Vindictive- Michael Nicholson is called out in new Green Brigade dispute

The Green Brigade has labelled Michael Nicholson as vindictive after he refused to co-operate with the Ultras group for the upcoming SWPL matches to be staged at Celtic Park.

Last season the Green Brigade used two SWPL fixtures to promote The Green Wall which saw the centre of the Jock Stein Lower Stand swamped wit colour and noise to back the Celtic Woman’s team.

Normally the SWPL fixtures are played out in front of around 1,000 fans at Airdrie, the two matches at Celtic Park attracted five figure attendances.

When Celtic announced that two SWPL matches would be staged at Celtic Park the North Curve (Green Brigade) account on X/Twitter was right behind the decision but this morning the mood changed.

Despite our best intentions and efforts, the club has refused to facilitate The Celtic End for the upcoming Celtic FC Women matches at Celtic Park.

This is in stark contrast to similar matches last May where fan reps worked constructively with the club to promote the matches and draw record crowds.

This decision has been taken by Michael Nicholson, CEO, and Chris McKay, CFO. It is vindictive against the concept of The Celtic End, the fan groups behind the idea and the thousands of fans who want to see some level of consideration given to a goal-end standing section to rejuvenate a stale Celtic Park.

Shamefully, Michael Nicholson and Chris McKay would prefer for Celtic FC Women to be detrimented than have another positive advert for The Celtic End. Ironically, this decision contradicts the club statement following the cancellation of away tickets at the recent SWPL Glasgow Derby which decried others undermining the promotion and progress of the women’s game.

At a critical time in both the men’s and women’s seasons, we have no desire to engage in a public spat which may distract positive support for both teams. For this reason, as well as for unreasonable obstacles, it is regrettable that we will not attend the upcoming Celtic FC Women matches at Celtic Park.

That statement confirms that there are still tensions between the boardroom and the Ultras Group, earlier this season the club disabled Season Tickets and withdrew access to away match tickets for the Green Brigade.

With 11 days to go there is still no word over whether Celtic will get a ticket allocation to the Glasgow Derby on April 7, Celtic will host a post-split Derby match which could be played as early as April 27.