Board’s “Dialogue” a Sham as Fans Unite for Real Reform at Celtic Park
Despite promises, the board’s arrogance and failure to take responsibility fuel growing protests and demand for real change.
There’s no dressing up the hostility around Celtic Park right now, as the latest “dialogue” between fans and the board did absolutely nothing to quell the storm. The hostility isn’t just brewing – it’s boiling over. After what was a miserable summer that saw the team gutted, with key departures and not nearly enough in the way of proper reinforcements, fans were calling out for real answers, not platitudes. The club’s hierarchy likes to act as if agreeing to sit across the table is some big gesture of goodwill, but it’s nothing more than a PR manoeuvre designed to buy time, to appease supporters while hoping the protests fade into memory. The board’s approach reeks of arrogance and detachment, dodging accountability and blaming everything from “market conditions” to “bad luck,” but never their own ineptitude.
Inside the meeting, senior figures like Michael Nicholson and Chris McKay sat there giving their tired rehearsed responses, defending their transfer failures as “part of the club’s philosophy,” utterly blind to the urgency and anger seething through the stands. Lawwell – the man who embodies the board’s culture of cronyism, was nowhere to be seen, and that absence spoke volumes about his commitment. The Celtic Fans Collective left the meeting deeply disappointed, and their statement couldn’t be clearer: the board remains entirely disconnected, and the session produced no tangible outcomes worth reporting. Supporters were looking for a sign of humility or real change in leadership; but what we got was more stubbornness and corporate speak instead. The board seems to think that one sterile meeting will put a lid on years – decades even – of mismanagement, and as a fan, nothing could be further from the truth. This isn’t old-school, romantic wrangling with the suits; this is fury at incompetence, at the club’s willingness to drift through mediocrity while fans are treated as cash cows instead of partners in ambition.
What stands out to me the most is the blatant attempt to minimise the fans’ concerns and attribute blame elsewhere. The board’s public statement tries to “empathise” with supporters by admitting “mistakes,” but only in the vaguest possible terms. Not one leader took direct responsibility for the transfer window disaster or for the absentee landlord approach that Dermot Desmond and Peter Lawwell have perfected over years of self-serving tenure. In their world, errors just “happen,” and we’re supposed to clap for some ambiguous pledge to “do better.” If you’ve been in the stands long enough, you know this song and dance – the same faces controlling the board, the same refusal to refresh or listen, the same patronising overtures about dialogue that never result in true reform. They’re only there to protect their positions, their dividends, and their legacy of nepotism. If anything, the hostility from the Celtic fanbase is wholly justified and only growing by the day.
This isn’t hyperbole. It’s time for a total clear-out – the lot of them, from Desmond down. What purpose does a director serve if their only real qualification is proximity to the old boys’ network? Let’s be honest: the club is infected by a culture where power is inherited, not earned, and there are no real checks and balances. If Celtic is ever going to compete or even carve out consistency among Europe’s elite, fans need to demand hard rules on governance – term limits for directors, transparent appointment processes, and zero tolerance for nepotism. No more lifers, no more unaccountable kingmakers pulling the strings from a golf course in Ireland or America. This club’s soul belongs in the terraces, not the boardroom lounges, and it’s going to take real pain – missed games, lost revenue, and relentless protest – to chase out the greed and plant the seeds of renewal.
No matter what the board claims, the unrest among Celtic supporters shows no signs of dissipating. The silent protests, the organised withdrawal from home cup schemes, the drop in merchandise sales – all of it points to a level of activism and unity rarely seen in recent years. Fans won’t be appeased by empty promises or vague gestures any longer, and as far as most are concerned, the meeting with the fans was just another attempt by the board to play for time and divide the support. If anything, the meeting served only to highlight how urgent real, structural change is for Celtic Football Club. This is only the beginning, and the fight to reclaim our club from those who would run it into the ground will go on, louder and prouder than ever.