Mediocrities gather as Celtic’s crisis reaches terminal velocity.

Last year, I wrote what I called a trilogy of articles. One was called Empires Fall. The other was called Empires Fall II. Original, right?

In between them was the third part of the trilogy, although I didn’t actually know it was a trilogy until I wrote Empires Fall II. That piece was about how one of the signs of a crumbling empire is the mediocrities who are suddenly flocking around the throne.

Look carefully and you’ll see that we’re there.

And the reason for that is simple: the mediocrities always know when an empire is going to fall. They know it because they’re suddenly in the vicinity of the emperor.

You see, in a regime which is healthy, in one based on merit and a meritocratic structure, these people would not be anywhere near the centre of power at all. The venal, the corrupt, the cowardly, the flatterers, the seducers, the conmen, the charlatans and the court jesters would never get close.

It is only when an empire is on its last legs, when all the good and honest men have fled the capital because they no longer wish to be associated with the dying embers of a crumbling regime, that these people even get a toe inside the royal palace, far less a place in the royal court.

With a rotting regime, you get all sorts of grifters and wannabes clawing their way up the ladder. By the end, all that is left is the detritus, the hangers-on, and that is how you know which phase of the disaster you are in.

There are no Agrippas helping to run the empire anymore.

You’re down to the dregs.

As I said on X last night, Nero wasn’t alone while Rome was burning. He had people around him. There were still guests at the feast, still people enjoying their proximity to power while the flames ripped through homes and the city burned around them.

The Nero’s have been living it up inside Celtic for a long time.

But as the crisis deepens, pay more and more attention to those who hover around its margins hoping to profit. Pay attention to those around the edges hoping for a seat at the table, even if all they get are the scraps from the royal feast.

These people are everywhere you look.

Failed coaches. Failed pundits. People who have no credibility in any other ecosystem but who somehow find that Scottish football welcomes them in.

And it is not just football where you find these people. Every failing regime attracts its acolytes. The Trumps, the Farage’s, all the little petty tyrants and would-be strongmen have people gathered around them too, and many of those people are perfectly aware of what they are doing.

They know what they are profiting from. They know what they are enabling. They know, at some level, when they are helping to make the world a worse place.

And it is the same phenomenon.

We are in the end days, when all that is left is the scramble to make it to the final feast. It is always the same across every field where men rise and fall, because there is always something for those with their snouts in the trough, and it doesn’t matter whether it is a season of poverty or plenty.

Of course, people defend them.

Of course, they gaslight the rest of us.

Of course they hover within reach of their masters, forever looking for favour, even as the walls crack, the ramparts crumble and the smoke from distant fires begins filling the royal chamber.

And the more the people who kept the empire functioning flee from the coming disaster, the closer these people get to the seat of power.

Scavengers, picking the bones clean.

Those amongst our support who have smeared fellow Celtic fans as the root of all our problems, who have smeared former managers for their perceived roles in what has happened, and who have steadfastly refused to point the finger at the real guilty men — and especially the guiltiest man — have made their choices.

In another regime, in another time and place, words like quislings, traitors and collaborators would have been thrown around. This is not that, and we should not pretend that it is. In that wider context, the People’s Revolution’s would line them up against the wall even before the rulers of the regime itself.

But what these people, in our world, in this context, have in their favour is that they often care less than the people they are trying to lecture.

We are probably too nice to hold a grudge forever.

So, when these people eventually plead for unity, and pretend that unity was all they ever wanted in the first place, they will probably get some version of it. People will be prepared to forgive. But some of us are not going to forget.

We will remember their names.

We will remember who they were, the words they said, the things they did and the things they deliberately chose not to do.

We will remember the access they had, the proximity they enjoyed and how often they used it for self-aggrandisement instead of trying to effect positive change. Those who looked at what we are all seeing, saw exactly the same thing, and chose to side with the board anyway will be remembered too.

Yes, you will still be welcomed as part of this family. But you will never be trusted again. You will never be credible again. But then, many of these people are not trusted and do not have credibility now. So maybe they won’t even care.

With every day that passes, some of them become more and more like that infamous Iraqi propaganda minister insisting everything was going brilliantly while the evidence of the regime’s collapse was practically rolling up the street behind him.

That image became an internet meme because the distance between what was being said and what everyone could plainly see had become absurd. Comical Ali was a joke. These people aren’t even important enough for that.

And that some of these people are now so close to the centre of power that they can practically reach out and touch it is all I will ever need to convince me that the downward slide has already begun.

Choose The CelticBlog as a ‘Preferred Source’ on Google News for quick access to the news you value.