For the last couple of weeks, Celtic supporters have been waiting. Some with frustration, some with anger, some with weary resignation and an acceptance that whatever we eventually heard was probably not going to be entirely pleasing.
But all of us have been waiting.
In the aftermath of those dreadful last three matches, the manager of this club made statements which he cannot easily roll back. In the interim, we have had a set of accounts which were dreadful. We have had questions about the structure of the club, questions about the team and questions about where all of this is heading.
And even then, we got nothing.
No plan. No outline of where we are headed or how we intend to get there. No acknowledgement of the scale of the crisis in the football department. Just the silence of contempt.
Fans were looking for reassurance, or at the very least some explanation of what was going on. We did not particularly expect Dermot Desmond to communicate with us. We did not expect Michael Nicholson to emerge blinking into the daylight. We certainly did not expect Brian Wilson to say much, and frankly it is probably better that he does not, because I rarely find what he does say particularly impressive. Too much of it reeks of student politics.
But we expected something.
Something from the manager. Something from the club. Something which told supporters that the people running Celtic understood the scale of what had happened.
We got nothing.
Then yesterday somebody threw tennis balls onto a golf course.
And Celtic found its voice again.
Suddenly the club wanted to communicate with supporters. What a pity that when it finally did, the statement read like somebody furiously shouting into the void.
And oh, what language it used.
It was hysterical, raving rubbish.
Let us be clear about what actually happened. A man’s round of golf was interrupted by a supporter protest. The club chose to respond by talking about “shame”, “intimidation” and “coercion”, while threatening indefinite bans for those it establishes were involved in planning, facilitating or participating in the action.
Then came the grand finale.
“The reputation of Celtic Football Club is non negotiable.”
Do not worry. We will get to that.
But the tone of the whole thing was extraordinary.
Celtic had every right to condemn the disruption if that was what it wanted to do. People are entitled to believe that an unrelated sporting event should not have been interrupted. The club could have issued a restrained statement saying precisely that.
Instead, it produced a sprawling moral indictment of its own supporters.
I wrote last week that Celtic somehow has to give people something over the next week which makes going back to Celtic Park feel like something they actually want to do, rather than an obligation increasingly disconnected from their emotional investment in the club.
This statement certainly does not help.
It draws battle lines between the supporters and the people running Celtic.
Actual battle lines.
And perhaps the most offensive part is the attempt by the club to tell the rest of us who does and does not speak for supporters.
They do not get to decide that for me. Only I do.
So let me be perfectly clear about where I stand. I stand unequivocally behind the Celtic Fans Collective. This site stands unequivocally behind the Celtic Fans Collective.
I suspect plenty of other websites, supporter organisations and individual fans will make their own positions clear too.
Celtic can decide which organisations it formally engages with. It can choose who gets invited into meetings. But it does not possess the authority to decree which organisations individual supporters consider representative of their views.
The sheer arrogance of believing otherwise is breathtaking.
This is an institution with a long record of treating supporters appallingly which now appears to believe it has some unique moral authority to decide which supporter voices are legitimate. It does not. It never has. It never will.
Then we come to that magnificent phrase again.
“The reputation of Celtic Football Club is non negotiable.”
Isn’t that wonderful?
Where was that sentiment when one of the most influential people around Celtic publicly attacked our former manager in terms which themselves caused enormous controversy?
Where is the concern for Celtic’s reputation when we routinely cross the borders of Scotland and find ourselves humiliated in European competition?
Where is the concern for our reputation when transfer negotiations become exercises in penny-pinching, when deals drag on, when players and representatives are left frustrated and when people we will have to negotiate with again are given reasons to question how Celtic conducts its business?
Where is the concern for our reputation when the football structure looks like something assembled five minutes before closing time?
We have a 74-year-old manager who has taken time away to consider whether he still possesses the energy and appetite required to do the job. We have a stand-in chairman. We have holes throughout the football operation. We have obvious recruitment problems. We have obvious gaps in the first-team squad.
