NO BRENDAN RODGERS, NO ULTRAS, NO FAN MEDIA, THE CELTIC BOARD ARE OUT OF SCAPEGOATS
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 32 minutes ago
- 4 min read
One of the most common comments I’ve seen repeated today with regards to Celtic’s loss to Roma last night goes as follows: “Losing isn’t the problem, it’s the nature of how we lost that’s the problem.”
When you probe a bit deeper on this point, the fans I’ve spoken with tend to emphasize they don’t blame the manager either.
As one fan so eloquently put it to me “You can’t blame the manager, the poor guy’s only been in the door ten minutes.”
Most fans would share this sentiment, I think. The jury is still out on Wilfried Nancy and his style of play. However, plenty of the usual suspects in our press will seek to blame him anyway.
It’s all a distraction. This is a problem that started in the Celtic board room, and that is the only place where it can end.
Celtic Board Remain Willfully Oblivious as Manager Thrown to the Wolves
I commented last week that not only was it disgraceful to exclude fan media from the new manager’s inaugural press conference, but it was equally negligent for Wilfried Nancy to be left to handle it without the presence of anyone from the Celtic board.
In the past, it was always custom that the CEO, Chairman or another senior executive of the club be present to introduce the new manager to the waiting media.
Instead, we got nothing. And after last night’s demoralizing defeat, all we see of the Celtic Board today are yet more negative images.
Between Ross Desmond’s sneering, and Peter Lawwell’s snoozing, last night was yet another example of just how out of touch the people who occupy our boardroom appear to be with ordinary supporters.
Once again today, they’ll say nothing. Once again, it will be left to the manager and the players to bear all the criticism. Admittedly, some criticism towards the players and manager is warranted. Several players looked as if they either didn’t know what to do or if they did, they couldn’t be bothered doing it.
However, Wilfried Nancy still has the chance to win a cup on Sunday, and exorcise a whole lot of the demons that have plagued his Celtic tenure so far.
I hope we win the cup on Sunday, and I believe we can. But make no mistake, if we don’t the primary fault will not lie with a manager who has been in post for only 10 days, or with a team now onto their 3rd manager in as many months. It starts and ends with the Celtic Board.
First, they tried to pin it on Brendan Rodgers via a poison pen article in The S*n. When that didn’t work, they doubled down, to the point where Rodgers was left with little choice but to say “B*gger this, I’m off to Brazil!”
Then our largest minority shareholder (not our owner) Dermot Desmond, weighs in with one of the most utterly unprofessional acts of self-righteous ranting I’ve ever seen from any senior executive at a football club, let alone Celtic. The fact he was allowed to do so, unchallenged, on Celtic's official platforms is a damning indictment of the utter cowardice in our board room today.
Fans didn’t buy it. And the board’s usual tactic of “ignore the problem until it goes away" wasn’t working either”.
So, next up, in what can only be described as remarkably convenient timing, The Green Brigade, probably the board’s most consistent and vocal critics, within the confines of Celtic Park at least, find themselves banned from matches indefinitely, accused of assaulting staff, and subjected to having their doors kicked in and their houses vandalized by the jackbooted, thuggish stormtroopers of Police Scotland.
We’ve still yet to see any conclusive evidence of any serious criminal wrongdoing from this alleged incident from October’s home game against Falkirk. And yet the ban remains in place. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?
What we have seen in the meantime though is real-time footage of a young fan being assaulted by a member of Celtic’s matchday security staff. At time of writing the club still haven’t acknowledged the boy’s family’s letter of complaint, let alone disciplined the employee responsible.
Of course, the Celtic Board don’t want to hear this. Which is probably why ACSOM and every other fan media outlet remain banned for unspecified reasons from all press events relating to the men’s and women’s first team.
This is an act made all the more sickening by the fact that rags like The S*n and the Daily Record, who have done far more harm to Celtic’s good name than any fan site ever has, or indeed ever could, are still welcomed into the club’s media conferences with open arms.
But here’s the thing, we aren’t going away. We aren’t going to stop calling out your incompetence just because you’ve sent us to the naughty step.
The Green Brigade went out and raised 20 grand for charity last week. Say what you will about their politics or their sometimes questionable behavior, but that single act last weekend is more than anyone in our boardroom has done to help the homeless this, or indeed any other, year.
I know whose side I’m on, and it’s not the soulless suits who currently sit on the Celtic Board.