Celtic’s refusal to hand Rangers supporters tickets for the final Glasgow derby of the season unless Rangers ensured that the Union Bears did not receive any of the allocation is being framed in some quarters as provocative. That framing is convenient, but it is also backwards. The real provocation came first, the violent scenes at Ibrox, the pitch invasion, the missiles, the fireworks, the assaults on police and stewards, and the assaults and attempted assaults on Celtic players and club officials. That was not normal derby shenanigans; it was disorder that exposed a failure of control from Police Scotland, Rangers Football Club, and the Private Security firms hired by the Ibrox side.

Celtic’s position is best understood not as escalation, but as a response to disorder that has not been addressed at all by the Scottish FA or Police Scotland - the latter are clearly circling the wagons looking to protect themselves from public scrutiny.

Rangers condemned the incidents in general terms, but condemnation is not the same as control - and in fact, much of their focus was put on graffiti and seat damage than the violent hooliganism of their own supporters that day. If a club continues to permit the same ultra element to operate without meaningful restriction, then it should not be surprised when opponents decide that normal away-day arrangements can no longer be trusted.

The March Scottish Cup quarter-final was supposed to be another ding dong of a football match. Instead, it descended into scenes that forced police and stewards into damage limitation mode after Rangers lost another cup game to Celtic.

What matters here is not just that supporters entered the pitch. The wider issue is that the disorder did not stay contained as emotional celebration from Celtic fans celebrating their team’s victory. It spread into violent disorder when the Union Bears invaded the pitch endangering players, officials, match-day staff, and supporters. That makes the subsequent arguments over ticketing look strangely detached from reality.

Rangers’ refusal to confront the Union Bears in a serious, enforceable way sits at the heart of this dispute. Celtic are not objecting to ordinary Rangers supporters attending the game; they are objecting to Rangers freely distributing tickets to the Union Bears which creates a significant risk to the safety of those at Celtic Park. Celtic’s own statement made that distinction plainly by linking the refusal to a “particular section” that “very recently and identifiably engaged in serious violence and disorder.”

That is the crucial point Rangers would rather blur. Their argument leans on the idea that excluding away fans creates competitive imbalance, but balance is not a magic word that overrides a fresh safety concern. If one club cannot or in Rangers’ case will not prevent a violent subsection from getting access, the other club is entitled to decide that the risk is too high.

SPFL Rule I27 says the home club must provide a “reasonable number” of visiting supporters as agreed in advance, with the Board deciding if an agreement cannot be reached. But the same football ecosystem also repeatedly recognises that safety, stewarding, policing, and supporter behaviour are not side issues; they are central to whether fixtures can safely proceed. In this case, the dispute exists precisely because Celtic carried out a risk assessment and concluded that a specific distribution arrangement was unacceptable.

That is why Rangers’ appeal to the rule feels less like a principled defence of away supporters and more like an attempt to convert a governance provision into a shield against consequences. If a club’s only answer to a serious disorder problem is “the rule says so,” then it is treating safety as an afterthought. That is not how responsible football administration should work.

The bigger story is not simply Rangers versus Celtic. It is the absence of credible intervention from the wider game. The SPFL has acknowledged the dispute and moved it into its formal process, but formal process is not the same as immediate reassurance for supporters who now have reason to worry about what happens if the old arrangements continue unchanged.

Police Scotland, the SPFL, the Scottish FA, and the clubs all operate within a system that often reacts after the fact. That is not good enough when the warning signs are obvious and recent. The Ibrox disorder was not an abstract policy problem; it was a live demonstration of what happens when football tolerates organised aggression and then pretends the next fixture will be different by default.

Celtic’s critics want the club to behave as if away allocation is an entitlement that survives every breach of trust. It is not. It is a facility built on mutual confidence, proper control, and the expectation that both clubs can keep supporters safe. Once that confidence is damaged by serious disorder, the home club is not obliged to proceed as though nothing has happened.

That is especially true when the club taking the strongest line is the one that would bear the consequences if things went wrong. If Celtic let Rangers fans in, and the same element appears again, the home club would be blamed for ignoring the warning signs. If Celtic keep the door shut, they are accused of unfairness. Those are not equivalent risks. One is a reputational argument; the other is a safety issue.

There is a broader lesson here for Scottish football, clubs cannot keep romanticising “passion” while tolerating behaviour that is plainly violent, intimidating, and criminal. The sport has spent years normalising the idea that the most extreme fringes should be accommodated because they are loud, visible, and culturally embedded. That tolerance becomes complicity when the same groups repeatedly create danger and the response remains soft, vague, or delayed.

Celtic’s stance may be uncomfortable, but discomfort is not the same as being wrong. In fact, responsible governance often looks like discomfort to people who are used to getting their own way. Rangers can complain about precedent; the SPFL can hide behind procedure; pundits can wring their hands about optics and a lack of atmosphere. None of that answers the basic question - after Ibrox, who can honestly say the risk of further disorder has been removed?

Celtic must stand firm. The club has identified a specific risk, linked it to a recent outbreak of serious disorder, and acted to protect its own supporters, staff, players, and officials. That is not overreaction; it is prudence.

Rangers’ real task is not lobbying the SPFL. It is confronting the culture and factions that made this dispute inevitable. Until they do that, they cannot expect Celtic to pretend everything is normal.

If it were up to me, I would ban Rangers fans from Celtic Park for good.

James Forrest deserves this ending. Few players in Celtic’s modern history have earned it more.

A one-club man in an era that barely produces any, Forrest has given his career to Celtic without noise, without ego, and without ever demanding the spotlight that so often found him anyway. He has delivered trophies, big moments, and a level of consistency that outlasted managers, and rebuilds. With a new one year deal signed this is not just a farewell lap, it is one richly deserved.

But if this contract extension is being quietly framed as a romantic full stop, it also shines an unforgiving light on everything Celtic have failed to become since he made his debut 16 years ago.

Because while Forrest prepares to wind down, the club around him continues to drift.

For years now, Celtic’s recruitment strategy has been dressed up as “forward-thinking” - a pipeline of project players, resale value punts, and data-led “gems” unearthed by a so-called modern scouting operation and a snake oil salesman masquerading as some Footballing guru. In reality, it has too often looked like guesswork stitched together with hope and spreadsheet theory. Millions have been spent trying to replace players like Forrest with cheaper, younger approximations. Yet here we are, in 2026, still leaning on the original.

That’s not a criticism of Forrest. It’s an indictment of the system that was supposed to produce heirs to succeed him.

Look at the bigger picture. There is no permanent manager in place as another season drifts toward its conclusion. The scouting department has been without a head for nearly six months. The Head of Football Operations role - a position that should be central to any modern football structure - hasn’t been filled since the previous incumbent was found out to be nothing more than a court jester. What we did get was a Head of Business Operations, a new role created specifically to hire another former St. Aloysius pupil - a Customer Service manager & former Sales manager from Heineken who has never worked with members of the public a day in his life. And all because the current CEO, Michael Nicholson, is nothing more than a corporate lawyer wearing a club tie clearly out of his depth.

Strategic leadership is absent. Direction is unclear. Accountability is nowhere to be found.

And at the very top, the silence is deafening.

Dermot Desmond, the club’s de facto powerbroker, remains as distant and detached as ever - an absentee landlord presiding over stagnation. Nicholson meanwhile continues to operate like a man tasked with protecting a balance sheet rather than building a football club. As Chris McKay and the rest of the board offer little more than corporate inertia.

At a time when leadership is required, they are nowhere to be seen. No vision. No communication. No sense of urgency.

It’s not just complacency - it’s corporate negligence. Any other business on the planet would have got rid of this kind of board long ago - not Celtic though.

Celtic should not be a club that stumbles from season to season, reacting instead of leading from the front. It should not be a club where key roles sit unfilled for months while rivals evolve and European opportunities pass by. And it certainly should not be a club where a legend’s final contract highlights how little progress has been made in planning for the future.

This is where the Forrest story becomes symbolic.

He represents continuity, professionalism, and elite standards. The current Celtic structure represents the opposite - short-term thinking disguised as strategy, cost-cutting masquerading as sustainability, and a leadership group that appears more comfortable in the background than at the forefront of change.

There was a moment, not so long ago, when it felt like Celtic might actually modernise. Dominic McKay’s appointment hinted at a shift - a recognition that the club needed fresh ideas, sharper structures, and a genuine football-first approach. That moment was brief. The old guard closed ranks, the experiment was ended, and the club retreated back into its comfort zone.

And that comfort zone is exactly the problem.

Because while Celtic continued to dominate domestically, the wider game moved on. Clubs of similar size are innovating, investing, and building infrastructures designed for long-term success. Celtic, by contrast, remain stuck in a cycle of cautious conservatism - doing just enough to maintain control at home, while Europe remains an afterthought rather than a target.

James Forrest deserved better than that.

His career should have unfolded within a club pushing boundaries, not one content to protect its position. His final season should be part of a wider narrative of ambition, not a reminder of opportunities missed.

The reality is simple, Celtic do not just have a player problem. They have a leadership problem.

And until that is addressed, until there is a clear-out at the top, a restructuring of the football department, and the appointment of people with genuine expertise and vision - nothing will truly change.

Forrest will take his final bow. The applause will be deserved. The legacy will be secure.

But unless something shifts behind the scenes, he won’t just be remembered as one of Celtic’s great servants.

He’ll be remembered as the last of them.

Respected broadcaster and lifelong Celtic fan Bernard Ponsonby didn’t just criticise the Celtic board this week, he dismantled the comfortable narrative that has shielded them for years.

And he did it not as a ranting fan on social media [including yours truly], but as a measured, established voice speaking in a room full of Celtic supporters, under the banner of supporting the club’s own charitable foundation.

That matters.

Because when someone like Ponsonby says the problem is no longer “ultras” or fringe discontent, but the “core of the support,” then the ground has shifted beneath the board’s feet.

For too long, dissent at Celtic has been conveniently boxed off. Ultras. Malcontents. Online noise. But Ponsonby’s intervention strips that away. What he articulated calmly is that dissatisfaction has gone mainstream. This is no longer agitation from the margins. It’s erosion at the centre.

And yet, crucially, he also dismantled the lazy solution.

“Sack the board” is a slogan, he said. Not a strategy.

He’s right. And most supporters, if they’re being honest, know it. The idea that an AGM revolt will suddenly transform Celtic is fantasy. The ownership structure, the voting power, the reality of Dermot Desmond’s influence - it all but guarantees continuity. You can change faces, but without a shift in the underlying model, nothing fundamental changes.

That’s the real tension Ponsonby exposed. Because this isn’t simply about personalities. It’s about philosophy.

For 25 years, Celtic have been run on a model that prioritises domestic dominance, financial stability, and controlled risk. And in that narrow sense, it has worked. The trophy haul is undeniable. The balance sheet is healthy. The club has avoided the chaos that has consumed and killed off others.

But that same model has calcified.

Repeated European failures are not accidents. They are outcomes. When Ponsonby points to Celtic’s inability to consistently compete with clubs operating on smaller budgets, he’s not highlighting bad luck he’s pointing to structural conservatism. A club that manages risk so tightly that it ultimately limits its own ambition.

