10 Dec 2025 23:22:18
Ross Desmond's comments at the AGM will do far more damage to the PLC than he seems to understand. It is one thing to defend a strategy or explain financial caution but it is another thing entirely to stand in front of the people who keep the club alive and accuse them of being bullies, irrational and just anti-establishment. That is not leadership. It is a complete misunderstanding of how football works and how Celtic works.
Supporters are not normal customers. They are not casual buyers who drift in and out. They are emotionally bound to the club for life. They turn up in terrible weather. They buy merchandise even when the designs are dreadful. They drag friends and family into the stadium and they defend the club everywhere they go. To attack them is to attack the very foundation of what the club sells because Celtic does not sell football alone. It sells belonging. If you insult the people who create that sense of belonging you damage the core product.
When a board member stands up and tells fans that simply wanting progress in Europe is unrealistic he is not managing expectations. He is crushing ambition. And when ambition dies it affects spending. Season ticket renewals become harder to sell. Merch sales soften. Match day income dips. If supporters feel talked down to they stop buying what the club is offering. This has happened to clubs across Europe and the results are always the same. Decline.
There was already a feeling among fans that the board communicates poorly. The AGM was a chance to close that gap and show respect. Instead Ross Desmond turned a communication issue into a trust crisis. Once supporters lose trust you do not regain it with a tidy statement or a carefully planned interview. It becomes something that affects every aspect of the PLC from attendance figures to commercial sales to investor confidence. Even sponsors become wary when a club appears to be fighting with its own fan base.
What he has also done is hand strength to every critic of the board. Before the AGM the frustration was loud but scattered. Now it is unified. Supporters groups that rarely agree are suddenly aligned because they all feel insulted. That shift in energy will not fade quickly. Conflict from a board member has given the opposition legitimacy and momentum.
This all looks amateur at a corporate level as well. Investors expect calm judgement, not emotional outbursts. When leadership appears thin skinned or confrontational it raises questions about stability. That can affect the share price because uncertainty always does. A PLC that attacks its own customers looks insecure and unstable and that is the last thing investors want to see.
The biggest mistake of all is forgetting that football clubs cannot simply replace their customers. A supermarket can. A streaming service can. A football club cannot. Supporters are not replaceable. They are the identity of the club. When leadership alienates them it is damaging something that cannot be rebuilt with money.
There is now virtually no way back from this for Ross Desmond or the board. Supporters can forgive mistakes in recruitment. They can forgive poor managerial decisions. They can forgive years without trophies if they feel respected and valued. What they cannot forgive is open contempt. Once a board member labels sections of the support as a problem the relationship is broken. No apology will fix that. No media spin will fix that. The trust that once existed has been shattered and trust does not return when it has been publicly thrown aside. The board has crossed a line that supporters never forget. When the people running the club show they do not understand or respect the support the only real solution is change at the top. Until that happens the divide will remain and the damage will continue to grow.
11 Dec 2025 00:29:57
Excellent Post ?.
11 Dec 2025 06:29:03
Jesus Joe,
11 Dec 2025 07:29:57
WeeJoe is fine. ?.
11 Dec 2025 08:03:33
Well Said Joe.
11 Dec 2025 08:58:17
Sums it up perfectly weejoe ?.
11 Dec 2025 10:43:11
Weejoe ?
☘️ ☘️ ☘️.
11 Dec 2025 14:25:25
I can't argue with that Joe. Well written.
11 Dec 2025 16:23:21
Jesus Joe, you wrote all that just to say get rid of the board ???.