And we have money piled up in the bank whilst, summer after summer, Celtic continue to congratulate themselves on financial prudence as footballing problems remain unresolved.
Last season alone should have produced a profound examination of how this football club was being run.
Three managers in one campaign. Martin O’Neill brought out of retirement, later returned to the job, and now Celtic again finds itself wondering what happens next.
The reputation of Celtic Football Club?
They have got to be joking.
The reputation of this club is in the shredder right now, and that damage has occurred under the stewardship of the very people now invoking that reputation as a weapon against supporters.
They do not get to talk as though they are the reasonable, responsible and professional guardians of something which everyone else is recklessly endangering. They have not behaved like that for a very long time.
Celtic’s reputation was built in enormous part by its supporters.
Generations travelled everywhere with this club. They filled stadiums. They created atmospheres people still talk about. They spent fortunes. They handed Celtic a global identity which stretches far beyond the actual size of Scottish football.
That reputation does not belong to the Board.
They inherited custody of it.
And with custody comes an obligation to protect it.
So, tell me how statements like this help.
Tell me how publicly declaring war on a major organised section of the support enhances Celtic’s reputation. Tell me how lecturing supporters about stewardship looks alongside the condition of the football operation these people currently preside over.
The hypocrisy is staggering.
And then there is Dermot Desmond.
It is extremely difficult to read the sheer fury of this statement and avoid the conclusion that the fact this protest reached Desmond personally is what made this different.
Supporters have protested at Celtic Park. They have written open letters. They have published detailed criticism. They have organised. They have asked for meetings. They have spent months making their unhappiness clear.
And the club chose to ignore it all.
But yesterday Desmond himself was confronted with that anger while appearing publicly somewhere entirely removed from Celtic Park, and suddenly the communications department discovered a previously unknown capacity for urgency.
That tells us something.
The protest was designed to tell Desmond that the consequences of the way Celtic is being run would no longer necessarily remain safely contained within the walls of Celtic Park on the relatively few occasions when he attends.
It was intended to pierce the insulation. Whatever anybody thinks about the tactic, that message clearly landed. The club statement proves it.
There are people who disagree with the protest. Fine. There are reasonable arguments to be made about whether disrupting another sporting event was the right way to do it. But what nobody can seriously ask now is what it achieved.
It got a reaction. One hell of a reaction.
The club says it will not be intimidated or coerced. Yet describing tennis balls thrown onto a golf green as “intimidation” stretches that word to breaking point.
It was disruption. It was protest. It was deliberately targeted at a public appearance by the man whom supporters hold most responsible for the direction Celtic has taken.
That is what happened.
And if the purpose was to demonstrate to Desmond that public-facing appearances can no longer automatically be regarded as completely separate from the anger generated by his stewardship of Celtic, the protest achieved precisely that.
The wider relationship is now so poisoned that this should terrify anyone who genuinely cares about the future of the club.
One of the hardest things I have written in the last year is that Celtic has, in many respects, severed the emotional connection between the supporters and the institution itself.
They have turned this into us versus them.
They have behaved in ways which suggest their opinions are the only ones which count, and that supporters exist primarily to keep the lights on at that enormous stadium while being expected to accept whatever decisions are handed down from above.
You can only treat your customer base like that for so long before friction becomes inevitable. There was friction already. This statement pours petrol onto it.
It is breathtakingly aggressive. The contempt and malice seem to radiate from the page.
And all the while Celtic talks about “engagement”.
What engagement?
The Celtic Fans Collective has had meetings cancelled. Supporter groups have spent months questioning whether the club ever regarded the Collective as legitimate in the first place. Fan media remains excluded from meaningful access.
The club now dramatically announces that it no longer recognises the Collective as representative of Celtic supporters. To many people inside that organisation, that will merely formalise what they believed Celtic’s position was already.
