Celtic fans want progress, transparency and a club that moves with purpose

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The Celtic Star

·9 de octubre de 2025

Celtic fans want progress, transparency and a club that moves with purpose

The Celtic Fans Collective, alongside other supporter groups, sat down with the club on Monday night for a much anticipated meeting that was meant to bridge the growing divide between the boardroom and the fanbase…

Celtic fan protest. Partick Thistle v Celtic. Premier Sports League Cup. Sunday 21 September. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

Yet, by Thursday, the most telling outcome of that gathering isn’t what was discussed, but rather what still hasn’t been released. The official minutes.

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Both the club and the Collective have issued updates in advance, describing the meeting, though, perhaps unsurprisingly, their versions differ. Perspective, after all, shapes the narrative. But here we are, days later, and not a single agreed-upon set of minutes has been published.

Apparently, the Collective completed their version by Tuesday and then submitted a revised draft. Yet the minutes now sit with Celtic’s legal team. And that, in itself, tells a story.

Partick Thistle v Celtic. Premier Sports League Cup. Sunday 21 September. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

For us, as supporters, this painfully slow process feels just a wee bit too familiar. The club’s internal machinery clearly moves at a glacial pace. It’s the same lethargy that seems to define transfer negotiations, communication strategies, and decision-making across the organisation, so much so that you can almost hear the exasperated laughter of former players, agents, and managers who’ve all experienced it first-hand – “Told you so.”

Celtic, as they regularly evidence, are not an agile organisation. Between a PR team apparently keen on improving dialogue and a legal department that takes days to sign off on meeting notes, it’s no wonder every key process drags. If it takes this long to agree on a set of minutes, imagine how long it takes to finalise a transfer.

This episode is just the latest in a series of self-inflicted wounds over the course of the last few weeks. The tone-deaf public statements, the tabloid takedown of the manager, the disjointed transfer window. All signs that point to a club bogged down by process and painfully out of touch with its own fanbase.

When the club reached out to the fans, it was hoped this was the embryonic stage of a series of open exchanges where both sides could help shape Celtic’s future. Instead, those present likely returned home thinking what a colossal waste of time it had been. A meeting that turned out to be a PR exercise designed to appear like progress, while at the same time underlining exactly what’s wrong with Celtic.

It was Marie Antoinette stuff, detached, insulated, and utterly out of touch. The board seem to prefer life inside their bubble, unwilling to recognise that the fans see a club being left behind.

Celtic fan protest ahead of the Partick Thistle v Celtic. Premier Sports League Cup. Sunday 21 September. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

What many hoped was an olive branch turned out to be a reinforcement of the club’s belief that the status quo is the way forward, only with a ‘new’ communications strategy to ‘explain’ why thousands of Celtic supporters are wrong, and those inside the echo chamber are doing a ‘right good job.’ It’s remarkable, really. But probably not a surprise.

The Celtic Fans Collective have made clear that confidence in the current executive is almost non-existent. The perception is of a leadership team insulated by their own self-assessment, convinced that communication, not accountability, is the root problem. It’s the post-truth playbook at work, repeat the same message often enough, and hope it becomes accepted as fact.

Celtic fan protest ahead of the Partick Thistle v Celtic. Premier Sports League Cup. Sunday 21 September. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

But this time, supporters simply aren’t buying it any longer.

Celtic fans are mobilised, committed, and now recognise we’re in it for the long haul. The support has given the board and executives ample opportunity to listen, to engage, to modernise, to change. Instead, we’ve been met with bureaucracy, delay, and defensiveness.

When the simple task of publishing minutes becomes an exercise in corporate inertia, what hope is there for real progress? This isn’t just a slow organisation, it’s one moving at a glacial pace, weighed down by its own internal processes and a culture of self-preservation.

Peter Lawwell, Michael Nicholson and Chris McKay applaud during the Scottish Premiership match between Celtic and Livingston at Celtic Park on August 23, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

Celtic’s leadership must understand that words alone no longer carry weight. The evidence, whether in communication, recruitment, or decision-making, points to a club that has lost its agility and its connection to the people who sustain it.

Supporters don’t want any more spin, we’ve heard it all and rejected it all. We want progress, we want transparency, and above all, we want a club that moves with purpose, not plods with process.

It’s time to waken up and sharpen up. Because the perception of Celtic between the support and the boardroom feels more like a chasm than a bridgeable gap now. Monday’s meeting was supposed to narrow that. Instead, it feels wider than ever.

What a missed opportunity. It was a tap-in, Celtic, and you blazed it over the bar.

Niall J

Celtic in the Eighties and Willie Fernie – Putting on the Style both by David Potter. Photo The Celtic Star

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Danny McGrain signing copies of Celtic in the Eighties by David Potter. Photo: Celtic Star Books

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