HAS THE CELTIC FANS BOYCOTT FAILED ALREADY? THIS GAMBLER THINKS NOT
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- Oct 17, 2025
- 4 min read
Updated: Oct 18, 2025
At 8:30am this morning, Celtic Park Time, the Celtic Fans Collective announced a boycott of club merchandise, matchday products, pretty much everything apart from the match ticket itself.
Thirty minutes later, Celtic and Adidas officially launched their new SPZL range. By lunchtime, the jacket, which seems like an absolute steal (sarcasm) at £230 had sold out.
Board apologists and other twitter accounts that had been surprisingly dormant until the middle of last month were quick to say things along the lines of: “So much for the Celtic fans boycott! The merch is flying off the shelves. Don’t you all feel a bit stupid now?”
I would ask those people to take a minute to engage their brains and Google the concept of “manufactured scarcity”.
No, One Item Selling Out Does Not Mean the Celtic Fans Boycott is a Dud
The “not another penny” initiative, launched this morning, calls on Celtic fans to avoid buying official merchandize until February. Christmas is traditionally a period when the club bring in huge revenues from merchandise.
Conversely, January is a period when we habitually underinvest during the transfer window. I’m still waiting for Celtic to properly replace Kyogo.
Now, when a new fan protest is announced, it is only natural that the Celtic board, desperate to do anything other than admit their own fallibility, would engage in some kind of counter-offensive.
Kenny Rogers, a musical favorite of mine, famously once sung “You’ve got to know when to hold’em and know when to fold’em”.
In subsequent years, I have murdered this same song on the karaoke on a number of occasions, but that's another story.
Anyway, the Celtic board, discarding the wisdom of the late Mr. Rogers, have just thrown down their entire hand before the first round of betting has even played out.
Ok, I’ll leave the poker metaphors there. But suffice to say, the Celtic Board have tried to carve a narrative here, and as usual, they’ve done it with all the subtlety using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.
Yes, one of the items in the Celtic SPZL collection sold out in a matter of hours. Mere minutes later, this same item appeared on sites such as “vinted” and “ebay” for significantly more than the RRP.
I think, my friends, that scalping is in play here. As indeed is manufactured scarcity.
Celtic were very quick to proclaim that the jacket had sold out. They did not however mention how many had been sold, or how soon the item would be back in stock.
Was it 20? 200? or 2000? Ultimately only Celtic and Adidas have the answer to that particular conundrum.
I’m going to guess it was on the lower end of this scale though. Like I said, if you look up the concept of manufactured scarcity, another concept Celtic seemed to have borrowed from the worst elements of the video game industry, then you’ll see what I mean.
Basically, you chronically understock an item in order to generate false hype then claim the item is a sell-out. Artificially inflating demand for when you inevitably re-issue it in a few weeks or months from now due to “popular demand”.
In the meantime, chancers who bought in bulk this morning will sell their wares via the various unregulated online marketplaces for far more than the already inflated RRP.
This, coupled with the now largely debunked rumor of Celtic supposedly preparing to bid in excess of 6 million for Red Bull Salzburg’s Bobby Clark has reflected a full-frontal assault against today’s fan action from the Celtic board.
The problem is, most fans I’ve spoken to see it for the smoke and mirrors attempt at distraction it is.
Celtic have tried the “it’s all good, move along, nothing to see here” routine, and it has backfired.
I’m reminded of the scene from The Naked Gun, where the immortal Leslie Nielsen utters a similar line as fireworks, explosions and all kinds of other carnage unfolds behind him.
This boycott is not a short-term measure. It is also not something Celtic fans have decided on lightly. There was a genuine attempt at engagement at the recent meeting with CEO Michael Nicholson and CFO Chris McKay. However, it’s clear now, that meeting was a failure, and there was no sincere attempt at contrition or a desire to learn from from mistakes on the part of the Celtic board.
And so, here we are. It’s not nice (especially since I was eyeing that new away shirt as a wee birthday present for myself next month). But that’s where we are.
The ball is now in Celtic’s court. Do they continue to push the false narrative that there’s “nothing to see here” or do they drop their egos, their resistance to critique and actually listen?
Time will tell...