It is not punishment to announce that you regard an organisation as illegitimate if your behaviour has already convinced that organisation you never accepted its legitimacy. It’s even worse because they don’t get to decide which protest groups are legitimate and which are not. Only the fans get to do that.
The Collective did not emerge from nowhere. It brought together hundreds of organisations across the Celtic support, from fan media operations to supporters’ buses, clubs and other groups. Celtic may dislike that. It may find dealing with one large collective organisation inconvenient. But inconvenience is not illegitimacy.
Nor is engagement the same thing as the club choosing a handful of people with whom it feels comfortable talking.
Engagement is a two-way street. It does not mean Celtic setting every condition, choosing every participant, controlling every subject and deciding when supporters are allowed to hear from the people running their club.
That is not engagement. That is being dictated to. That is being talked down to.
Fans barely receive direct information as it is. Meaningful interviews increasingly appear through club-controlled channels, with some material sitting behind Celtic TV subscriptions.
Everything else has to be inferred. Managerial uncertainty? Silence. Three defeats in games which could define the season? Silence. Structural problems? Silence. Supporter alienation? Silence. A fanbase drifting into apathy so severe that people can barely summon the enthusiasm to read about Celtic? Silence.
But Dermot Desmond has his afternoon interrupted at St Andrews and suddenly communication is not merely possible, it is imperative.
That is the pattern people see.
A club which seldom talks unless it is talking down. A club which rarely responds unless the response is aimed at slamming its own supporters.
No amount of corporate wording can obscure that.
And frankly, there was not very much corporate restraint in last night’s statement anyway. What came through much more clearly was bitterness, pettiness and extraordinary thin-skinned anger.
That has amazed me throughout this entire dispute.
How fragile these people appear.
How easily criticism gets underneath their skin.
How little tolerance they seem to have for sustained opposition.
They talk about stewardship and responsibility whilst presiding over a club which currently looks absurdly incomplete at almost every footballing level. They talk about protecting Celtic’s reputation while the sporting side deteriorates. They talk about engagement while the supporters spend weeks staring at a wall of silence.
They talk about constructive relationships whilst announcing indefinite bans for people they establish were involved in this protest and formally terminating relations with the largest organised supporter coalition Celtic has seen.
And then they apparently expect everybody simply to accept it.
Well, we will not. It is as simple as that.
For years the central complaint against Dermot Desmond was that he remained too far removed from the day-to-day consequences of his influence over Celtic. He has wealth beyond anything most supporters can imagine. He moves in circles of enormous political, business and social influence.
But none of that buys him immunity from criticism over his stewardship of this football club. Whatever positive legacy he once imagined he would leave at Celtic has been destroyed. When discourse around a major figure at a football club becomes as poisonous as it has around Desmond, something profound has already broken.
A responsible leadership would be asking how that happened and what could possibly be done to repair it. Instead, Celtic appears determined to escalate the confrontation.
Supporter protests at relevant public appearances can be condemned, mocked or criticised if people choose. But Desmond cannot expect his public role around Celtic to be completely insulated from peaceful public protest forever while remaining the dominant influence over the direction of the club.
Yesterday demonstrated that and I am glad it was done and I personally support it as a legitimate tactic because it embarrassed him where he could not hide.
And Celtic’s own statement demonstrated that the message was heard. The tragedy is that it apparently took something like this to make the club listen at all.
Three defeats in massive matches did not produce this urgency. Linz did not even produce it, although that European reversal made Celtic a laughing stock well beyond Scotland.
After the last of those defeats and just before the break, the manager spoke like a man wondering whether Celtic was something he still wanted in his life. Through the fortnight which followed, the club said almost nothing.
Meanwhile, the support drifted into apathy. People who normally consume every Celtic story could barely be bothered reading them. Fans were emotionally disengaging from the club itself, one of the most horrible developments I have ever had to write about.
That did not merit as much as a whisper out of Celtic Park.
But one powerful man being confronted in public by supporters he has spent years keeping at arm’s length and viewing with the same contempt they now view him finally sparks Celtic into action, and that action is to attack its own fanbase?