And here’s where his speech cuts deepest, domestic success is no longer enough.

Celtic supporters don’t measure themselves purely against Kilmarnock or St Mirren with respect to these clubs. They measure themselves against history, identity, and European nights that once defined the club’s global reputation. Lisbon wasn’t built on cautious accounting. Nor were the great modern nights from Barcelona to Juventus born out of risk aversion.

Ponsonby understands something the board increasingly appears not to, Celtic is not just a business, and it cannot be run like one in isolation from its culture. That’s why his most powerful argument wasn’t about governance or finance. It was about meaning.

He spoke about the “almost spiritual quality” of the club. About the Foundation as the embodiment of Celtic’s purpose. About supporters not executives as the club’s greatest ambassadors. This wasn’t sentimentality. It was a reminder.

Because when supporters begin to feel disconnected - not just from results, but from values - you have a deeper problem than a poor season or a failed transfer window or two. You have a crisis of identity. And that’s where the board’s biggest failure lies.

Communication.

Ponsonby’s criticism of “absentee landlords and their offspring reading the Riot Act” was as pointed as anything said all night. It speaks to a leadership that feels distant, reactive, and at times tone-deaf. In an era where football clubs are expected to engage, explain, and at least acknowledge their supporters, Celtic’s hierarchy too often retreats into silence or condescension. That approach might have worked in the past. It doesn’t now.

Perhaps the most telling line in his entire speech wasn’t about Europe, or Desmond, or governance structures. It was that for the first time in his life, he questioned renewing his season ticket. He immediately qualified it - he will renew, of course. Just as tens of thousands of others will. But the fact the question is even being asked is the warning sign.

Because Celtic’s power has always rested on something deeper than results. A loyalty that transcends logic. A connection that survives bad teams, bad managers, even bad custodians.

But that connection is not indestructible. It can be strained. It can be eroded. And if it is taken for granted for long enough, it can fracture.

Ponsonby didn’t call for revolution. He explicitly acknowledged the risks of change, the uncertainty of new ownership, the lack of obvious alternatives. But what he did do was articulate a truth that is becoming harder to ignore.

The current model has reached its limit. And unless those in charge recognise that -unless they evolve, communicate, and realign the club with the expectations and identity of its support - then the turbulence he referenced won’t simply “settle.”

It will deepen.

Because Celtic, as he reminded everyone in that room, is not defined by its boardrooms or balance sheets. It is defined by its fans. And right now, those fans are no longer content to be ignored.

Listen to Bernard Ponsonby’s speech in full:

There was always a warning buried in plain sight.

In Infantino’s FIFA Has Chosen Sides, I argued that football’s governing body had abandoned even the pretence of neutrality. In FIFA’s New Peace Prize, I described a governing class more interested in optics than ethics. And in The Führer’s Playbook, I warned that the fusion of spectacle and strongman politics was no longer creeping - it was accelerating.

Now it’s here.

The attempt by members of Donald Trump’s administration to pressure FIFA into replacing Iran with Italy at the 2026 World Cup is not an aberration. It is the logical conclusion of everything we have already seen - the erosion of sporting merit, the normalisation of political interference, and the quiet acceptance that football can be bent to serve those in power.

Fronted by US special envoy Paolo Zampolli - an Italian-American - the proposal is as crude as it is revealing. Italy, we are told, “deserves” to be there. Not because they qualified. They didn’t. Not because of injustice. There was none. But because they have history, status, and, crucially, proximity to influence.

This is not football governance. It is patronage.

And it arrives in the shadow of something far more serious, a US-led war on Iran - an unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation, carried out in partnership with Israel - now bleeding directly into the sporting arena.

That alone should set alarm bells ringing.

Instead, FIFA’s response has been entirely consistent with its recent trajectory - vague assurances, strategic ambiguity, and a carefully preserved loophole. Yes, Iran “must” play, says Infantino. But also - conveniently - FIFA retains “sole discretion” to replace any team.

We’ve seen how that discretion works.

Inter Miami didn’t qualify for the Club World Cup either. They were invited anyway. Because Lionel Messi sells. Because commercial logic overrides competitive integrity. Because FIFA, under Infantino, no longer governs the game - it curates it.

Now apply that same logic to geopolitics.

If Messi can be inserted for money, why can’t Italy be inserted for diplomacy?

If qualification can be bypassed for commercial gain, why not for political favour?

This is the slippery slope we were told didn’t exist. And yet here we are.

The Italy dimension only deepens the cynicism. This is not just about football - it is about repairing relations between Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni after a very public falling-out. A World Cup place, in this context, becomes a bargaining chip. A diplomatic olive branch dressed up as sporting logic.

It is transactional. Nakedly so. And it forces a far more uncomfortable question than whether Iran will actually be replaced.

If they are willing to try this - what else is on the table?

After all, Zampolli is the same man who used his connections and influence within the Trump administration to use ICE to detain the mother of his child during a custody battle.

Would a Trump-hosted tournament weaponise immigration enforcement, with players, journalists, or fans from “undesirable” nations subjected to intimidation under the banner of security?

Would economic pressure - tariffs, sanctions, trade leverage - be quietly applied to nations whose success on the pitch becomes politically inconvenient?

Would referees and officials operate in an environment where influence is no longer whispered, but structurally embedded?

Would corruption evolve from an undercurrent into an operating system?

These are not hypotheticals pulled from thin air. They are entirely consistent with a worldview that treats institutions as instruments, rules as obstacles, and power as something to be exercised, not restrained.

And FIFA, crucially, has shown it will not resist.

This is the same organisation that has “chosen sides,” that has wrapped itself in the language of unity while enabling division, that has rebranded political compliance as global harmony. The same organisation that has already demonstrated its willingness to bend formats, rewrite criteria, and selectively enforce its own rules depending on who is asking - and what is being offered.

So when Infantino says Iran will be there “for sure,” it lands less as a guarantee and more as a placeholder. A position held only until something more expedient presents itself.

Because that is the new reality of football governance.

Conditional participation. Negotiable legitimacy. Flexible principles.

And Iran - whatever one thinks of its regime - is reduced to a test case. A qualified team whose place is no longer secured by performance, but by political convenience.

That should concern everyone. Because once qualification becomes optional, everything else follows. Today it is Iran. Tomorrow it is any nation that falls out of favour, refuses cooperation, or simply stands in the way of a more “useful” narrative.

And in that world, the World Cup ceases to be a competition. It becomes a stage-managed production where entrants are selected, outcomes are influenced, and the illusion of sport masks the reality of control.

This was always the endgame. A tournament not defined by who earns their place, but by who is allowed to keep it. And if FIFA permits even the discussion of this proposal to carry weight, then we are no longer watching football’s governing body lose control. We are watching it hand control over - willingly. To power. To politics. To men who believe the rules do not apply to them. And increasingly, don’t.

Celtic have confirmed that James Forrest has signed a new one-year deal, ensuring the club legend will finish his playing career at Parkhead. The 34-year-old winger, Celtic’s longest-serving current player and most decorated in the modern era, is now set to enter a 26th year at the club.

Forrest joined Celtic’s Youth Academy at the age of nine and has spent the whole of his football life growing into one of the club’s true standard-bearers. He made his debut against Motherwell in May 2010, replacing Aiden McGeady, and announced himself with a goal just six minutes after coming on.

From that moment on, he became part of the fabric of the club rather than simply a talented winger passing through it, amassing 564 appearances, scoring 110 goals and providing112 assists, with his latest contribution coming in the Scottish Cup semi-final win over St Mirren.

Forrest’s legacy is already secure, and the numbers are staggering. He is Celtic’s most decorated player with 26 trophies, including 13 league titles, seven Scottish Cups and six League Cups.

That makes him more than a long-serving servant; it makes him a defining figure of the modern era. In a club built on history, it is rare for a player to become part of both the present and the legend so completely.

What has always set Forrest apart is that he has never looked like a ceremonial figure clinging on to sentiment alone. He has continued to contribute, scoring in every one of his 17 seasons at the club, including this campaign.

That is the mark of a player who has adapted, endured and stayed relevant across changing managers, systems and expectations. Not many modern footballers can claim that level of consistency at one club, especially at a club as demanding as Celtic.

Martin O’Neill’s desire for him to finish his career at Celtic captures the mood perfectly, but it also underlines the practical value Forrest still brings on the pitch. This is not nostalgia alone; it is Celtic recognising that a club legend still has a role to play.

Forrest’s career has been built the hard way, from the academy at nine to the first team, and from promise to permanence. He has delivered goals, medals, assists and countless moments that have mattered to Celtic supporters.

When his career ends, he will leave as one of the great one-club men in Celtic history. More than that, he will leave as proof that loyalty, class and sustained excellence can still define a football career.

James Tavernier will leave Rangers this summer the way he spent much of his Ibrox career - to a backdrop of noise, numbers, and a nagging sense that none of it quite adds up.

A “modern legend,” we’re told. A “Hall of Famer.” A right-back with the scoring record of a set-piece-obsessed attacking midfielder and the defensive instincts of a man late for a bus. Tavernier’s Rangers story is, depending on your persuasion, either one of remarkable individual output or a masterclass in how to look busy while history happens around you.

And what history it’s been.

As captain, Tavernier has had the distinct honour of leading Rangers through one of the most one-sided eras in Scottish football. While Celtic quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) hoovered up trophies with industrial efficiency, Tavernier was often stationed somewhere looking disappointed, hands on hips, watching another green-and-white ribbon get tied onto another trophy.

There are, of course, the numbers. Always the numbers. Goals from penalties, free-kicks, and the occasional cameo appearance as Rangers’ most advanced attacking threat. If football were played exclusively in statistical spreadsheets, Tavernier might already have a statue at Ibrox. But it isn’t, and therein lies the problem.

Because for all the goals, assists, and carefully curated highlight reels, Tavernier’s Rangers career will ultimately be defined by what happened when it mattered most and more specifically, what didn’t happen. Big games came and went. Finals slipped by. Title races evaporated. And through it all, the captain remained a constant ever-present, ever-productive, and ever short of turning influence into dominance.

Celtic supporters, never knowingly charitable, have long settled on a simpler interpretation. To them, Tavernier isn’t a Rangers legend - he’s a symbol. A reliable, recurring character in a story where the ending rarely changes. A man who has, season after season, stood on the pitch as Celtic celebrated yet another milestone, another medal, another treble.

It’s not entirely fair, of course. Football rarely is. One player doesn’t win or lose trophies alone, and Rangers’ broader failings over the past decade run far deeper than one right-back’s positioning or leadership. But football, like all good drama, thrives on narrative. And Tavernier’s narrative has been written in bold, looping letters - prolific, persistent, and perpetually second best.

There was that one league title, of course - the Covid season, the anomaly that Rangers fans will cling to as proof that the Tavernier era wasn’t entirely devoid of silverware. A season when every other team were hit hard by Covid outbreaks not Rangers though. But even that triumph feels less like the beginning of a dynasty and more like a brief interruption in Celtic’s ongoing procession.

