IF THE CELTIC BOARD TRULY WANT UNITY, THEN MAKE IT HAPPEN!
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 37 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Martin O’Neill really is more than just a Celtic legend, he’s also an incredible human being. I recall when he first answered Celtic’s call for help in the midst of Brendan Rodgers’ departure.
I remarked on the ACSOM Bulletin that week that O’Neill was, perhaps the only person on Earth whose appointment would be celebrated as much in The Celtic Board Room as it would be on the terraces of Celtic Park.
However, though the surge in positivity around Celtic over the past 48 hours is undeniable, the underlying cause of most of the tension between fans and the board remains.
Interim Chairman Brian Wilson spoke shortly Martin O’Neill’s return about his hopes for unity behind the players and the manager, as we set out to try and win this league.
Admirable sentiments to be sure, but also empty if they are not followed up with any actual gestures of goodwill from the board in the name of making this unity actually happen.
Fans Collective Call the Celtic Board’s Bluff with Request for Amicable Talks
When I first read the brilliant statement put out by the Celtic fans Collective yesterday, in response to both the return of Martin O’Neill and the positive overtures from the Celtic Board, I couldn’t help but have a wee laugh to myself about it.
It is an offer of truce, but it is one that still, clearly, shows the divide between supporters and the Celtic Board remains as wide as ever.
The statement rightly says “Yes, we welcome the calls for unity from the Celtic Board.”
But then it elaborates further: “Unity can only come through a process of mediation, contrition and reconciliation.
“We are calling on Brian Wilson and representatives of Celtic Football Club to meet with the Celtic Fans Collective in the spirit of reconciliation and a genuine desire to achieve unity, on the same themes presented in the initial open letter.”
The open letter that the collective speak of in this statement reiterated 3 key demands pared down from their previous list of requests. To summarize:
1) That Celtic formulate a clear strategy for ongoing success and communicate this strategy to fans clearly and regularly.
2) Responsibility and Accountability. The collective reiterated that both CEO Michael Nicholson and CFO Chris McKay were happy to take the credit form bringing in Wilfried Nancy and Paul Tisdale, both of whom have now been proven to be abject failures at Celtic. So, it’s only fitting that the people who thought these men were “outstanding candidates” for their respective jobs also resign from Celtic.
Nicholson is rumored to have offered his resignation on Monday after Wilfried Nancy’s sacking. The Board, allegedly, asked him to reconsider.
Though I do believe Celtic should, ultimately, get shot of both McKay and Nicholson, keeping the latter in place for the time being does actually make sense, purely from a corporate governance point of view. At a time when someone is, hopefully, going to have to sign off on a whole lot of incoming transfers over the next few weeks, we can’t really afford to run the club without both a full-time chairman and CEO.
So, whilst I agree with this second of the three demands from the collective in principle, I think this is, perhaps, a matter we should set aside until the end of the season.
The third, and final demand from the Celtic Fans Collective is, in my opinion the most important at the moment.
3) The club should reinstate the Green Brigade, revoke the fan media ban and engage proactively with supporter organizations and independent supporters to rebuild trust.”
Point three goes on to layout a process for establishing a democratically elected Fan Advisory Board, to smooth over any future friction between the club and fans groups. Again a great idea, but one that I think should be parked, for the next few weeks anyway.
Right now the most important thing is to get as much support behind the manager and the team as we can. This means letting the Green Brigade back into the stadium, this means letting fan media attend press conferences again.
Two groups don’t have to like each other to share a common goal and work towards it. I doubt we’ll ever see a day when Dermot Desmond or Michael Nicholson will pick up the megaphone and lead the Green Brigade in a chorus of The Soldiers Song.
And the fact is we don’t need to.
If indeed anyone in the Green Brigade is found, in a court of law to have committed a criminal offence, then those individuals can have no argument about being banned from Celtic Park.
However, so far as I am led to believe, the incident for which the Green Brigade were banned is alleged to have involved 4 Celtic fans. Even if the four of them are guilty, and I’ll remind you no one has been convicted of anything yet, that still leaves close to 200 members of the Green Brigade who have been judged guilty and punished without due process.
Unity cannot exist while such injustices remain.
Also, why do the likes of the Daily Record and The S*n continue to enjoy unfettered access to Celtic players and management, while fan media are banned.
Now, I think I can speak for most other fan media sites when I say that we will criticize Celtic when we believe it’s warranted. However, we will never indulge in the any of the triumphalism, outright mockery and disrespect or deceit that the aforementioned publications have engaged in in recent times as it became clear Wilfried Nancy wasn’t going to last as Celtic’s manager.
Fan Media will never just parrot what the club wants to hear. Nor should we.
However, I think it’s fair to say that we would give Celtic players and staff a much fairer hearing than the mainstream press ever do, if they would just communicate with us in good faith.
The ball is in The Celtic Board’s court now. I how they embrace the sincerity of the Collective’s request to meet up as soon as possible.
Because frankly speaking, if they don’t, then all the talk of unity is just yet more “p*sh and wind” from a board badly out of touch with the people who pay their wages.