That tells us everything about what this board hears. It tells us what it ignores. And ultimately, it tells us what it values.
And that is not us.
They then have the cheek to invoke the reputation of Celtic Football Club and declare it non-negotiable while their own actions have done enormous damage to that reputation over the last 12 to 16 months.
Here is the thing. We agree with them on the principal point; the reputation of Celtic Football Club should be non-negotiable.
That is precisely why so many of us are determined that they, who have so completely degraded it, should no longer be trusted to run it.
Get them out, every single one of them.
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The actions yesterday at historical St Andrews, the home of golf was a disgrace and will only lower the reputation of Celtic FC and its supporters around the world. The issues fans have has nothing to do with this tournament and players. Now we will see a bitterly angry and embarrassed Desmond get his own back, he will dig his heels in further. Maybe even nullify January’s transfer window if he chooses not to release funds. He has power to retaliate. The real demonstration needed was not buying season tickets, not affecting other sports. Those actions may really have cost us this season now.
I’m guessing you’re not a ST holder. It’s always the non-ST holders who call for fans not to renew their tickets.
DD has not attended an AGM for 20yrs, however has managed to attend a golfing event in Scotland every year, so how do you suggest those fans get their message across?
If you really expected Celtic to spend money in January, them im sorry but you haven’t been paying attention. When the league was on the line and the squad was struggling badly, when the legend St Martin returned after Nancy, everyone expected he’d be backed. The board didn’t spend a penny. If they can do it to him once, they will almost certainly do it again. The latest financial results have given them the perfect excuse to spend nothing again. I stand with the Collective , keep up the good work!
There are at least hundreds of thousands if not millions of hardcore Celtic fans, but the 50,000 season ticket holders think they are special, the way to hurt this board was not to renew STs but this did not happen. What happened at St Andrews will just give Desmond reason to punish Celtic fans more, he has all the power, you have none. That action yesterday will cost us the league as DD will release no funds in January to a team that is weak and struggling
As I said, if you think the board were going to spend money in January, then you haven’t been paying attention. This board has absolutely no intention of spending money in January.
I had a ST but did not renew in the 24/25 season.
Did ye aye?
Brilliant article James and yes we are now under a dictatorship with Herr Despot at the helm, the only question now is do we react like lambs or Lions.
Absolutely excellent Article ( and worth the 13 minutes! 🙂 )
Celtic is the Toy of an Absentee Landlord who invested at the time his mates had a notable shareholding in MUFC ( and he had a smaller stake) their intention at the time being share price growth with the added bonus of Social Involvement and Corporate Hospitality, the limelight with their Irish Diaspora and Equine Community.
Peter Lawwell, against the stated wishes of Fergus McCann offered a Sweetheart Deal for control without Majority Share Purchase and Eternal Dividends.
Dermot Desmond has milked his Celtic “ownership” ever since with negligible involvement other than a rod of iron to conserve capital. It’s the Self Preservation Society with no accountability, no investment and 2 decades of Decline.
If Celtic is sold ( and no one who knows the man and his lackeys expects that to happen) the £70 million cash in the bank goes to the shareholders in one way or the other as part of the sale. Nice little bonus cushion if he wasn’t so pig headed and arrogant.
“A line has been crossed”as the Celtic FC statement states, I agree with that, the Collective have sullied the name of Celtic on the International sporting stage. Whoever came up with the idea of the throwing of tennis balls onto a green during an official PGA tournament have completely made the Celtic support look like fools. Celtic are a Football club for Gods sake, they’re important to us, but it’s not life or death it’s football. To so childishly target an individual playing in another sport, with International competitors taking part, makes us look like parochial fools.
I know some people will say that this action was justified, I completely disagree, the place to demonstrate your unhappiness is at Celtic Park with either boycotts, or demonstrations.