As Rangers look ahead to the future, the numbers offer one final, deliciously bleak framing - one league title in the Tavernier years. Potentially two in fourteen seasons of existence, should things fall kindly to them this season. Progress, of a sort - but not the kind that fills trophy rooms or silences rivals.

And so, Captain Disappointment departs. Not without achievements, not without moments, and certainly not without debate. But also not with the kind of legacy that escapes the gravitational pull of context.

Because in Glasgow, context is everything. And Tavernier’s context will forever be this - while he led, Celtic conquered.

Relentlessly. Repeatedly. Ruthlessly.

Hall of Famer? Perhaps.

Era-defining? Absolutely.

Just maybe not in the way Rangers supporters would have hoped.

The Scottish FA has at last publicly announced that they have commissioned an independent review into the disgraceful scenes at Ibrox on 8 March, when Rangers supporters stormed the pitch to attack celebrating Celtic fans, after losing on penalties to Celtic in the Scottish Cup Quarter Final. The decision to appoint Mark Blackbourne to lead the review is welcome.

According to the Scottish FA’s statement, the review will examine the incidents that followed the Scottish Cup quarter-final and will be led independently by Blackbourne. That matters, because what happened at full-time was not a bit of football “passion” or a handful of isolated idiots. It was a failure of planning, a failure of control, and a failure of duty to keep fans safe inside a major stadium.

The most frustrating part is that the public still knows far too little about how this match was policed. My Freedom of Information request, submitted in the weeks after the match, asked a series of simple, legitimate questions of Police Scotland. How many officers were deployed for this game, how many officers were deployed for previous derby games, how many were inside and outside the stadium, who the match commander was, what their previous experience in Glasgow derby matches had been, and how policing levels compared with other major events such as Scotland games, cup finals and Murrayfield rugby internationals. Police Scotland refused to answer any of them, hiding behind sections 35 and 39 and arguing that disclosure would prejudice law enforcement and public safety.

That may sound tidy in legal language, but to ordinary supporters it looks like the usual institutional circling of the wagons. If a force cannot even explain the broad shape of how it polices one of the biggest fixtures in Scottish sport, then the public is being asked to trust a system that remains deliberately opaque. Transparency is not a luxury here. It is the minimum standard after a public disorder incident that left four police officers injured, numerous fans injured, and resulted in 16 arrests so far.

Those numbers alone should have triggered a fuller public accounting. Four officers injured is not a minor footnote. Sixteen arrests is not the end of the story either, especially when Police Scotland has reportedly not ruled out a public appeal for suspects in the near future. If there are still outstanding lines of inquiry, then fine pursue them. But ongoing investigations do not erase the need for scrutiny over the decisions that allowed the disorder to unfold in the first place.

The refusal to confirm whether Police Scotland is even conducting its own internal investigation or review is equally telling. By invoking section 18 and refusing to confirm or deny the existence of such information, the force has shut the door on a basic accountability question. Again, the official reasoning is that revealing whether information is held could prejudice the public interest or compromise any ongoing investigations. But the effect is the same, the public is left in the dark while the police reserve the right to demand trust.

That is not good enough after an incident of this scale. Fans, clubs and the wider public are entitled to know whether the policing operation was suitable, whether the match commander had the experience required, whether the balance between inside and outside deployment was right, and whether lessons were learned from previous derby matches. The refusal to answer those questions invites suspicion that Police Scotland would rather defend its structures, and cover up their own failings than question them.

It also raises an uncomfortable wider question about consistency. What is the normal policing picture for Scotland national team games, for League Cup and Scottish Cup finals at Hampden, and for rugby internationals at Murrayfield? These are all major occasions requiring careful security planning. If police are willing to disclose some general operational information for one type of event but not for another, then the public deserves to know why football is treated as a closed shop.

The Scottish FA review will only matter if it is hard-edged, independent and willing to ask the hard questions. It must not become a comfort blanket exercise designed to close ranks, to ignore the findings ultimately, and move on like every other commissioned Scottish FA review in recent years. The issue is not just what happened in the terracing and on the pitch after the final whistle. It is what kind of policing operation was in place, what warnings were missed, and why a high-risk fixture ended with supporters on the pitch, and those in the stands under attack, and officers injured.

Scottish football has spent years pretending that crowd trouble is always somebody else’s problem, always the fault of “a minority,” always a matter for post-match outrage and then silence. But if the public is to believe that authorities are serious, then the truth about that day at Ibrox cannot be buried under boilerplate exemptions and carefully managed statements.

The review is a start. Transparency is the test. And until Police Scotland answers the obvious questions about deployment, command, planning and accountability, the message will remain the same - they are asking the public to accept a system they are not prepared to explain.

Read my Freedom of Information request in full and Police Scotland’s reply.

Willie Haughey’s Season Ticket Alliance fronted by club legend Paul McStay is an eye-catching idea, but it also raises a stack of awkward questions about power, ownership and motive. The idea sounds simple enough on paper - bring supporters together, pool influence, buy shares and give fans a louder voice at Celtic Park. But the more you scratch beneath the surface, the more it starts to look less like a clean reforming project and more like a bid for Haughey to insert himself back into the centre of Celtic politics.

Haughey is not some neutral outsider riding in to save the day. Once a Celtic non-executive director, his previous departure from the club under Fergus McCann was ugly, public and still hangs over his head like a dark cloud. McCann accused him of leaking internal information and making public comments that undermined Celtic’s position, which is a huge red flag whether you like Haughey as a fan or not - despite his previous denials. When someone leaves a club in that kind of fashion, it is only natural to question their motives when they suddenly reappear with a grand masterplan.

The biggest practical question is simple, why does Celtic need another fans’ trust when there is already the Celtic Trust? And the Celtic Fans Collective, which combines the Celtic supporters clubs, associations, the Trust, and the Green Brigade in its ranks. If Haughey genuinely wants supporter influence, why not strengthen what already exists instead of launching a separate structure that risks dividing the support further at a time when a united front among supporters is even more important than before. That is where the whole thing starts to feel less like unity and more like duplication with a purpose.

Then there is the money question, which is the real test of the proposal’s credibility. Haughey says he will put in £2 million for every 10,000 fans who sign up, but that raises the obvious issue of whose shares are actually being bought and from whom. Dermot Desmond is clearly not going to sell up anytime soon, so unless this is aimed at minor shareholders, corporate holders, or supporters willing to sell, the practical route to those shares is far from clear. And if the endgame is a supporter shareholding of some sort, the club’s existing ownership structure makes that easier to promise than to deliver.

There is also a political undertow here that cannot be ignored. Haughey has spoken about fans needing a voice, but he has also suggested a fan figure could one day end up on the board, which sounds suspiciously like the beginning of a campaign for influence rather than a pure community project. That is why I suspect he is angling for a seat at the top table, especially with the chairman’s role currently being held on an interim basis by Brian Wilson. In football, altruism and ambition often travel together, so we are entitled to ask which one is driving this.

Haughey’s comments that Dermot Desmond should get a statue outside Celtic Park also raise eyebrows. For some, that may sound like respect, but to me it’s another warning sign, that Haughey wants to join the cult of board members that workship Dermot Desmond and everything he does and stands for. If your pitch to supporters leans heavily on deference to the existing power structure, it becomes harder to convince people that this is really about fan empowerment and more about Haughey getting a seat at the table.

Haughey’s grand plan will ultimately rise or fall on clarity, openness and independence. If he wants credibility for his proposal other than McStay as the face of it, he needs to explain exactly how this differs from the trusts and fan groups already operating, where the shares will come from, and why supporters should trust him other than being a self-confessed Celtic fan and former director. Until then, the suspicion remains that the Season Ticket Alliance is not about giving fans a voice - it is about giving Willie Haughey a route back into influence at Celtic Park.

Scotland’s total shut-out from FIFA’s 2026 World Cup match-official list is nothing short of an embarrassment for the Scottish FA. With 52 referees, 88 assistant referees and 30 video match officials picked for football’s biggest show in the USA, Mexico and Canada, not one Scot has made the grade.

That is a damning indictment of Scottish refereeing, plain and simple. If FIFA couldn’t find a single Scottish official worthy of the cut, then what does that say about the standard we are producing? It says our top refs are not just overlooked, they are not trusted on the world stage.

This is a slap in the face for the Scottish FA and for every club, fan and player who has had to put up with the constant lecture from the governing body that our officials are among the best. Best of what, exactly? Best at controversy? Best at inconsistency? Best at passing the buck? When the world game comes calling, Scottish match officials are left standing outside in the rain.

And let’s not kid ourselves this is not some isolated snub. It continues a miserable decade-long exile from world football’s premier tournament. Ten years on, and still no Scottish match official has broken back into the World Cup picture. That is not bad luck. That is a pattern. And patterns like that point to a system that has failed.

The harsh truth is that FIFA has looked at Scotland’s refereeing stock and decided none of them are good enough for the biggest stage. That should provoke outrage, not excuses. It should command questions of the Head of Refereeing Willie Collum on the true standards of our match officials. The Scottish FA should be embarrassed over this, because this is exactly the kind of humiliation that exposes the weakness of the domestic set-up under their watch.

Back in 2010, a report revealed that over 80% of Scottish match officials failed the Scottish FA exam on the laws of the game. Of the 31 Category One officials who took part in the 30-question written exam, only FIVE achieved pass marks. In other nations, such low marks would mean officials would no longer be able to take charge of further senior games - yet under then-Head of Referees Hugh Dallas, they were allowed to continue officiating while stating that a root and branch shake-up would be undertaken.

Months later, Dallas would be sacked from his post after a disciplinary hearing found him guilty of sending an offensive email related to the Pope and his visit to Scotland. His departure followed on from the wake of a referees strike, as match officials complained about criticism of recent performances and decisions - conveniently timed just a day after it was made public that Dallas would be investigated over his misconduct and following Celtic calling out referee Dougie McDonald’s decision to overturn his own award of a penalty against Dundee United. After assistant Steven Craven resigned over accusations of bullying and harassment from Dallas, the Scottish FA warned McDonald for giving a misleading explanation for his decision - he retired soon after.

Even with the introduction of VAR into Scottish Football in October 2022, the list of endless controversial decisions from our match officials continues unabated. Right now, the message from FIFA is brutal and unmistakable, Scotland’s referees are not up to standard. They are not among the best officials in the world.

Check out the full list of appointed match officials for the 2026 World Cup Finals

When the players walk out at Celtic Park again this weekend - it will be a little louder, a little prouder. After five months in exile, the Green Brigade are back. Their return isn’t just symbolic, it’s an injection of identity, of rebellion, of life into the home support that has been eerily silent since their absence began. And with the Premiership title race more chaotic than anyone could have predicted at the start of the season, Celtic might just find that this could be the spark they need to salvage what has been an extraordinary horrific season.

When the Ultras were banned and their section went silent, something in the stadium did too. The drumbeat faded. The songs lost their edge. Even the players looked disconnected, as if they no longer felt the crowd’s heartbeat synchronised with their own.

Their return now comes at a crossroads moment for both the club and its support. Celtic trail leaders Hearts by just three points, with Rangers wedged one point behind the Jambos and two ahead of O’Neill’s side. It’s a logjam of tension and opportunity, and it could all hinge on momentum. In a title race this tight, energy often matters as much as tactics. The Green Brigade, love them or loathe them, bring plenty of both.

