In recent weeks I have been hearing from several sources that there is a wind of change blowing through the Parkhead boardroom.
These sources, who are in regular contact with senior heads in Kerrydale street, assure me that the club wants to engage with their clientele in a more meaningful way.
This could just be corporate speak:
“We have listened, and we get it ” sort of thing.
Usually, it is nothing more than PR pish.
The VAR shit show at Tynecastle could put that to the test at the upcoming AFGM.
I know several shareholders who will be attending, and they are preparing their questions.
Some of them are legacy issues from the days of Lawwellball.
However, now with VAR as part of the matchday experience, I believe that there is a clear and present danger.
It is the sort of thing that would have the Bunnet going to law.
So here is the question for the Celtic board:
Are you ok with matches being officiated by fellows who have close affiliations to the favoured franchise at Ibrox?
Moreover, this isn’t a new development.
Mr Mclean should have seen his officiating career fall off a cliff after this one in 2015.
Instead, his standing has grown.
Of course, this cultural issue with Scotland’s match officials is not new.
Back in 2010, I broke a story on here about the head of referee development Hugh Dallas.
You can read about it here in the Guardian, as that newspaper saw the significance of the scoop in terms of the impact of what was then called “new media”.
The Dallasgate story showed what was happening under the succulent noses of the Stenography Corps.
It should not have required the intervention of a card-carrying NUJ member in another country to break that story.
It certainly would not have been required in England, where they have real journalists working their football beat.
Back then, the Celtic board had a back-of-the-bus and bottom-line attitude to the dignified hegemony on Planet Fitba.
Now VAR opens the door to more of these…ahem…errors.
If the Celtic board are really up for a spot of listening, then they had better know that it will take more than a Rory Bremner quip and a statement seeking “clarification” from the SFA to suffice this time around.
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A crowd funded legal action would be the way to drag this biased cheating to the fore. There must be a Paul McBride type lawyer out there who could get this rolling. I’m sure most Celtic fans would support this. We need to do something.
Yeah time is was called out
I do hope your sources are on the money, Phil.
I’m not expecting anything from our Board – which is largely unchanged, [even with Nicholson for PL].
I only expect the Board to play PR moves before/after the AGM.
The only reason our Board would pretend to listen – now – to the support could be to soften the expected opposition to PL being appointed Chairman…?
In terms of pushing for meaningful improvement to match officiating, I expect the noise will actually come from outside of Glasgow. Maybe e.g. Aberdeen or Hearts are seriously disadvantaged by ref and/or VAR related mistakes – and decide to join forces with other clubs to force the SFA to pull the finger out?
I don’t think either CFC or sevco will rock the boat. 🙁
Maybe Mr Bankier will take on the referees as he was aware of them last year and instead of a wee meeting at mcdermid Park he gets a meeting with the sfa and their head of incompetent referees Crawford Allen and take a stand against the blatant cheating that happens every week so before he leaves celtic do something for the club instead of one of the men who knew about the 5 way agreement but lied to the celtic support along with Liewell.