If Peter Lawwell intended his reluctant statement to act as a rallying call to the Celtic support it certainly worked. Criticism of the CEO and the club board has intensified since he shared 234 words of executive wisdom.
Those that like to skim the surface of topics will look in from the outside in awe at the over-reaction of supporters on the back of a 2-0 defeat from Ross County. With the club feeding their favoured media messengers with inside info on condition that the ‘baying mob’ are demonised it has been job done in terms of manipulating the message through deflection.
Unfortunately for Lawwell and his cronies the Celtic support is a cynical lot. It may have been almost 30 years ago but the Kelly’s and White’s were toppled from power when generations of supporters had previously accepted that that was just the way it was. Those memories and the spirit flickers on.
The share structure of the club makes another board-room coup highly unlikely but after years of playing on the #celticfamily the lifestyle of back-slapping that the elderly, white and as far as political declarations are known Unionist board is under serious threat.
Despite their self-declared genius they really aren’t as wonderful as they think. Sparta Prague, Cluj and Ferencvaros have sharper minds in the boardroom even if they don’t have a huge, easily led support to milk for tickets and merchandise.
Every season there are rumbles from supporters about not renewing Season Tickets before they are reluctantly brought in line followed by the anger over getting knocked out of the Champions League qualifiers by some moderately organised east European club that retains a little footballing ambition.
A number of issues have been simmering away, many of them summed up in the brilliant post from Quiet Assassin on Kerrydale Street.
The Quiet Assasin on KDS pic.twitter.com/IFX4r1EzV2
— Timposter (@Tim_Poster) December 2, 2020
The executive of the club has disowned the fans and the culture of the club as they have grown more and more distant.
Their compliance with a hostile media ever eager to put the boot into supporters has again been highlighted this week with Keith Jackson and Jim White fed exclusives. While fan media is excluded David Tanner is invited to log-in for the club media conference.
Hopes that the Old Firm dependency would be killed off in 2012 proved sadly misguided, if anything the executive of the club is even more all-in with their friends in the Tribute Act across the city. Earlier today a Park’s of Hamilton coach took the team to Glasgow Airport for a flight to Milan. Resolution 12 from the 2013 AGM hasn’t gone away, Lawwell asked for a smoking gun for a Dougie Dougie moment. Gifted it he has tried to keep the hand-grenade locked out of sight but key players have acquired forensic evidence, finger-prints are all over it.
Lawwell and his boardroom colleagues might congratulate themselves on managing the message but they couldn’t be more wrong. Their reaction to Sunday’s defeat with a shrug of the shoulders and nod to their messengers has back-fired and consolidated dissent.
Things aren’t likely to get any better in Milan tomorrow but the real wrath of the support is already being felt at the commercial levers of the club, when the TEN starts to drift out of sight recent signs of dissent will be mild.
An online AGM and Virtual Season Tickets won’t keep the malcontents at bay forever.