Football thrives on connection, from manager to player, player to supporter, supporter to club. When that chain breaks, results almost always follow. The Green Brigade’s reinstatement feels like the start of mending of that broken link - although there are a whole host of issues still to be addressed . For O’Neill, managing a side that now has the stands truly behind it again could be transformative. There’s a reason why Celtic Park, when in full voice, is unlike anywhere else, it turns belief into a tangible force.

If ever a team needed belief, it’s this one. The next few matches will test Celtic’s resilience and nerve, not just their ability. And while some may dismiss the effect of atmosphere as intangible, any player who’s walked out under “You’ll Never Walk Alone” on a cold night in Glasgow knows how much difference it can make.

Let’s be realistic, I still don’t believe Celtic will win the title this season - but that’s just the pessimist in me. The club has been a complete clusterfuck from start to finish this season, and Hearts show little to no signs of folding under pressure this late in the day - despite last weekend’s 2-2 draw with Livingston. But if Celtic did somehow pull it off, the consequences would be seismic.

For Martin O’Neill and Celtic it would be one of the most epic title wins in the history of the club. For Rangers and Hearts fans, the fallout would be something of a cataclysmic meltdown. The idea of Celtic, written off and all but imploding halfway through the season, rising from the ashes to snatch glory would be the kind of ending that lives in infamy for rivals and immortality for Celtic.

So, maybe this isn’t just about silverware anymore. Maybe it’s about rediscovery, about a club that lost itself in boardroom incompetence and managerial debacles finding its way home through the people who have always understood it best - the fans. The Green Brigade’s return won’t fix everything overnight, but it represents something vital - a reconnection.

And whether or not Celtic lift the title, the roar that greets the team at Celtic Park this weekend will be more than noise. It will be a declaration that Celtic are still here, still fighting, and the fans are in the fight with them.

After that horrific 33-day period, which turned a title campaign into an existential crisis. The fact that this team remains in touching distance of the summit is, frankly, miraculous. Martin O’Neill’s return for the second time this season steadied a ship that many feared was capsizing. The football and the performances haven’t been perfect, but what he has brought is clarity, authority, and a rediscovery of Celtic’s identity that disappeared overnight under Nancy.

While Hearts and Rangers fans are peddling their conspiracy theories and bumping their gums over Celtic getting a so-called easy ride towards the end of the season - despite facing the same teams as they will and over the course of the season playing the same games home and away as they do - Martin O’Neill and his backroom staff will be doing everything in their power to get this team over the line in a final push that could see the biggest title party that Scottish Football has ever seen.

UPDATE: After reaching out for comment & following publication of this article, I received word that The Anfield Wrap talked directly to Alex Oxlaide Chamberlain’s agent and the player himself to arrange the interview. The arrangements regarding the location of the interview was also dealt with on the player’s side. There was no contact between The Anfield Wrap and Celtic Football Club.

There’s a difference between being open and being opportunistic. Celtic’s decision to allow Liverpool fan media outlet The Anfield Wrap access to interview Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is not, in itself, a scandal. The issue isn’t the player who’s conducted himself well since joining Celtic, nor is it The Anfield Wrap - one of the most professional and successful fan media outlets in Britain. The issue is Celtic’s hierarchy and their shameful, self-serving hypocrisy when it comes to media access, fan engagement, and their treatment of their own supporters.

For years, Celtic have wrapped themselves in the rhetoric of being “more than a club” and utilising Jock Stein’s immortal words of “football is nothing without fans.” But scratch beneath the surface and you’ll find an organisation utterly allergic to scrutiny - especially when it comes from their own. Fan media that dares to hold them accountable, highlight failures, or ask uncomfortable questions is frozen out, dismissed, or threatened with bans. Yet, when a prestigious English outlet arrives, cameras in hand and brand polished, the doors at Lennoxtown are flung wide open. It’s as predictable as it is pathetic.

This isn’t about envy as I have no skin in the game - it’s about principle. The same Celtic board that can’t stomach a word of internal criticism is happy to cosy up to outsiders, offering access they refuse to those who’ve chronicled the club with love, honesty, and credibility for years. They don’t want fan media - they want fan compliance. Everything, from ticketing to merchandising to message control, must now fit into their monetised ecosystem. And if you think that “access for sale” model is beneath them, just wait - remember when Rangers charged £25,000 a year for fan media privileges? Don’t bet against Celtic finding their own version soon enough.

I’ve seen this culture of hypocrisy up close. Since launching my own fan media outlet in 2006, I’ve covered Scottish football at every level - league, cup, international - all out of my own pocket bar a number of advertising deals. I’ve been banned by the Scottish FA, lied about by veteran journalists and club officials, and even had the SFWA demand my access to games be revoked for daring to publish quotes Sky Sports had already aired - St.Mirren and the Scottish FA can testify to that fact. Yet, through all that, I kept going and during this time helped raise funds for Yorkhill Hospital (now the Glasgow Children’s Hospital), who helped save my childrens’ lives.

During those fundraisers, I reached out to a number of clubs across Scotland. Some didn’t reply which is fair enough. Some went above and beyond. Rangers, of all clubs - whose supporters and press officers alike viewed me with disdain and hatred in equal measure - donated stadium tour tickets to help the cause. Celtic, refused or ignored every request. Not even a signed football or a pair of stadium tour tickets to raffle off. Glasgow Warriors were hardly better, offering to sign a rugby ball if I bought it from them first. But Celtic’s silence stung most - not because I expected special treatment, but because it reflected the institution’s core indifference to its own community when there’s no PR value in it.

That attitude persists today. It’s one thing to value professionalism and control, it’s another to wield it like a weapon against your own supporters. Open access to The Anfield Wrap doesn’t prove Celtic’s media-savviness; it exposes their cowardice. They want applause, not accountability.

Celtic’s greatest strength has always been its fanbase: passionate, intelligent, and fiercely loyal. But that same fanbase is treated like a customer database and a PR nuisance. Until the board grows comfortable with honest, critical scrutiny from their own, acts like this will continue to reek of hypocrisy.

And for all their branding about history, values, and community, maybe the truth is simpler: Celtic’s hierarchy doesn’t want fan media - they want fan marketing. As long as that remains the case, they’ll deserve every word of criticism coming their way.

Hampden Park and Scots worldwide erupted last November when Scotland qualified for the 2026 World Cup with a thrilling 4-2 win over Denmark - Scott McTominay’s bicycle kick, Lawrence Shankland’s poacher’s finish, a late screamer from Kieran Tierney and THAT half way line goal from Kenny McLean - sealing a return to the finals after 28 years. But after the timid flops of Euro 2020 and 2024, there is a real fear over how Steve Clarke’s side will perform in the States. Saturday night’s friendly 1-0 defeat against Japan saw all the hallmarks of Euro 2020 and Euro 2024 all over again, and as the Tartan Army begin to dream once again - is Clarke setting us up to fail once again?

It’s been 28 years since Scotland last walked out at a World Cup - France 1998 - I was still at university. I even had hair to die Neil Lennon blonde the day before the full Romania side did likewise. For a whole generation of Scotland fans, that’s ancient history. Now, in the summer of 2026, the Tartan Army will finally get another crack at the biggest stage in world football this time across the Atlantic in the USA.

It should be a moment of celebration, and it is. But there’s also a cloud of frustration hanging over it. Because while qualifying is an achievement in itself - topping a group with Denmark, Greece, and Belarus - experience tells us that merely showing up isn’t enough. After the dour, uninspired, flaccid campaigns at Euro 2020 and Euro 2024, there’s a serious risk that Scotland’s long-awaited World Cup adventure turns into another exercise in damage limitation. And if that happens, it’ll be more than just disappointing - it’ll be unacceptable.

Euro 2020 was supposed to be the breakthrough. A first major tournament in two decades, and a chance to make an impression. Instead, Scotland spent most of it camped behind the ball, playing not to lose rather than playing to win. Drawing 0-0 against England, and losing 2-0 and then 3-1 to Czechia and Croatia respectively sealed Scotland’s fate as we exited without flair or fight.

Euro 2024 was even worse, because by then we knew what to expect and Clarke still didn’t change a thing. Scotland were too passive, too predictable, and too easy to play against, suffering a dry spell of seven winless games beforehand. The players looked constrained, the system rigid, the fans resigned. And yet, here we are again, going into another major tournament with the same manager, the same approach, and the same creeping sense of fear.

Make no mistake, Steve Clarke has done an outstanding job. He’s brought structure, discipline, and a sense of unity to a Scotland side that used to be chaotic and brittle. He’s made us sort of respectable again. But there’s a difference between being respectable and being competitive. Respectability gets you to tournaments; bravery keeps you in them.

This will be Clarke’s third major finals, and his current deal covers the tournament. If Scotland once again retreat into their shell in America, then Clarke deserves no more extensions. The definition of madness is doing the same thing again and expecting a different result. We’ve seen two editions of Scotland playing the underdog card to death - just happy being at the tournament in the first place - it’s time for a different kind of performance, a different kind of animal, one driven by belief and bravery rather than fear.

Scotland aren’t short of talent. It may not be one of the most talented groups we’ve ever had, but we certainly have a few players up our sleeves that can win us games. Scott McTominay scored seven goals in qualifying, a midfielder with the engine and confidence to decide games. John McGinn is as influential as ever, the heartbeat of the team and a leader who never hides. Then there’s Ben Doak, the young winger who represents a different future for Scotland - fast, fearless, direct. Here’s hoping he makes it back to full fitness in time for the tournament.

These aren’t players who should be shackled by a safety-first mindset. Clarke’s job this summer isn’t just to pick the right team, it’s to give them permission to express themselves. There’s no glory in another 1-0 defeat described as “brave”. Bravery isn’t in how deep you defend. It’s in how much you’re willing to risk to win.

Scotland’s Group C is no nightmare scenario. Haiti are there to be beaten anything less will be a disaster, as they return for the first time since 1974. Morocco, fresh from their heroics in Qatar 2022 and this year’s controversial African Cup of Nations, are strong and technical, but not unbeatable. They’ll press and they’ll move the ball quickly, but Scotland can disrupt them if they show some adventure.

And then there’s Brazil. The name still carries glamour, but this isn’t 1998’s Ronaldo and Rivaldo lineup. The current Brazil side finished fifth in qualifying, hardly world-beaters. They’ve lost their aura, though not their threat. Scotland won’t be favourites they never are, but that shouldn’t matter. If anything, it’s the perfect game to let go of the fear and just play.

Qualifying for the knockouts has always been the holy grail for Scotland. We’ve flirted with it before - 1974, 1978, 1982, 1990 - but always fell short. It’s never been about ability; it’s been about belief. The margins in tournament football are razor-thin, but courage can make the difference between going home early and making history.

The fans will bring that courage. They always do. The Tartan Army will pour heart and soul into every match, painting American cities blue and belting out “Flower of Scotland” with pride - as well as that god awful Doh a Deer song. What they deserve in return is a team that matches that energy not one that hides behind a defensive mindset and hopes for the best.

