‘A collapse of monumental proportions’, the only thing that will force change at Celtic…

Last season, Celtic flirted with losing the title right up until 87th minute of the final day of the season.

It was the first time in over 15 years that any team ran Celtic close for the League title.

It should have caused alarm bells to ring all over the place, but it didn’t.

Instead, an already lazily complacent board drew a sigh of relief that Martin O’Neill had spared their blushes.

They had dodged a bullet, or more accurately, a hail of bullets.

Rather than learning from this flirtation with disaster, they basked in the glory of their great escape.

Then they decided that the best thing to do in light of it was nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Do nothing.

Change nothing.

Communicate nothing.

Just continue on with the insanity of operating the same we have for almost quarter of a century.

Because that’s what the absent meddling golfers tells us to do.

And what he says goes.

If Celtic Park was in flames, and Dermot Desmond told Michael Nicholson to let it burn, Michael Nicholson would let it burn.

He would do that because he is incapable of any kind of original thought himself.

Michael Nicholson earns £17k a week to do what he’s told, and he’s quite happy to be told what to do to earn it.

A person who moves in Celtic circles once said to me that the only thing that will ‘force change at Celtic is a collapse of monumental proportions’.

Sadly this is the truth.

We, as Celtic fans, have a limit.

That limit is that as long as we continue to dominate domestically, we will tolerate the dog shit the Celtic board throws at us season, after season.

The board know that this is the limit.

They know they can push everything outside that limit, and there will be no real repercussions.

We will accept abject misery and humiliation like last Tuesday night being heaped upon us.

As long as we do not accede to allowing our hated rivals to win domestically.

It’s ritual humiliation really, and what it actually amounts to is a highly abusive and toxic relationship between us and our so called ‘bleed for Celtic’ custodians.

Those abusers will dress their pitiful performance up by saying that Celtic has enjoyed ‘unprecedented domestic success’ under their watch.

They’ll then add that the club has also enjoyed ‘unprecedented financial success’.

Sadly, there are many out there who will fall for those platitudes.

There are some who will even quote them in defence of the board.

In answer to those two boasts, here is how I would respond.

Firstly, take one look at our so called domestic arch rival’s perfomance in Jablonec last night.

Just isolate that alone, and even forget about everything that’s gone before that – and tell me – while keeping a straight face, that unprecedented domestic success against them is something to actually boast about?

That that is some kind of respectable yardstick that we should be measured by?

Secondly, of course it’s easy to boast about unprecedented financial success when you don’t spend any f***ing money!

Our ‘unprecedented financial success’ isn’t down to a bunch of geniuses in the Celtic boardroom.

It’s down to us, the Celtic fanbase.

As part of this ritual humiliation the board subjects us to, and amidst their never ending toxic abuse, we still give them our money.

We willingly hand over thousands to them every year.

And while they abuse us with a smile on their faces, they have no problem hiking up the prices of everything, with zero intention of giving us anything tangible in return for those prices hikes.

Other than domestic bliss, of course.

So who’s worse here?

Us or them?

They do what they do because they know they can get away with it.

And we allow them to get away with it, season after season.

So let me ask you this question.

Where would we be today if Daizen Maeda’s 87th minute goal against Hearts had been ruled out for offside and we lost the title to Hearts?

Where would we be if the psychological blow of that had then resulted in us losing the Scottish Cup final to Dunfermline?

Or more to the point, where would the Celtic board be?

I’ll leave the rest up to your imagination because that’s where it belongs.

It didn’t happen, but each and every one of you knows deep down how you would have reacted if it had.

The anger and rage would have been off the charts.

And yet here we are.

We are just after exiting our Champions League qualifier after completing the most humiliating European loss in the Celtic’s history.

Yet we are apathetic.

Hell, some of us are even acceptant of the fact that the Champions League just might be beyond our capabilities.

We’re consoling ourselves with the fact we have the Europa League.

And that just because we made it to the UEFA Cup final twenty three years ago under Martin O’Neill, we might get a run deep into it again this time around.

The draw for which has been shite by the way, just in case you haven’t seen it yet.

Are we for f***ing real?

If it was the Ibrox side that had knocked us out of Europe last Tuesday night, does anybody think we’d be as apathetic as we are today about the whole affair?

But you know what the real irony is in all of that?

That run to the UEFA Cup final in is the very reason the financial taps have been turned off at Celtic Park since 2003.

Peter Lawwell was brought in to curb spending at the club, and now we live his legacy since then, year after year, since 2003.

In the three years previous to that, we had spent £6 million each on Chris Sutton, Neil Lennon, and John Hartson.

That’s about £40 million in today’s money, so there’s no doubting we weren’t afraid to splash the cash back then.

And we didn’t have many outgoings to offset against those purchases to ensure a net positive spend in the window either.

The current board would collapse at the idea of spending that kind of money these days.

Because Peter Lawwell conditioned them to be that way.

And they in turn have conditioned us to think small instead of big.

Actually, they’ve conditioned us to think mediocre.

Because last Tuesday night reeked of mediocrity,

Such mediocrity, that if Dermot Desmond cared even the slightest bit about Celtic, he would have conducted a root and branch clear out of the boardroom.

But we know he won’t.

We won’t even get an apology.

We’ll be expected to ignore it, and it’ll go away.

The only thing, sadly, that will force change at Celtic, is domestic collapse.

None of us wants that to happen, but we all know it’s the only thing that would drive the fanbase over the edge.

Unless that happens, nothing will change at Celtic.

We will continue to swallow the shit they feed us.

Ross Desmond becoming Celtic Chairman will just be another mouthful of it.

This is our lot as Celtic fans.

And the only way we will see change at the club is when the grim reaper visits the people in our boardroom.

Sad, but true.

Choose Read Celtic as a ‘Preferred Source’ on Google News for quick access to the news you value.