The collective have misjudged a lot of the Celtic support, most fans are unhappy with the Board and the way Celtic are being mismanaged, but aren’t fools. The board could have behaved like the Liquidated Rangers FC or the cheating Man City and many other Football clubs, who either no longer exist, or have come through Administration. That would have been something to really get annoyed about
This childish prank against an individual large shareholder at Celtic, has made our club and support look foolish and parochial to the sporting World. It will have seriously divided our support, and will probably have backfired in the quest for change in the Boardroom. Who would want to become involved with a club that has an element within its support, willing to disrupt your private life away from the football arena.
Football for a lot of us is important for our entertainment and recreation, in other words it’s a hobby, not the be all and end all of our lives. By their actions the Collective have stepped over a line here.
The actions at St Andrews were childlike, the images of them running away clad in black embarrasses everything Celtic stands for
FFS!
“It’s not life or death its football”?
You ever heard of Bob Shsnkly?
Excellent analysis of the situation James and one I agree with.
For Desmond to appear at any event in Scotland in the current circumstances, and not experience any sort of fan protest, would be unthinkable. Thank goodness those fans decided to rise above the apathy which is currently imprisoning the minds of the fanbase, and find the will to make their protest.
As you say James, if anyone thought the nature of the protest was weak or ineffective, then the club’s own statement has blown that theory away. The statement has made it clear that Desmond was humiliated by the fans, and that is exactly what he deserves.
If this strips away the apathy and turns it into something constructive, then I applaud them.
I often use the term ‘I shake my head in despair’, but that is exactly what I am doing just now as I think about the depths the fans are having to plumb to get a reaction from those incompetent hangers on in our boardroom, I call them barnacles for that is what they are, they are determined to cling onto the sinking hull of the ship and drag us down along with them.
I disagree with the tennis ball protest, it is infantile and paints us in a bad light, but like James I am astonished and somewhat disgusted by the boards reaction. They are basically attacking the whole Celtic family with their petulant defence of their of their despotic leader and it must be a real challenge for them to say anything with their collective tongues stuck so far up his all encompassing sphincter.
Back to my usual comment ‘I shake my head in despair….what to do?
And that has got to be the mass boycotts of games, there is no other option, we will have a season ahead of disruption and pain, there is no softly, softly approach any more, we need a strong militant reaction to these fickle fuckers, we need to save our Club no matter the short term damage that it may cause.
We will be true to thee till death!
Agreed Johnny. I’ve decided I wont be back to CP for the foreseeable. As horrible as it is I’d rather work than even be in the same vicinity as those parasites
Ignore people for so long, they will make themselves heard. This made national news, that is a victory against these parasites. Anything that draws the board into the news and highlights how much the supporters of Celtic hate them is one step closer to ‘hopefully’ getting rid of them. Supporters have tried to negotiate with them in a civilised matter but they ban fan media, they close the AGM early. They have chosen not to negotiate with their “customers” so yesterday is hardly a surprise. I hope Desmond had a horrible day yesterday. I hope Nicholson, Wilson and McKay got an earful from him. These idiots are running our club into the ground and it’s up to the supporters to force change. Hopefully yesterday was only the beginning. Keep it up Collective!
Time for a full and total boycott of all home games. And unfortunately if that hurts the team and results then so be. I have been a Celtic fan for 45 years, lived thru the utter shite of the 90s, the huns cheating, and the club nearly going bust. But this is something else..we need to get rid of Desmond Putin and his pathetic politburo before we get to a point where we enter time even worse than the huns..how the fuck can Desmond and his cuntcronies not see that everyone hates them and wants them out. NOW. I didnt agree with the treatment of labelling but…….