This is Scotland’s chance to redefine how we see ourselves on the global stage. To prove we’re more than a plucky underdog, more than a punchline about glorious failure, or there to just make up the numbers. To play smart, aggressive football that respects the opponent but never fears them.

Clarke has built the foundation and got us to the tournament, now it’s time for him to let Scotland fly. If he can do that, he’ll not only secure his legacy, he’ll earn something far greater - a place in Scottish football folklore. But if it’s another summer of surrender, it’s time for change.

Because this team, this nation, and these fans deserve more than “glorious failure.” They deserve to believe again.

Celtic Chairman Brian Wilson’s latest piece in The Scotsman is the kind of self-righteous polemic that might earn a knowing nod from those disenchanted with the current Scottish Government. The sixth session of the Scottish Parliament is, as he puts it, limping toward irrelevance after two decades of one-party dominance. Vision is absent, ministers escape accountability, and everything is wrapped in a rhetorical fog of excuses.

But as Wilson unleashes his ire on Holyrood, one cannot help but stare at the irony. Here is a man railing against complacency, cronyism, and the absence of vision all while serving as interim chairman of Celtic Football Club, a club suffering precisely those afflictions, and in a far more visible, visceral way. If Wilson genuinely believes what he’s written, his first act of accountability should be holding a mirror up to himself and the boardroom he occupies - before taking a long walk off a short pier.

For years, Celtic fans have accused the club’s leadership of presiding over stagnation, arrogance, and wilful ignorance of the supporters’ concerns. They see a hierarchy that wraps itself in the banners of prudence and sustainability while treating ambition as a liability. The same small circle of directors have kept a vice-like grip on the club’s direction for over two decades, recycling the same faces, the same failures, the same excuses, exactly what Wilson accuses the SNP of doing to Scotland.

When he writes of a Parliament “devoid of vision; churning out Acts that change nothing,” Celtic supporters could be forgiven for thinking he’s speaking about the club’s transfer policy. They endure summers of bargain-bin shopping, hollow PR about “prudence and value,” and a squad regularly left underpowered for European campaigns that end in familiar humiliation - all of which has came to a head this season as Celtic sit third. The contrast between rhetoric and reality, between promised progress and predictable mediocrity, could not be starker. Wilson condemns the SNP for doing the same thing as he and the Celtic board are doing - mistaking noise for achievement, surviving rather than inspiring. If he can see that so clearly in government, why is he blind to it in his own house?

In his column, Wilson laments the absence of accountability in Scottish politics: “No Minister or civil servant has ever lost their job as a result,” he writes, referring to the ferry fiasco that has become symbolic of governmental mismanagement. The line reads like satire when penned by the chairman of Celtic. This is a club where failed executives aren’t shown the door - they’re rewarded, or quietly blended into the background until the storm passes. The fanbase has long since stopped counting the number of unaccountable decisions that have gone unpunished.

When Celtic failed spectacularly in Europe under Peter Lawwell’s transfer penny-pinching - years before his “retirement” - supporters begged for fresh leadership. Instead, the board engineered his son’s appointment into the recruitment structure. That single move crystallised everything fans now despise about the club’s governance - nepotism, arrogance, and utter contempt for optics or accountability. There’s no accountability at Celtic Park either, Brian - only self-preservation.

Wilson, in his column, scolds Sturgeon and Yousaf for “measuring success by avoidance of accountability.” Yet the Celtic hierarchy do precisely that, year after year. Every crisis, from embarrassing European failures to domestic stumbles to public relations disasters, is treated as the fans’ fault for not understanding the board’s “complex realities.” Transparency is avoided, criticism dismissed, fans labelled anti-establishment and troublemakers, and the party line rigidly maintained: steady as she goes, the balance sheet looks fine.

Wilson warns that Scotland needs “fresh thinking and new faces.” Yes, it does - and so does Celtic. The board’s obsession with continuity over creativity has become its defining flaw. There has been no revolutionary football strategy, no embrace of data or innovation, and no real engagement with a fanbase that actually knows the game. Just as Wilson accuses Scottish politics of running on scavenged rhetoric, Celtic’s board have been coasting on borrowed glory from past managers and players who achieved success despite corporate negligence, not because of it.

When Wilson writes that Holyrood has been turned into “a chamber characterised by low quality debate and an executive which measures success by avoidance of accountability,” you could lift that sentence and stick it straight into a Celtic AGM transcript. Every year, ticket prices rise, fan groups organise campaigns, supporters question transfer inactivity, and the board responds like an aloof government being pestered by the public. The tone is condescending, the answers evasive. The message is always the same - “Trust us; you wouldn’t understand.”

This is why the current fan revolt isn’t just about the football. It’s about the tone, the arrogance, and the hypocrisy. When Brian Wilson attacks the SNP for clinging to power and dismissing dissent as noise, he could just as easily be describing the behaviour of Celtic executives faced with fan criticism.

Wilson’s nostalgia for a better Scotland, one led by visionaries rather than careerists, is steeped in Labour romanticism - the faith in good governance, community, and conscience. But for those same ideals, many Celtic fans would argue the board has systematically betrayed the club’s founding ethos. A club that once prided itself on its connection to the people, born out of charity and social consciousness, now feels like the plaything of insulated men in suits who sneer at “the mob” while profiting from their loyalty.

Celtic was founded to serve the poor. Its current custodians serve themselves.

Wilson’s political tone, that genteel Scottish establishment cadence, suggests he sees himself as a man of reason among zealots. He writes as though the country (and by extension, football supporters) simply needs a firmer grip of rational leadership. But the Celtic support has grown weary of being patronised by exactly that tone. They’ve watched for years as their passion, protests, and questions have been met with dismissive smugness.

When Wilson accuses the SNP of “dividing Scotland” and losing focus on the real issues, the hypocrisy stings for Celtic supporters who’ve seen their own club hierarchy divide the fanbase - banning sections of support, weaponising media briefings, creating enemies out of lifelong supporters. It’s not about behaviour, as the club likes to claim. It’s about control. The board cannot stand organised dissent, whether it comes from fan media or from a section of the terraces.

The irony is layered thick - the former Labour politician wagging a finger at nationalist excess, now at the heart of another institution accused of elite detachment, secrecy, and suppressing dissent. If nothing else, Wilson’s picture of Scotland and Celtic share an identical malaise - a leadership out of ideas, clinging to the myth that continuity equals competence while the ground shifts beneath them.

In his column, Wilson declares: “It is a long time since there was any vision of how the powers of Holyrood could be joined up to change the fundamentals.” That sentence could equally describe Celtic’s lack of a footballing identity beyond financial consolidation. There’s no strategic vision linking youth development, recruitment, and European competitiveness only fragmented decision-making, compromised by self-interest and caution. When failures occur, scapegoats are easy to find: the manager, the players, even the supporters. Anyone but the board.

Wilson writes of ministers “blowing their chance to move Scotland forward while promoting divisive minority agendas nobody had voted for.” Replace “ministers” with “Celtic executives,” and the point still stands. The board has blown countless chances to advance, content instead to indulge in a defensive, siege-like corporate posture that no supporter ever voted for either.

The selling of stars without reinvestment, the disconnection from community projects, the silence on supporter concerns - all of it unfolds under the banner of a supposedly well-managed club. Just as he claims that Holyrood’s failings are masked by rhetoric about stability, Celtic’s stagnation is excused by balance sheets and league titles in a two-horse race. It’s success without progress, domination without direction.

Wilson ends his Scotsman piece with a warning about the “metaphor for Scotland” contained within the ferry crisis - “No Minister or civil servant has ever lost their job as a result. Accountability does not exist so long as they stick together.” That final phrase should chill every Celtic supporter reading it. Because that’s the Celtic boardroom in a nutshell.

The men who’ve run Celtic for decades have stuck together through failure, fan revolt, and reputational rot. Nobody falls. Nobody resigns. No one, it seems, ever learns. The result is a culture of immunity, a belief that the institution is too sacred to challenge, too commercially secure to collapse, and too embedded in Scottish football’s fabric to fear its own fanbase. That is exactly the kind of decay Brian Wilson claims to decry in politics yet he is part of it, he sustains it, stone-faced, in football.

In one sense, Wilson’s critique of the SNP is not wrong. He’s right to demand accountability, renewal, and vision in Scotland’s political class. But the comedic irony is that his own position invalidates his argument. The chairman of Celtic FC lecturing the nation on accountability is like the captain of the Titanic publishing an essay on how to avoid Icebergs while the ship sinks.

And maybe that’s the final truth here, Brian Wilson can see Scotland’s failures with perfect clarity, but only at a distance. Bring those same principles near, into the realm of the club he represents and the lens fogs instantly. The complacency he condemns is precisely the culture he and Dermot Desmond enables.

If Wilson truly believes Scotland needs “fresh thinking and new faces,” perhaps he should first apply that logic at Celtic Park. The Celtic fans have been calling for it long enough. Because right now, as Scotland’s government drifts and Celtic’s leadership stagnates, both are defined not by the people they serve but by the small groups who refuse to let go of the wheel.

Back in the pre-internet haze of the 1990s, Celtic fans armed with pens, papers, and staplers birthed the fanzine era. Titles like Not the View and The Alternative View, captured raw passion – match reports laced with wit, boardroom rants, and player sketches that the official club mag could never touch. These were labour-of-love zines hawked outside Paradise, unfiltered voices from the terraces challenging the old guard’s grip. Fast-forward three decades, and that DIY spirit has exploded into a digital powerhouse - sites like A Celtic State of Mind, The Celtic Blog, The Celtic Star, VideoCelts, podcasts such as 90 Minute Cynic, 20 Minute Tims, and even individual vlogs giving their views on YouTube. Celtic fan media isn’t just surviving; it’s thriving, outpacing the club’s own output with sharper analysis, deeper insights, and content that actually resonates.

This rise mirrors a global shift. Liverpool’s The Anfield Wrap went from pub chats to a million-download juggernaut, partnering with the club for exclusive access while staying fiercely independent. Arsenal fans tune into Arsecast for nuanced breakdowns that Sky Sports can’t match. At Celtic, fans have a plethora of blogs, podcasts, youtube channels to get their fix from that the club can’t scratch. These outlets, often run by one-man bands or small dedicated teams, produce broadcast-quality work on shoestring budgets – subscriptions from £5/month, Patreon donations, or ad revenue keeping the lights on.

Contrast that with Celtic FC’s machine - a subscription service fronted by Gerry McCulloch, dishing out the same PR-scripted fluff. New signing interviews? Mundane nods to “hard work” and “the gaffer.” Board Q&As? Deflections on transfer deals, on the lack of investment in the stadium concourse. Manager briefings? Sanitised soundbites. It’s inferior product masquerading as premium, overpriced at the £50/year standard subscription and thats before you factor in pay per view games, bleeding fans dry while delivering zero edge. Fan media, meanwhile, serves what supporters crave - unvarnished truth, whether it’s calling out transfer flops, governance rot, or tactical sclerosis. I’d fork over cash to fan media any day of the week over Celtic TV’s delayed match highlights, poor analysis, and boring commentary that fans are subjected to week in week out.

