully 25 years ago, while the football world has moved on without us.
That younger O’Neill had a fiery personality behind closed doors in the dressing room and made it clear the standards expected. I do wonder if with age he’s naturally lost a bit of that fire as the wisdom of age comes in its place.
I don’t know if he will leave or has the stubborness and fire still to say its only September, start banging some heads together in the dressing room (and boardroom for January) and steel himself that he won’t leave the job worse than he found it.
I see the other Keane, Roy Keane was at the game with his old number 2. Maybe a left field shout for O’Neill would be to bring in his old ROI n.o2 in Keane, to take the no2 position above maloney to really shake things up at the training ground and put a rocket up some people if O’Neill isn’t up to that anymore. The last few displays have suggested many might need just that!
Very very good piece James.
Before I go on, as a devout Christian I’d like to point out that the church never errs. Only God is infallible. Mankind on the other hand is another kettle of fish altogether. Pope Alexander VI was a corrupt individual who was corrupted by family ties from the get go and represented himself and his family rather than God and his church. And it’s behaviors like his and others before and after, that caused the split in the church in the first place and gave rise to Calvanism and the like. Remember, Satan wants the church broken. He wants to break and destroy everything.
Which brings me back to the main institution you were discussing and the point you forgot to mention above among all of the other points you highlighted and that is the fact that people themselves can become institutionalised. To the point where every word that comes from that institution becomes doctrine, where every action becomes the way things are supposed to be done and these people cannot see past it.
And so what happens then. The people in power, the owners the directors etc build their tower of babel complete with their own idols and becoming their own untouchable gods, and feel they answer to no one. Sound familiar?
And the only way to save the institution before it is struct doen and left in ruin is for the people to take back ownership of it and bring it back to where it was meant to be. The club of virtue and honesty and for some the club of hope, the way brother Walfrid saw it. A club with a soul. Before it lost it.