WHAT CELTIC FANS CAN LEARN FROM JACKIE CHAN AND KENYA
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- Oct 6
- 3 min read
You’ve probably read that headline and thought: “Ok, Liam has finally lost the plot, hasn’t he?”
That sentiment will probably be followed up with a question: “What the f*** have movie legend Jackie Chan and the good people of the nation of Kenya got to do with the Celtic support and Celtic fans’ current predicament?”
Well, the wisdom of Jackie Chan and the unfortunate outcome of recent protests in Victor Wanyama’s homeland should both give Celtic fans food for thought as to how to proceed after today’s meeting with the Celtic Board.
As Jackie Chan said: Celtic Fans Must “Hope for the Best But Prepare for the Worst”
If you’ve ever watched any of Jackie Chan’s earlier work (I especially recommend Police Story 1 and 2) you’ll come away thinking “Yeah, there’s no way any insurance company in the US or Europe would ever sign off the safety certificate on these stunts”.
However, safety was always at the forefront of Chan’s mind when planning and performing his own stunts. In his own words: “I always hoped for the best, but prepared for the worst”.
Celtic fans must do similar today. Yes, by all means, approach today’s sit down with the board as progress, and hopefully the start of ongoing meaningful dialogue. In other words, hope that things go well.
However, whilst I have no direct personal contact with the Celtic Fans Collective, I sincerely hope that they already have a series of escalatory countermeasures ready to go if today’s meeting goes the way I fear it might.
If, instead of honest, conciliatory dialogue from CEO Michael Nicholson and CFO Chris McKay, we get more of the condescending “we know what’s best for you, so stop bothering us” rhetoric that characterized that embarrassing AI-generated statement last month, then Celtic fans need to be ready to take immediate and effective action to force a change in attitude.
This brings me to the unfortunate story of Kenya, and how that country’s own recent protest movement, with stakes far higher than the prosperity of a single football club, ended badly for the protestors.
Early last year, Kenya’s president William Ruto and his government brought forward a finance bill that would have greatly increased taxes on the poor in a nation where many already struggle below the poverty line.
Much like Celtic’s recent failure to qualify for the Champions League, this triggered a massive, organized protest against Ruto’s leadership, and in June of 2024, the bill was scrapped.
Check mate, you would think. A clear win for the protestors. As I said before though, the stakes were far higher in this situation than anything you’ll ever face for being a Celtic supporter. Ten people lost their lives in those protests, and a whole lot more “disappeared”.
Thankfully, that will never happen here, unless Peter Lawwell truly is the Mafia Don, leading the SPFL’s equivalent of The Cosa Nostra, that many conspiracy-minded Rangers supporters seem to think that he is!
Anyway, much like today’s meeting, the concession of the president retracting his grossly unpopular finance bill was hailed as a win for the, largely youth-led, Kenyan protestors.
Fast forward to December of 2024 however, and a newly constituted Kenyan parliament, with the same president and most of the senior cabinet still in place pushed about 90% of the finance bill’s clauses through parliament quietly, with minimal fuss, and barely a whimper of protest.
That is the danger facing the Celtic Fans’ Collective today. The stakes are far lower, but the underlying machinations of those involved are the same.
The Celtic Board will, I think, make some kind of concessions today, but they will be minimal, and as soon as they think the protests have died down enough that no-one will notice (probably aided by Celtic getting their act together on the park and pulling ahead in the league), they’ll go back to business as usual. They may even take a more severe stance on some issues than they are now.
That is the danger of not “preparing for the worst”.
One of the biggest criticisms levelled at Brendan Rodgers’ style of play in recent weeks has been the apparent lack of a “Plan B”. Those Celtic fan groups meeting with the board today don’t just need to have a “plan B”. We need to have a series of countermeasures ready to go if the board continue to be as obstinate, unreceptive and ignorant as they have been to date.
I trust that they will. Our Board may frequently let us down, but Celtic fans have always been there and been organized when it mattered most.