So why the freeze-out? It’s not just sour grapes over critical sites like Video Celts or ACOSM lampooning the hierarchy or the current Celtic Fan Collective boycott. Deeper, it’s cold hard capitalism, the board sees every pixel about Celtic as a monetisation opportunity, controlling the narrative to spin negatives into “process” wins. Collaborate on pre-match analysis with A Celtic State of Mind? Risk fans hearing “We’re short on quality signings.” Exclusive player Q&As via fan pods? Players might slip on fan frustrations. Live briefings? Unpredictable passion could derail the approved script. Instead, Celtic keeps fan media locked out - when other clubs around the world welcome them in the door - pushing official channels that prioritise polished PR over pulse. They want to control the story – boycotts become “minority,” protests “disruptive” – while fan media amplifies the real levels.

This current disconnect between the club and supporters hurts everyone. Celtic’s current media model is to extract as much as they can from Celtic fans by spending as little as possible, further alienating the very fanbase that snaps up over 50000 season tickets each year and sell out Celtic Park regularly. Manchester United pivoted to they embraced The United Stand for co-branded content, boosting engagement without surrendering oversight. Barcelona streams fan-led shows on their app, turning critics into allies. Celtic could fund A Celtic State of Mind for heritage docs or Cynic for youth or women’s football scouting breakdowns – collaborative gold that elevates the brand, fills coffers via shared subs, and rebuilds trust and engagement amid boycotts.

The hierarchy’s grip chokes the club’s soul. Fan media isn’t the enemy; it’s the evolution fanzines promised – superior, passionate, fan-first. By refusing to partner or to even give them access, Celtic doesn’t protect its narrative; it cedes the conversation, watching pod downloads soar while official views flatline. Embrace it, co-produce, share access, co-monetise. Fans would pay more for the quality content that they want, not bland content approved by the board and its head of PR. The fans revolution started in fanzines during the 80s and 90s; now it’s podcasts and vlogs. Time for Celtic to embrace it, welcome it, not block it, not ban it. Celtic supporters deserves content as electric as the atmosphere they create on match days.

When Andrew Cavenagh’s US consortium, 49ers Enterprises, swept into Ibrox last May with a splashy £20 million pledge, Rangers fans dared to dream big. It wasn’t just a takeover; it was a revolution. Social media erupted with bold claims from the horde that the Gers had become the “richest club in the world,” poised to outspend rivals and dominate Scottish football like never before. The NFL billionaires’ involvement painted visions of endless cash injections, star-studded signings, and Ibrox transformed into a fortress of financial might. Fast forward ten months to March 2026, and that fairy tale has curdled into a familiar tale of supporter sacrifice. A fresh £16 million share issue, a controversial 6.5% season ticket hike, and player sales funding the “rebuild” reveal a stark reality: the new owners aren’t bankrolling the club - the fans still are.

This isn’t hyperbole born of rivalry; it’s the cold math of Rangers’ latest announcements. The club, now under Cavenagh’s chairmanship, launched the share issue to bolster squad funds and ongoing projects. Yet, this comes hot on the heels of selling key players in the summer and in return spend £43 million on players. Summer 2025’s hype machine churned out headlines of unlimited wealth, with supporters lapping up every rumour of the 49ers influence. Fans flooded timelines with memes and boasts, positioning Rangers not just as Scotland’s powerhouse, but a global player backed by American muscle.

But peel back the layers, and the emperor has no clothes. The £16 million raise isn’t free money from Silicon Valley vaults; it’s dilution for every existing shareholder as they watch their stakes shrink - except for those investing in the new share issue. Take Club 1872, the fan group. Just weeks ago, they pledged over £220,000 specifically for Ibrox facelifts - the trophy room glow-up and Bill Struth Stand renovations. That’s noble, grassroots stuff. Yet against the £16 million total, it’s a rounding error. Club 1872’s contribution, scraped together from ordinary punters, underscores the irony - while billionaire backers tout their arrival, it’s the working-class fan handing over their hard-earned money to renovate the very ground that the club owns and should be renovating themselves. The new regime’s first play post-takeover? Lean on those same investors with another share issue, echoing past capital raises that keep the lights on as the club does not have a sustainable business model without the need of investment every single year..

Layer on the season ticket saga, and frustration boils over. Renewal details teased in early March, only to vanish in a puff of smoke amid the chaos of that ill-fated Scottish Cup Old Firm clash at Ibrox. Pyrotechnics, pitch invasions, and post-match mayhem dominated headlines, but behind the scenes, the board was fine-tuning a pricing hike. When it finally dropped, there it was: a 6.5% rise for adult tickets, pegged to “rising costs” and first-team investment needs. Renewals demanded by April 22, with direct debits starting on May 1 - conveniently pressuring wallets before the season’s final whistle and without a clue whether they are finishing top, second, or third. No wonder the initial announcement got pulled; timing a significant price hike amid fan fury over the derby defeat might’ve sparked outright revolt.

On FollowFollow, the raw pulse of discontent beats loud. This isn’t polite debate; it’s a venting session laced with betrayal. “Money grab before the season’s even finished - gotta pay for those January transfers first,” snaps one poster, eyeing the board’s cheek amid a campaign teetering on second or third place. Another dubs the directors “absolute chancers,” slamming the rushed timeline that hits full-payers square in the jaw while seat credits lag behind. The dread is palpable: “Imagine they shoot the prices up & we finish 3rd or 4th... not saying that’s what’ll happen but the cheek they would have.” These aren’t fringe voices; these are fans who pack the stands week in, week out. For them, the hike isn’t meaningless.

Zoom out, and patterns emerge. The Sky Sports Q&A laid it bare: the £16 million targets transfers and “future planning,” but with no grand vision beyond that. No talk of owner equity floods or infrastructure overhauls funded by 49ers themselves. Instead, it’s the same playbook - sell a player here, issue shares there, nudge prices up. Summer’s “richest club” narrative now feels like a bait-and-switch. Rangers’ board insists it’s prudent, sustainable growth, but a section of the Rangers fans see opportunism. Why the rush and closure on renewals before the end of the season, compressing the window and maximising early cash? Why dilute stakes so soon after takeover and the previous £20 million share issue, when promises of wealth and investment rang loud?

The 49ers’ model thrives on revenue streams and calculated risks, but Scottish football’s parochial finances demand more. Fans hoped for splashy signings; reality delivered a share begging bowl.

But one glaringly obvious factor has been omitted from the reporting of this new share issue and the season ticket price hike - The March 2025 Macquarie Bank charge signed by the previous board. This secured Rangers’ future receivables, including transfer fees from player sales last summer and this summer, limiting their unrestricted use for squad spending.

When the club sold players for about £21m but spent £43m across the summer nad january transfer windows, they lost cash overall. That sale money was “locked” for the bank first, so the club needed owner cash injections to keep going - hence the £20m share issue at the start of the season. Even this summer, it is the same deal - any player sale fees now or later go straight to pay off the bank before the club can spend freely on new signings. It’s why they’re launching another shares issue and hiking up the season ticket prices now instead of splashing out their own money.

In short, Rangers can’t treat transfer cash as “free beer money” - the bank’s got dibs, squeezing their wallet big time.

The hype cycle has crashed hard, leaving a residue of scepticism. But if Rangers win the league this season, then all of the above will be forgotten and Rangers fans will be happy to part with their cash as any fan of a title winning side would. Finish runners-up or third, though, and those FollowFollow rants could swell into a roar. For now, the “richest club” tag rings hollow. Under billionaire banners, Rangers still runs on share issues without an end in sight.

For years, Celtic’s hierarchy have told us about “world-class ambitions.” They’ve spoken about modernisation, innovation, and progress. Yet as this season collapses into calamity, those words sound more hollow than ever. This season, Celtic’s decline has been self-inflicted with a cocktail of boardroom cowardice, footballing negligence, and commercial obsession that’s left the club staring at third place and staring into the abyss.

Instead of fixing the mess on the park, the board has doubled down on what it knows best, trying to protect its revenue streams, its gravy train. The latest appointment - Paul Mazoyer as Head of Business Operations - tells you everything you need to know about where Celtic’s priorities lie.

Mazoyer arrives from Heineken, where he spent five years as Head of Customer Care - a grand title for someone who managed complaints and service standards - prior to a three-month stint as Head of On-Trade Operations. Now, he’s in charge of supporter services, retail, ticketing, hospitality, and stadium operations at one of football’s biggest institutions. His remit? To “drive supporter service and commercial performance” and deliver “world-class supporter services.”

For a fanbase crying out for leadership in recruitment, coaching, and football strategy, this appointment will feel like another slap in the face. Mazoyer may be perfectly competent in the customer service world, but he has zero experience in football operations - no record in matchday management, no background in ticketing, no understanding of retail and ecommerce operations, let alone the culture or tribalism that fuels a club like Celtic. That’s not his fault. It’s the board’s.

If Michael Nicholson truly wants a “world-class operation,” why does he keep hiring people who’ve never worked in football or if they have at a level even lower league English sides would turn their noses up at? After the Wilfried Nancy debacle - a 33-day disaster of an appointment - you’d think lessons had been learned. Clearly not. Celtic don’t need another customer care executive. They need a director of football, a head scout, and a manager. The football department is an empty shell, and the results are now reflecting that - with all due respect to the work that Martin O’Neill and his team have done.

The irony is painful, in the same week as Celtic’s title defence effectively ends, the board polishes its spreadsheets and pats itself on the back for appointing another suit that will help to safeguard revenue. They won’t talk about the effect of fan protests on finances - the interim report was conveniently vague as it always is - but you can be sure the priority now isn’t rebuilding the team, it’s protecting their bottom line.

And what’s left of the football? Nothing resembling the Celtic fans cherish. No flair. No fire. No style. Just another timid, shambolic season ending in mediocrity. The board are accountants and lawyers first, custodians of the club as a side job.

Paul Mazoyer might be an excellent customer service manager, but Celtic isn’t a call centre. It’s a football club. The product is football, not how quickly you can answer a phone or serve an overcooked scotch pie full of hot oil. Fans don’t buy into slick customer service scripts or buzzwords like “supporter engagement.” They crave wingers who beat their man, midfielders who fight for every ball, and strikers who live for goals. They want heart, courage, and ambition - not another layer of corporate padding between them and a board that are well and truly out of touch with the supporters. They didn’t even have the balls to look at the fans after today’s 2-0 defeat to Dundee United at Tannadice.

The tragedy is that the fans - the lifeblood of this club - aren’t even treated as customers by those who run it. The board didn’t invest properly last summer, blew the Champions League qualification, lost Rodgers, signed cereal-box players under Paul Tisdale’s amateur hour, and turned one of the world’s biggest clubs into a laughing stock. Now with no European riches on the horizon and the £70 million dream fund set to evaporate, they’ll soon realise that even accountants can’t balance the books when the product dies.

Come the summer, a full-scale overhaul of football operations is the only way Celtic can recover. But history tells us not to hold our breath. The club that once prided itself on being “more than just a football team” has become an exercise in crisis management and corporate self-preservation. Duct tape and gorilla glue won’t fix this one.

