CELTIC FAN MEDIA: WHAT EXACTLY IS THE CELTIC BOARD SO SCARED OF?
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 11 minutes ago
- 4 min read
There’s been quite a bit of fall out over the past 24 hours from the latest slap in the face to Celtic fans from our erstwhile overlords in the boardroom. Honestly, at this point, it's getting hard to keep count of just how many times the board have put their proverbial foot in it over the past few months.
The decision to allow Liverpool Fans access to one of their former players, now at Celtic, whilst still refusing to even tell Celtic Fan Media outlets why they are banned really can’t be perceived as anything other than what is colloquially know as a “get it right up ye!” gesture to the Celtic support and Celtic Fan Media in particular,
Celtic Fan Media Ban Remains, Liverpool Fans Get Full Access. Why?
From the outset, I should just say that the Liverpool fan media outlet that recorded this interview with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain are not in any way to blame for this. They have seen a bit of a backlash from some quarters for seemingly “breaking the picket line” as it were. However, this narrative needs to be shot down right away.
The Anfield Wrap are a fine example of fan media done properly. They are independent, outspoken but nonetheless respectful to their team and players. They certainly don’t indulge in sensationalism or idle speculation for the sake of clickbaiting either. If that sort of thing is your cup of tea you’ll have to go pick up a copy of The Daily Record or The S*n.
More generally, Liverpool fans have historically always enjoyed good relations with Celtic fans. I had the pleasure of being welcomed to their great city for the Ronny Moran testimonial back in 2001, for what was my first ever trip outside of Scotland to see Celtic.
The Scousers are good people. People with integrity, values and. much like us, a healthy contempt for authority and unearned privilege. I doubt the guys from the Anfield Wrap were fully aware of the current enmity between The Celtic Board and Celtic Fan Media, and to be quite honest, even if they were, it isn’t their fight.
The Celtic Board however, were fully aware of the optics this would create. Indeed, in discussing this with my fellow ACSOM contributors over the past few hours, some of us actually wondered if this was a deliberate ploy from the board to sew further division. They knew this would provoke an angry response, and where there is anger, there are always those who misdirect that anger, or who take it too far.
Such was the case yesterday, allowing the usual Celtic Board sycophants to come out from whatever dung pile they usually hide under and blame all of this on Celtic Fan Media for “making the board angry in the first place”.
Well, God forbid that people who give their money, their time, and a considerable sum of their emotional energy every week to support a football club have the temerity to demand that this same club is run properly, and that its fans are treated with the same dignity and respect as those of other clubs, friendly or otherwise.
And before any of the aforementioned board apologists try to trot out their usual line of “you don’t go to the games so your opinion is irrelevant,” I’ll freely admit, due to my career taking me elsewhere, I haven’t held a season ticket for Celtic Park since 2005.
Funnily enough, 2005 is also the last time our largest individual shareholder, not our owner, Dermot Desmond, put any of his own money into the club. Or should I say, the last time he used his predatory instincts as a vulture capitalist to acquire more shares in the club at a reduced rate.
There is, at time of writing, less than 2 months to go in the current season. I highly doubt either Celtic Fan Media or indeed The Green Brigade will be welcomed back to Celtic Park before seasons end, if indeed at all.
In the interim, Celtic will welcome the latest incarnation of the club called Rangers, and I fully expect that once again the well-worn and exceptionally dusty welcome mat will be unfurled for their fans, led by the smack-pedaling, sectarian song-singing, Smurf-impersonating fascist hooligan mob that is the Union Bears.
How the hell did we get to this point? How is it that fans of EPL teams can walk into our training camp and enjoy a sit-down interview with one of our players, while Celtic fans can’t even get the club to tell them why they’re not allowed the same, or even give them a timeline for when they will be allowed to do so again?
Why is it that a group of fans who, love them or hate them, bring atmosphere, color and an intimidation factor to Celtic Park that has been all too clearly missed in recent months remained banned, whilst those Goosestepping Gimps from the Copland Road will once again be given free reign to run amok in the stadium, abled assisted as usual by the utter cowardice of Police Scotland?
The Celtic Board need to answer these questions, to regain any credibility whatsoever. Assuming of course that they had any to begin with. Any remaining goodwill that Celtic fans had towards the board finally left Celtic Park along with the last member of the Green Brigade.
You wonder how it could possibly get any worse? What exactly could Celtic Fan Media, given access to players and coaching staff once again, do to embarrass or tarnish the name of the Celtic brand that those in the boardroom haven’t already done this season?
Answers on a postcard please...