The treatment of lawell. Fucking autocorrect
DD bought into Celtic FC as an investment. He truly believed we would get entry to the EPL. No matter what anyone says he is in no way emotionally connected to the club. We can all have our opinions on what happened yesterday but the statement put out last night was in line with the character assassination of BR. Why? Because it embarrassed DD personally and we can’t have that. They say the reputation of Celtic FC is non negotiable. The reputation of Celtic FC regarding football matters has been slaughtered year after year on the European stage. That is down to the board. Furthermore it now looks like domestically we are in free fall. Whether it was right or wrong I don’t think yesterday’s action was helpful. I have to agree with Dan that we may see a vindictive DD damage our club even further. As I’ve said he has no emotional connection so he doesn’t care. We have a board full of puppets and he is the puppet master. Sadly we are stuck with this situation as no-one with self respect or integrity will touch us with a barge pole. Just a thought on the NAP protest. I think if we had a significant visual display targeting Adidas products in general it would fluster a few feathers.
James, what needs to happen is the whole of the collective, all of the fan groups to stop buying season tickets. For as long as the tickets are sold out the board will take this as prima facie evidence that their strategy is supported. They are emboldened by the ‘waiting list’ and are willing to call the bluff of fans not buying season books and losing their long held seats. That is the bet they are willing to make and until folk like yourself take a stand and do not renew your books, we will be in a status quo and nothing will change. I urge you and the other leaders of the collective to take this massive step and campaign for season books not to be renewed
Brilliant article James,
You speak for the many not the Few.
You represent the vast majority of fans who are not season ticket holders.
A few happy clapping board apologist types like micmac defend the Management and the tyrant who is destroying our beautiful club.
Looking forward to seeing thousands and thousands of empty seats at every home game and record away Celtic fans travelling and supporting our Grand old team at away games in Scotland.
Yesterday the actions of our flying Pickets achieved it’s objective to get the world talking about stage 1 of the removal of the Tyrant and his foul mouthed son who are destroying our beautiful club CELTIC FC.
Stage 2….too follow
The Collective should be supported 100%.
Keep up the struggle!
I am not a board apologist, but I do know that a protest such as yesterdays does the club no good, and will frighten away anyone thinking of investing in Celtic.
Those who think that a complete boycott will happen are living in a bubble, a partial boycott may happen, all that will do is damage the club and the quality of the team.
Welcome to the early 1990’s the only difference being this present board have a financial safety net for a few years yet. We are a club on the drift with, on the one hand a Board with very little ambition and no respect for the support/customers, and a large element of the support bent on self destruction. This from a club who have hoovered up domestic trophies this century.
What a state for the most successful club in Scotland to get themselves into, they must be killing themselves laughing down Ibrox way.
Absolutely spot on JF.
Because the billionaire had his game interrupted for a minute after coming out of his ivory tower he takes the flamethrower to the Fans.
This guy isn’t fit to be head of Celtic as the hysterical reaction in the statement drips with utter contempt for Celtic fans.
I’m getting sick of it but that would suit them fine, keep the rebels out of the CP and replaced with mindless happy clappers.
No, that can’t happen.
What you going to do if the GB get banned again volp?
Fans mouthing off on these forums has little affect. I dont think the tennis balls action has much affect either to be honest. I do know fans of all other clubs find it hilarious!
A handful of delinquents shouting and swearing and throwing tennis balls while wearing balaclavas makes us look like the Ibrox neds.
Are 60,000 fans willing for all out war and if not how many are? If CP is empty for one single month, the board is gone most likely the major shareholders too.
I think a different course of action is required because I dont think you or many others have the stomach for a fight.
Celtic should be a democracy. Every fan should be asked. The CC hierarchy should not be taking decisions for everyone else without asking every fan what they want.
When it popped up on my twitter feed I smiled but when you think about it it’s very childish, I like the snooker and was raging when those brainwashed just stop oil clowns threw orange dust all over the table but even those idiots were trying to raise awareness, we’re not trying to raise awareness, we’re just trying to annoy an old guy. Brooks Koepka and golf fans alike must think we’re the morons now. Embarrassing all round. The joy of following Celtic diminishes as we implode at an ever increasing rate.
Then you get that bloody statement, quick as a flash, and it’s inflammatory bullshit. What’s the official channels people are supposed to go through? The whole situation is Donald ducked.