Gianni Infantino’s FIFA is not a neutral arbiter caught helpless between warring states; it is an active political actor that repeatedly chooses power, profit and proximity to authoritarians over the safety and dignity of the people its own statutes claim to protect.

Infantino’s response to Iran’s demand to move their 2026 fixtures out of the United States is presented as lofty, principled neutrality “all participating teams competing as per the match schedule announced” and “FIFA can’t solve geopolitical conflicts.” Strip away the PR varnish and it is something far uglier - a governing body telling a targeted nation to shut up and play in the backyard of the man who has openly said their presence would not be “appropriate” for their “life and safety.”

Iran’s federation has been clear, they will refuse to play in the US after US and Israeli strikes on their country, and after Donald Trump himself publicly undermined any guarantee of security for their players and staff. FIFA’s answer is not to demand that the host nation meet its own obligations on safety and non‑discrimination, not to invoke the lofty human rights clauses it waved around when expelling Russia, but to insist the schedule is sacred and the victim must adapt. “We will continue to promote peace,” Infantino bleats, as he knowingly sends Iranian players and fans into a country whose president has turned them into target practice.

Call it what it is, this is not peace‑making, it is capitulation. It is FIFA siding with the aggressor and telling the victim that if they don’t fancy walking into the lion’s den, they are the ones spoiling the tournament.

FIFA set a precedent with Russia that it now desperately hopes everyone will forget. In 2022, Russian teams were expelled from FIFA competitions on the grounds that their state’s invasion of Ukraine “endanger[ed] the security and integrity of football,” a decision lauded as a moral awakening from an organisation long drenched in graft. The message was supposed to be simple - wage aggressive war, shred the UN Charter, and you forfeit your place in the global game.

That standard, as you have already forensically argued, now hangs over 2026 like a guillotine. The United States is not some harmless, benevolent host whose only sin is over‑priced beer. It is a serial violator of the very “internationally recognised human rights” FIFA claims to uphold, from ICE’s systematic abuses of migrants and asylum seekers to a domestic security environment drenched in gun violence and political extremism – all directly relevant to the safety of visiting fans and teams.

Layer on top of that Washington’s aggressive foreign policy – from regime‑change adventurism against fellow FIFA members to open threats against neighbours – and you are left with conduct that, by FIFA’s own Russia standard, “endangers the security and integrity of football.” Yet where Russia was cast out, the US is rewarded with the biggest World Cup in history, a commercial bonanza rubber‑stamped by the same president who now tells Iran that fixtures are immovable and politics none of his concern.

The double standard is so grotesque it ceases to be hypocrisy and becomes policy. It says, if you are a pariah state, your war is a football issue; if you are Washington or its allies, your wars are geopolitics, regrettable but irrelevant to FIFA’s “bridge‑building.” Red cards for Russia, free passes for the United States – and everyone is meant to pretend that is anything other than raw power dressed up as principle.

Nowhere is FIFA’s moral bankruptcy more exposed than in its posture toward Israel and Palestine. While you document in brutal detail how Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to genocide, tens of thousands of civilians killed, Palestinian footballers murdered or maimed, entire communities destroyed – Infantino’s FIFA maintains business as usual. Israel remains in the fold, shielded from meaningful sanction, its federation gently fined for “discrimination and racist abuse” while a Palestinian call to suspend Israel from world football is ignored.

Compare that indulgence with the speed and severity of the response to Russia. One state’s aggression was enough to erase it from the game; another’s relentless, televised obliteration of a trapped population is met with money‑laundering fines and procedural waffle. The message to Palestinians is unmistakable - your dead do not count, your shattered pitches do not matter, your players are collateral damage in a conflict FIFA would rather not see.

When Infantino insists that FIFA “can’t solve geopolitical conflicts” but will use football to “build bridges and promote peace,” he is not neutrally refusing to intervene. He is choosing which victims are inconvenient and which aggressors are profitable. He is saying that expelling Russia is a noble stand, but confronting Israel or the United States over Gaza or Iran is a step too far for an organisation addicted to US broadcast money, Gulf sports‑washing, and the political cover of Western power.

It is not that FIFA cannot act; it is that Infantino will not, because consistently applying his own statutes would mean dragging his favourite partners into the dock.

If there were any doubt left that FIFA’s moral language is a cheap prop, the newly minted FIFA Peace Prize obliterates it. I have already laid out how this award was personally created by Infantino for Trump as a consolation trinket for a man who failed to strong‑arm his way to a Nobel prize. It is a made‑to‑measure trinket, created not to honour genuine conflict resolution but to burnish the reputations of Trump and Infantino in a single, nauseating photo‑op.

That Infantino would even consider honouring a figure whose political brand rests on xenophobia, authoritarian posturing and explicit threats against nations like Iran tells you everything about what this prize was really about. It was not about peace, it was about access. It is about the FIFA president ingratiating himself with a US leader whose goodwill secures him stadiums, visas, law‑and‑order theatre and television gold. It’s about Brand Infantino – the self‑styled global statesman – hitching himself to Brand Trump, the self‑styled deal‑maker, and using football as the stage for their mutual vanity.

In that light, his Iran comments make perfect, chilling sense. Of course Infantino will not demand that Trump guarantee Iranian safety, or that the US clean up its immigration regime, or that Israel face meaningful sanction. He is in the business of flattering presidents and despots, not confronting them. When he talks about “building bridges,” he means corporate suites and VIP corridors between Trump Tower, Riyadh, Doha and Zurich.

That is why the Peace Prize is so obscene. It weaponises the language of peace to reward the very people whose actions are dragging the world closer to permanent conflict. It turns football’s supposed moral authority into a cheap PR chip in Infantino’s networking game.

There was a time when calling FIFA corrupt meant talking about brown envelopes, vote‑rigging and dodgy construction contracts. Under Infantino, the rot has evolved. The bribery is no longer just financial; it is moral. FIFA’s statutes and human rights policies are prostituted, handed out selectively to punish those out of favour and shield those whose cheques clear.

In expelling Russia and indulging the United States, FIFA has announced that its red lines are not about international law but about alignment with Western power. In turning a blind eye to Israel’s devastation of Gaza while offering up a few disciplinary fig leaves, it has told Palestinians their lives are worth less than broadcast rights. In demanding that Iran play in a country whose president has publicly questioned their safety, it has made clear that “security for all participants” is an optional extra when the host is too rich and powerful to offend.

And in minting a bespoke Peace Prize for Donald Trump, Infantino has crossed a line even his predecessors did not dare approach. Blatter’s FIFA was a bazaar of backhanders; Infantino’s is a diplomatic court, where despots, strongmen and “populists” are fêted as partners in “unity” while the people crushed under their boots are told to keep politics out of football.

This is why any argument that the USA, by FIFA’s own logic, should be stripped of 2026 is unanswerable. If Russia’s aggression merited expulsion, then Washington’s aggression, its human rights abuses, and its failure to guarantee safety for teams like Iran must carry the same consequence. The fact everyone knows that will never happen – that the World Cup will not be moved, that Trump will not be snubbed, that Infantino will keep grinning in the VIP box – is the final proof that FIFA has ceased to be a governing body and become a protection racket for power.

FIFA today is not merely failing victims. It is actively helping to launder their oppressors. That is not neutrality. It is complicity.

Celtic supporters have become grimly used to learning the biggest stories about their own club from anywhere but Celtic Park, but the Kasper Schmeichel saga still manages to feel like a new low. Being interviewed by his Dad for a CBS Champions League show in the United States, the Dane calmly told the world he might have played his last ever game – not just for Celtic, but in professional football. No statement from the club, no injury bulletin, no manager fronting up and explaining the situation to the fans. Just a clip from a foreign broadcaster pinging around social media, shared in disbelief by Celtic supporters asking the most basic question of all - what on earth is going on at our club?

In that CBS interview, alongside his father, Schmeichel laid bare the extent of the damage - a shoulder that has been dislocating, a torn bicep, serious rotator cuff issues and the stark verdict from a specialist that he requires two separate operations and could be out for 10 to 12 months. He admitted he has been playing through this for months, relying on pain‑killing injections to get on the park. It was an oddly serene conversation for a man effectively announcing that his career might be over – but for Celtic supporters, it landed like a grenade, not least because it was the first time they were hearing any of it.

Strip away the emotion and you are left with a brutal sporting reality, Schmeichel has been a complete failure as Celtic’s No.1 this season. Since that Scottish Cup final defeat last year, his form has been a mess – weak handling at big moments, poor decision‑making under pressure, and jittery, inaccurate distribution that has repeatedly put his defence in trouble. This has not been an ageing great bowing out gracefully; it has been a slow, painful unravelling in full view.

Now we know he was attempting to navigate all of that while his shoulder was falling apart, taped together and numbed by injections. If, as Martin O’Neill has since admitted, the manager only fully grasped the true severity of the injury after the CBS revelation, we are entitled to ask what sort of medical and internal communication structure exists at Celtic. But even before you get to the club, there is a question of personal responsibility.

There is a romanticised idea in football that playing through serious injury is somehow heroic, that the lad who takes injections to “get out there” is displaying old‑school bravery. The reality is more cynical, a professional who puts the team first does not cling on through a chronic shoulder injury that is already dislocating in games. A professional understands that turning up half‑fit, doped up to dull the pain, is a direct risk to the collective – that one flapped cross or mis‑hit pass out from the back in a tight title race can kill momentum and cost not just points but ultimately a title.

Schmeichel chose to keep going, knowing he was compromised, and now faces two surgeries and up to a year out, with the very real possibility that he has already played his last game. There has also been a clear subtext throughout this saga: the looming prospect of Denmark duty, of one last play‑off and one last tournament in a storied international career. If you are taking injections to preserve your national‑team place while churning out sub‑standard performances for the club that actually pays you, that is not noble, it is selfish. And when you go on American TV and discuss your injury, your rehab and your potential retirement without acknowledging Celtic, it only underlines how little the club has featured in your own narrative.

As bad as that looks for Schmeichel, the most damning aspect of this entire episode is Celtic’s handling of it. Supporters did not hear the news from the club, the manager, the medical staff or any form of official communication; they heard it second‑hand from a CBS Sports segment that fans in Scotland saw via social media. We are talking about a player whose injury fundamentally alters the shape of the season – ten to twelve months out, contract up in the summer, highly likely never to pull on the gloves in a competitive game for Celtic again – and yet the club has, still to this day, provided nothing resembling a detailed, candid update.

O’Neill has admitted he was “surprised” by the severity of the damage, conceding that he did not receive the bad news directly and that the club’s physio, not the manager, was the one who knew the seriousness of the scan results. At the same time, he confirms that the club knew Schmeichel had been taking injections to keep playing. That is a staggering combination for a club of Celtic’s size - key medical information withheld, the manager in the dark, and fans left to piece together their own understanding from foreign television.

Even now, there has been no statement from Celtic confirming that Schmeichel requires surgery, that he is definitively out for the season, or that his contractual situation means he has almost certainly played his last game. No timeline, no detail, no attempt to set out a plan or reassure a support already suspicious of how this club is being run. Independent Celtic fan outlets are left to ask the obvious question out loud - who is actually running Celtic, and is anyone in the building capable of handling a major situation with basic competence?

