Oh My Lord – Considering Willie Haughey’s Cautionary Warning

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The Celtic Star

·18 de septiembre de 2025

Oh My Lord – Considering Willie Haughey’s Cautionary Warning

When change is on the menu, there is no view of a Celtic supporter that is without merit. Whether you are a season-ticket holder, a long-distance supporter catching streams at some ungodly hour, or someone who simply lives and breathes the club, every opinion springs from the same place, our mutual love of Celtic and the desire to see our club thrive.

Celtic v Hibernian – Premier Sports Cup – Celtic Park Lord Willie Haughey in the stands before the Premier Sports Cup match at Celtic Park, Glasgow. Sunday August 18, 2024. Photo Steve Welsh, IMAGO/PA Images

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Right now, that love is taking the form of a fan movement like we have rarely seen before. It is a movement demanding capability, vision, and ambition from those who hold the keys to Celtic’s future, or they move on and make way for those who can meet those aspirations.

Into this landscape stepped Lord Willie Haughey, a lifelong Celt and former board member, offering words of calm and caution.

Peter Lawwell, Chairman of Celtic, Dermot Desmond, Non-Executive Director of Celtic, and Michael Nicholson, CEO of Celtic, are seen in attendance prior to the Scottish Premiership match between Celtic and theRangers at Celtic Park on March 16, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

“It looks like peace is breaking out,” he said, citing Brendan Rodgers’ recent press conference, strangely, as an apparent sign of healing. “Everybody is disappointed to go out of the Champions League and in a couple of the performances but overall, if you think about the 30 years before that and all the hard times, we’ve actually been spoilt the last 15 years or so. Dermot’s involvement with the club has put us where we are. Let’s back off a wee bit and keep supporting the team.”

🗣️'Dermot's involvement at the club has put us where we are.' 🟢 Lord Willie Haughey fires warning to Celtic fans to be careful what they wish for in their quest to replace Dermot Desmond. Unlock PLZ Premium HERE 👉 https://t.co/eFxWrunlgC
– miércoles, 17 de septiembre de 2025

To be fair, it is a sentiment worth noting. Haughey’s perspective is no doubt forged through decades of involvement alongside personal investment and carries weight. He reminds us of the barren years before Fergus McCann’s rescue, of a time Celtic suffered with uncertainty rather than success. His warning to perhaps ‘be careful what you wish for’ then is not without context.

But with respect, Willie, the past is not only a foreboding warning to the present. The present instead can be a springboard. Celtic is not only in the rear-view mirror, but also on the road ahead, and that road is moving pretty fast right now. The game is modernising at breakneck speed, and if Celtic are to catch up, and then keep pace, we need a boardroom with the capability, courage and vision to travel that road, not decide to park up and take a long nap.

Celtic supporters at Rugby Park, Kilmarnock v Celtic, 14 September 2025. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

Right now, though, we do remain parked in a Scottish layby, with the engine idling, while European tourists slow their coaches to marvel at our grand old stadium and the passion of our support. They admire the scenery, take their photographs, and move on to the next bucket-list destination, while our driver fumbles with a map of the mainland he either cannot read or refuses to unfold.

As fans, we certainly do cherish the domestic dominance this century. But we also see a very uncomfortable truth, Celtic’s European story has stalled.

Champions League qualification attempts have too often been undermined, by risk-averse or absent planning. By conservative estimates, the club has lost upwards of £80–100 million in revenue through repeated failures to qualify or progress. The reputational and football cost is just as great. That cannot be called ambition, it is kind to even describe it as competent.

This supporters’ group hasn’t emerged to belittle or disparage the past but instead to protect the club’s future.

If Celtic were a restaurant and its menu a history of the club, the section marked ‘European progression’ has been out of stock since Gordon Strachan left the kitchen. Domestic dishes keep arriving on the table and we applaud their quality, but the finest course, the one that once made Celtic famous across the continent, is missing. We are not ungrateful diners asking for extra helpings, we simply know the chef is holding back an advertised item from the menu, because they view it as difficult to source, yet adorn the walls with its image.

Dermot Desmond prior to the Celtic vs St Mirren Scottish Premiership match at Celtic Park on May 20, 2023. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

All we seek is a club that embraces modernisation, that engages with its own fanbase, that builds a football operation capable of competing in Europe and maintaining domestic success. These two aims are not mutually exclusive. They are the natural next step for a club of our size and heritage, and a step long overdue.

If those who wish to contribute to that direction of travel, be they investors or lifelong supporters, have a vision for Celtic, now is the time to bring it forward. If you can help build a Celtic that matches its financial strength with footballing ambition, the support will meet you with open arms. But if the plan is simply to keep looking back to darker days as a reason to stand still, then you misunderstand the direction of travel many supporters want to see.

Celtic Director Brian Wilson with CEO Michael Nicholson at Rugby Park, Kilmarnock v Celtic, 14 September 2025. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

The next era of Celtic greatness will not be achieved by a stockpiling cash paralysis, with no communicated plan to spend it on the team on the park and the infrastructure of the club. It will be achieved by vision, by ambition, and by a board that shares the same restless desire for progress that has always defined the Celtic support.

We are not frightened of the past, we are wary of the present and the knock-on effects it threatens for Celtic’s future. This is not about one solitary Champions League exit or a couple of disappointing results as Haughey frames it. It is about a habitual lack of preparedness, a creeping malaise that has set in, and a directionless driver asleep at the wheel.

Celtic players pose for a photo on pitch prior to the UEFA Champions League 2024/25 League Knockout Play-off second leg match between FC Bayern München and Celtic FC at Allianz Arena on February 18, 2025 in Munich, Germany. (Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)

European football’s standards are rising and seeping into Scottish football, reshaping the landscape around us, while Celtic arrogantly ignore the direction of travel. The warning lights are flashing. The road ahead demands urgency, competence and a skilled driver to negotiate the bends. Anything less risks leaving Celtic stranded in the layby while the rest of Europe speeds by, and clubs in Scotland appear in the rear-view mirror making steady progress.

When someone like Willie Haughey goes public, you hope it is with ideas on a direction of travel or a roadmap for how Celtic can reach its potential. Instead, what we got was a cautionary warning, a reminder to be grateful and to mind the past. Then again, perhaps his message wasn’t for us.

Niall J

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