CELTIC BOARD SOCIAL MEDIA SUBTERFUGE EXPOSED?
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 4 hours ago
- 4 min read
In a sense, I suppose it’s ironic. Perhaps my most consistent and indeed persistent criticism of the Celtic Board this season has been their complete inability to communicate. Well, it seems, perhaps, they have been communicating all along, just not in the way that Celtic fans, or indeed any decent human being would wish them to do so.
For what seems like months now, the Celtic Board have aggressively gone after anyone who isn’t “on message” with their particular point of view. This has included our former manager Brendan Rodgers, The Green Brigade, and then the Celtic Fans Collective.
We then had the absolutely shameful scenes of an AGM abandoned after our now former chairman told shareholders to behave as our largest individual shareholder (not our owner) decided to let his nepo-baby of a son lecture the Celtic support on the indignity of being “anti-establishment”.
As if that wasn’t enough, ACSOM, and indeed every other major Celtic fan media outlet has, for several weeks now been effectively banned from pre and post-match press conferences.
All the while, we’ve had Celtic Board members alleging threats on themselves, their staff and their families, with no actual evidence provided to support these accusations. As I’ve said before, the only solid evidence we have seen of violent conduct at Celtic Park this season has come from two instances recorded on video of club stewards acting like Gestapo enforcers towards young fans. The Board have been strangely silent on those instances of “threats and intimidation”.
But I’m not here to talk about any of that today, what I am here discuss, if indeed my suspicions and those of several other Celtic fan Media commentators are correct, is potentially far more insidious.
Is The Celtic Board Connected to Social Media Campaign Against Prominent Fan Groups?
If you are unfortunate enough to still partake of the cesspool of hate and stupidity that is Twitter these days, you may have come across a somewhat aggressive and antagonistic account calling itself Celtic Fans Corrective.
Whoever runs his particular account espouses views that are remarkably in-keeping with the “nothing to see here” falsehood that the Celtic Board have continually tried to push this season, as we have staggered from one crisis to another, almost all of them engineered by corporate incompetence.
Now, anyone who notices online the kind of morons who interact with people like Elon Musk on a daily basis will know that it isn’t unusual to see no-name accounts on social media fawning over obscenely wealthy individuals who, for want of a better phrase: “wouldn’t p*ss on them if they were on fire.”
At first, I dismissed the “Celtic Fans Corrective” as just another one of these attention-seeking cranks. I assumed they were making these nonsensical and needlessly inflammatory statements about their “fellow Celtic fans” either to drive engagement via “rage-baiting” or simply because they are an internet troll with far too much free time on their free hand.
However, last night they slipped up.
In a “Q and A” session with Celtic fans on Twitter, where, naturally, they proceeded to denigrate and talk down to anyone who didn’t agree unconditionally with them, something appears to have slipped through the net, which may reveal their true motives.
Several of the replies sent out via this account, which I will emphasize again claims to be merely a concerned Celtic supporter with no direct links to the Celtic Board, contained the watermark of a PR firm by the name of MindField.
Now, the current state of the relationship between MindField and Celtic FC is unknown. What we do know though is that Celtic have employed this firm on a number of occasions in the past, particularly when the club was badly in need of a jolt of positive PR.
Remember how “We Never Stop” became the mantra that defined Ange Postecoglou’s entire spell as Celtic manager? Well it was MindField who picked up on that phrase from Ange and popularized it via a variety of media and merchandizing tie-ins with Celtic.
So, why would the watermark of a PR firm that has a history of successful dealings with the Celtic Board, suddenly appear in the tweets of a troll account whose sole raison d'etre seems to be to antagonize and divide the Celtic support?
Why would a trusted commercial partner of the club, whom the Board have numerous previous dealings with allow themselves to be associated with a social media account that has adopted the exact same tactics of intimidation, personal attacks and slander against various voices critical of the Celtic Board, that this same board continually alleges, but has yet to prove, they themselves are the victims of?
I expect we’ll here the usual deafening silence from the club on this. And I fully expect the troll account in question will double-down on its aggressive invective. After-all, I believe “Don’t Give Up, Double Down” was another slogan MindField used during one of their campaigns with Celtic.
Of course, this could all just be a massive misunderstanding, and @celticfanscorrective may have a perfectly reasonable, and innocent explanation for using watermarked material from one of the Celtic Board’s major PR partners in their latest round of trolling.
I’ll be interested to hear what Celtic Fans Corrective, MindField PR and indeed Celtic themselves have to say about all this over the next couple of days.