This is not about slick PR or “controlling the narrative”. This is rudimentary governance. When your number one goalkeeper suffers an injury he himself compares to an outfield player tearing both an ACL and an Achilles, you get ahead of it, you protect the player, you respect the support, and you demonstrate that there is a strategy. Instead, Celtic let the story drift until Schmeichel, in a TV studio thousands of miles away, effectively announced the end of his own Celtic career without the club so much as clearing its throat.

O’Neill has tried to soften the blow with humour, talking about potential fines for going public before telling the club, but the jokes only highlight the absurdity. He acknowledges that the club knew about the tests, that the physio knew the scan was much worse than first thought, yet he himself was “incommunicado” as the story broke. That is not the image of a modern, joined‑up football operation; it is a relic of the worst days of Celtic as a complacent, inward‑looking institution where departments operate independently of one another and supporters find out what is happening to their key players from TV in another country or via social media.

​When independent Celtic fan sites are forced to spell out that fans were left to “piece it together for themselves” and openly ask if there are “any grown‑ups at Celtic anymore”, you know the rot runs far deeper than one injured goalkeeper. From top to bottom – boardroom, medical, media, football department – this has exposed a lack of leadership, a lack of structure and a lack of basic respect for the people who bankroll the entire operation - the fans.

​The only sliver of light in this mess is that, while the club have been sleepwalking through a goalkeeping crisis, they may have stumbled into a genuine long‑term solution. Viljami Sinisalo, signed as a backup and left waiting, has finally been given a proper run and has answered the call with authority. O’Neill has described himself as “pleasantly surprised” by how he has taken his chance and praised him as a “really good lad”, with reports highlighting his big‑moment contribution at Ibrox, Stuttgart, and beyond.

Supporters can see the difference already - command of his box, cleaner distribution, and a presence that calms rather than panics the back line. Celtic now appear to have a ready‑made No.1 who has stepped into the chaos left by Schmeichel’s decline and injury – yet the club’s handling of the entire episode has been so amateurish that Sinisalo’s emergence feels like an accident, not the product of coherent planning.

If this is how Celtic deal with a major injury to a first team regular, what confidence can anyone have in their ability to manage the structural issues looming on the horizon? And if a 39‑year‑old keeper can play on injections until his shoulder is shattered, then reveal it all on American television while the club stays silent, why should any supporter believe that those running Celtic truly put the team – and the badge – ahead of egos, spin and sheer incompetence?

Ten years ago, I walked away from Scotzine, the site I helped build into Scotland’s rawest independent football voice. What started as a fan-driven platform for unfiltered takes on Scottish Football and the beautiful chaos of our game turned into a ghost of itself under its new management - clickbait headlines, regurgitated MSM scraps, and desperate ad grabs that killed its soul. It was sickening watching it crumble.

Now, I’m taking it back. Scotzine is relaunching and returning to our roots where fans have the voice. No corporate spin, no SEO-chasing drivel - just you, me, and the passion that fuels Scottish football. We’re timed perfectly for Scotland’s World Cup 2026 campaign in the USA, with the Tartan Army ready to invade.

So if you’re looking wanting your say on the club you support or the game in general please get in touch. Whether you are an ordinary fan with an opinion or a fan blogger - we need your voice.

Email us at mail.scotzine@gmail.com to show your interest. Scotland's game deserves better. Let's reclaim it for the fans - together.

For decades, both sides of the Glasgow divide have claimed that the man in the middle has favoured their rivals. Some Celtic fans even went as a far as shooting a documentary called ‘Anyone But Celtic’ - based off the book written by Paul Larkin - to highlight what they have perceived as refereeing bias and even claims of corruption.

Referees have been condemned for decades over what the fans perceived as controversial penalty decisions against them, ruling perfectly good goals offside, and even denying clear cut penalties - and fuel is poured onto the fire when you have former Celtic players like Alan Stubbs coming out claiming that former referee Jim McCluskey told him that as long as he was referee, Celtic would never be awarded a penalty at Ibrox on his watch. Another whistler, Bobby Tait, was accused by a former colleague, Jim McGilvray, of specially requesting to be the referee at Ibrox for his last season as referee in May 1998 - that was duly delivered, but sadly for the self-confessed Rangers fan, Rangers lost the game 1-0 to Kilmarnock, which ultimately damaged Rangers’ hopes of winning ten in a row.

Then there was the greatest ever refereeing performance for Rangers by Mike McCurry against Dundee United back in 2008 - which United manager Craig Levein fired broadside after broadside at in his post-match comments. And don’t forget Hugh Dallas, his nepo baby Andrew Dallas, and Dougie McDonald who was outed by a fellow official for lying over why he overturned a decision against Celtic. This list is endless - but is it anti-Celtic, pro-Rangers bias or are our referees just incompetent and shit at their jobs?

Even with the introduction of VAR, inconsistencies and dodgy decisions remain, while former referees make their money doing after-dinner speaking tours around the lodges and Rangers supporters clubs - I have yet to see one former referee attend a Celtic fan event, but they are regulars at Rangers, why is that?

John Beaton in the firing line

Now John Beaton is the latest Scottish referee in the firing line, being accused simultaneously of being pro-Rangers and pro-Celtic. A paradox that says as much about the football culture in Glasgow as it does about his refereeing abilities. Over more than a decade at the top level, Beaton’s calls in top tier fixtures have created a narrative on both sides of the Glasgow divide that he cannot be trusted, even when old interviews with him as a schoolboy surfaced where he declared his support for Rangers - further proving to Celtic fans that he is anti-Celtic.

On top of his own declaration of allegiances, something that referees in Scotland are not forced to do unlike their English counterparts, the perception of bias from the Celtic support has further been fuelled by a series of high-profile incidents in which it’s believed that Beaton either ducked major decisions or applied the laws of the game unevenly. From allowing robust off-the-ball challenges to go unpunished in derbies, to the recent game against Motherwell where Celtic required VAR to intervene to award a penalty that seemed obvious to most observers, with Beaton perfectly positioned to see the incident in its entirety. Celtic fans see a pattern of behaviour that makes him reluctant or clearly deny making the big calls in their favour. Commentators and ex-referees have highlighted further episodes where Beaton initially waved play on before being corrected by VAR, reinforcing an image of a referee who only awards Celtic crucial decisions when technology forces his hand. For many Celtic supporters, the overall picture is not of simple incompetence, but of an official whose instinct is to go against them in moments that matter most.

On the other side of the city, Rangers fans highlight their own catalogue of grievances and insist that Beaton is pro-Celtic - despite him being a Rangers fan and drinks in a Rangers pub The Crown Bar in Bellshill. Recent derbies and cup ties have produced decisions and non-decisions that Ibrox supporters view as clear evidence of a referee who is too quick to penalise them, too lenient on Celtic, or too easily influenced by the occasion. Incidents in which potential penalties for Rangers have not been given, or where Beaton’s management of key moments has been heavily criticised by pundits, have been seized upon to argue that he is anything but sympathetic to their cause. When former officials publicly question his handling of Rangers’ appeals in high-profile matches, it only hardens the feeling among Rangers fans that Beaton is another referee they must beat as well as the opposition.

The toxicity surrounding Beaton’s performances has, at times, spilled well beyond the pitch and into the realm of personal safety. After one derby match, he reported threatening messages to Police Scotland, prompting a public statement and an investigation into the abuse he received. During the game, Rangers striker Alfredo Morelos avoided a booking after stamping on Celtic defender Anthony Ralston, he then slapped Ryan Christie in the face, before kicking Celtic skipper Scott Brown in the 1-0 win for the Ibrox side.

Celtic were angered by Beaton’s handling of that game they demanded a direct meeting with the SFA hierarchy, questioning not only specific decisions but the broader disciplinary framework that protected his on-field calls from retrospective action.

So let’s strip away all the emotion, and let his statistical record do the talking.

John Beaton’s refereeing stats

In Celtic matches officiated by Beaton, he has taken charge of 46 games in total pre-VAR, during which Celtic have won 36, drawn 7 and lost 3. Across those fixtures he has awarded Celtic 10 penalties, shown them 68 yellow cards and 2 red cards, while their opponents in the same games have received 3 penalties, 92 yellow cards and 1 red cards. In Rangers matches pre-VAR, Beaton has overseen 36 games, with Rangers winning 25, drawing 5 and losing 6 under his control. Over that sample he has awarded Rangers 9 penalties, issued them 56 yellow cards and 1 red card, and given their opponents 1 penalty, 101 yellow cards and 6 red cards.

In Celtic matches officiated by Beaton, he has taken charge of 19 games in total after VAR was introduced, during which Celtic have won 13, drawn 5 and lost 1. Across those fixtures he has awarded Celtic 5 penalties, shown them 36 yellow cards and 1 red cards, while their opponents in the same games have received 2 penalties, 42 yellow cards and 1 red card. In Rangers matches post-VAR, Beaton has overseen 17 games, with Rangers winning 11, drawing 3 and losing 3 under his control. Over that sample he has awarded Rangers 3 penalties, issued them 40 yellow cards and 0 red card, and given their opponents 3 penalties, 47 yellow cards and 0 red cards.

These stats don’t include penalties awarded but were either saved or scored from the rebound. Stats are across all competitions.

When those numbers are broken down further into Glasgow derbies alone, Beaton has refereed 9 meetings between Celtic and Rangers, in which Celtic have recorded 3 wins, 4 draws and 2 defeats, and Rangers have registered 2 wins, 4 draws and 3 defeats. Within those derbies specifically, he has awarded Celtic 3 penalties and Rangers 2 penalties, while producing a total of 23 yellow cards and 0 red cards for Celtic players and 25 yellow cards and 0 red cards for Rangers players.

Make of that what you will.

VAR pouring fuel onto the fire

The arrival of VAR was supposed to reduce noise around dodgy decisions and getting the decisions correct, but when it comes to those manning the system it has only amplified controversies of all clubs not just the big two.

When he initially refused to award Celtic a penalty only for the decision to be overturned after a video review, critics argued that technology had exposed Beaton’s instinctive reluctance to award Celtic big calls. Conversely, where VAR has not intervened on contentious challenges involving Rangers players, or when Beaton’s original decision has stood after review, Rangers supporters have claimed that the system merely entrenches on-field bias instead of correcting it. The net effect is that Beaton’s name now evokes not just arguments about individual incidents but broader questions about how Scottish referees are selected, trained and assessed for the most emotionally charged fixtures in the Scottish domestic calendar.

If anything unites both halves of Glasgow, it is a deep mistrust of referees abilities to call their games fairly, even if they disagree entirely on which side they supposedly favour. Every borderline foul, every penalty appeal, every yellow card and every VAR check in a match becomes another data point for supporters determined to prove their case, regardless of the wider context or the reality that refereeing is an imperfect craft.

Whether the numbers truly demonstrate a consistent lean towards Rangers, towards Celtic, or simply towards human inconsistency, they will continue to be read through green-and-white and blue-tinted lenses.

In that sense, the story is not just about refereeing decisions, but about how Glasgow’s tribalism can turn any whistle into a symbol of bias the moment it is blown.