A MESSAGE FOR THE CELTIC CHAIRMAN, FROM A CONCERNED FAN
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 18 minutes ago
- 4 min read
In their own twisted and utterly misguided way, Celtic Chairman Brian Wilson’s recent forays into Celtic fan diplomacy are almost admirable. His actions are an absolute masterclass in saying as much as possible, whilst actually delivering almost nothing in terms of tangible, measurable results.
He’s also mastered the Celtic Board’s primary modus operandi for evading scrutiny: the late Friday night statement. Another one of these “Celtic Board specials” sneaked out last night.
Still, at least last night’s official Celtic statement reads like it was written by an actual human rather than the Temu version of Chat GPT.
Celtic Chairman Doubles Down on Unity Call, Offers Nothing to Actually Advance That Goal
For the record, here is what out acting Chairman had to say for himself last night.
Last night was deeply disappointing for the Club in many respects. This started with an orchestrated disruption of the game, causing a delay to an important match.
“Over the past two weeks, I have met with a range of supporters’ groups and individual supporters.
“I have met in good faith with representatives of the Green Brigade and was hopeful that progress could have been made; indeed, this remains the case.”
I’ll remind everyone here, since it seems to have slipped Brian’s mind, that the Green Brigade had no part in Thursday night’s protest. Not being allowed into the stadium kind of interferes with one’s ability to lead a protest therein, so mentioning the Green Brigade right after alluding to the “disruption” caused at the start of Thursday’s game is, at best disingenuous, and at worst, malicious.
His statement continued:
“I also met in good faith with representatives of the Celtic Fans Collective.
Did you Brian? Did you really? It seems to me like you only agreed to meet the Collective when the individual member organizations, including The Green Brigade, called you out on your attempts to sew discord and division by trying to meet with member groups separately.
I also point your attention to Born Celtic’s coverage of Thursday’s protest, highlighting the fact that The Celtic Fans Collective did not sanction this action.
Anyway, the Celtic Chairman’s monologue continued: “When I came into this role, I asked for unity inside the stadium to support the team while trying to resolve other issues. I want to see suspensions lifted and differences set aside, but this cannot be unconditional.”
Well, go on then Brian, tell us, what are the conditions you want to see met before the Green Brigade have their confiscated tickets returned to them?
Again, it’s not the fault of the Green Brigade, the Celtic Fans Collective or anyone else outside the Celtic Board Room if they fail to meet your demands, when you won’t even tell us what those demands are.
Next Wilson tried to play the sympathy card. He went on:
“Last night’s disruption and the reasoning behind it illustrate the difficulty we face and have repeatedly had to contend with.”
Indeed Brian, it shows the difficulty we, as fans, have had to face all season, as the Board continues to ignore us, decides to tell shareholders to “behave” before arbitrarily shutting down the AGM. These are not actions of good faith, nor are they actions that will, in any way, de-escalate tensions. Quite the opposite in fact. That’s why protests will have to continue.
He wasn’t done there though. Wilson’s mealy-mouthed, empty rhetoric went further still:
“This is not intended to deflect from other issues that affect the club and are fully recognized. However, the possibility of further disruptions needs to be addressed urgently. Surely the priority must be to give Martin and our players every opportunity to achieve their objectives within the remainder of the season.
If giving Martin and the players the best possible opportunity to succeed really was your top priority, Brian then why didn’t you end the bans on day one of assuming the role of chairman?
I’ve floated several times on ACSOM over the past few weeks, the idea of “parking it all until the end of the season.”
Celtic have a league to win; we have a team and a manager who need all the help they can get to make that happen. So, we need a united fanbase behind them. That includes everyone, not just those who toe the party line or keep their political messaging within the board’s personal “safe space”.
No one is saying just drop any criminal investigations, no one is saying that Celtic should just ignore breaches of stadium safety protocols. All we are asking is that you remove the bans currently in place on fans who have no active criminal investigations against them (almost the entirety of The Green Brigade) and start talking to fans like people rather than messengers.
Which brings me on to the continuing injustice of the fan media ban. It’s not the job of Fan Media to massage your ego, it’s our job to hold you and the rest of the board to account.
If you, or anyone else in the board room, feels too fragile to handle that critique, even if you do feel that it crossed boundaries into personal attacks, then frankly you have no business being in the Celtic Board Room or indeed in the senior management of any high-profile, public facing company.
Brian Wilson closed out his statement with the following line: “I will continue to seek an end to this debilitating and unnecessary atmosphere of conflict.”
Well, it can end tomorrow Brian, all you have to do is set aside the egos and personal baggage of your staff and give fans their tickets back, and let fan media do their jobs.
It really is that simple.