Volp,
Your comment about “taking the flame thrower to the fans”is on the money.
This week with the ACSOM announcement, they with the help of Tony Hagerty will have a discussion with Brendan Rodgers next May, in Glasgow, and that the 2000 tickets selling out within an hour of going on sale has rocked the club and the tyrant in charge too its foundations.
The fact that this announcement was made after a shocker of a financial report for last year and the AGM on the horizon Martin having doubts “should I stay or should I go” culminating in our Flying Pickets having an away day in the Kingdom of Fife and reminding DD&Son there is no hiding place and the ball is in his court.
This is the equivalent metaphorically speaking of a catastrophic earthquake of at least 7.5.
Disgusting DD & his foul mouthed son would be smart to sell up and get out before Brendan potentially spills the beans in May 2027.
Well DD do ya feel lucky?
Desmond must go and take your sycophants with you . Name will go down in Celtic infamy
Celtic can be so much more than it currently is, however the way to achieving this is not through small acts of defiance, larger coordinated actions are required.
All this protest has done is give the club the opportunity to play the victim card. Personally I don;t think this is the way to influence change at Celtic, there is a route to achieving an end to Desmond’s control but it will require an action very few seem willing to take, and that is a boycott of Celtic Park.
If we want to protest, then make it a silent one.Empty stands are the biggest show of no confidence in our board and largest shareholder. I personally have not attended a game since Kairat.
It is clear from the club’s statement that any show of dissent will be used as an excuse not to engage, therefore we must as a fanbase give them no choice in the matter. We have to have enough shares in the club to allow us to have a voice. 5% is the magic number, all the different shareholder groups advocating for change must come together in pursuit of this goal. I myself am a small shareholder and would be happy to lend my shares voting rights to such a group.
If we are to be taken seriously then let’s start acting seriously. HH
The major problem we have as fans is the lack of democracy and solidarity amongst the fans. The Collective have taken responsibility for this but who backed it? How many fans got consulted on this sort of action?
A handful of neds wearing balaclavas wont change much as far as I can see. Who suggested this? Was it the guys who carried it out? Are they willing to lose their season tickets for this? James are you willing to have your ST taken off you? You support this. I dont know if anyone inside CP reads this blog or is aware of it but you could become a legitimate target. You are in the collective and they have admitted responsibility. Are the top brass in the collective willing to receive criminal records for this? However minor the golf course action was, it is a criminal offence, possibly a breach. I think the neds have been taken advantage of and some or all may get banned.
Who is going to stand by them? Who is going to stand by you if you get banned James?
The STs have already been bought this season but a show of solidarity would be nobody turning up for games. There is no solidarity. Still massive crowds when the GB took the hit last year and most likely they will be the fall guys again and the team will suffer.
If you want change, you must go all in. It will probably involve throwing this title.
Who is willing to go all in?
The season ticket culture that fans (beyond ourselves) have adopted is a deal with the devil – sucked in and now a fear of missing out and being locked out places fans in a position akin to poor, mostly South Asian, indentured employees across the Middle East – got to keep paying/working for the man.
Unless the 50,000 STH decide to stand with the many thousands of other disenfranchised fans no significant pressure will be felt by the board.
It’s completely naive of the Collective and their useful idiots (to use a term that JF is found of) to throw tennis balls at DD without giving any serious thought to who might buy his shares if he were to sell. DD could probably pick up his phone tomorrow and sell his shares to the Glaziers or an oligarch (suspect that buyers from UAE might be in short supply at the moment). I want DD to sell to us, the Celtic supporters, but such a deal needs to be arranged and negotiated with proper due diligence and a process that brings in that fan base and its funding. Rather than wasting money on tennis balls, save the money to buy shares. Rather than buying replica kits, save your money for buying shares in the future.
James I agree with almost everything you say where I’m in disagreement is where you are referring to our ‘custodians’as ‘Celtic’ they are not Celtic they are charlatans who currently have the key to the door that is all…