The Celtic Fans Collective met on Tuesday evening following the closure of the January transfer window. After a two hour debate it was agreed that there would be a call for a boycott of this Saturday’s Scottish Cup match against Dundee at Celtic Park.
It was noted by the Collective that they had reached out to Brian Wilson who made a call for unity when he was announced as the interim successor to Peter Lawwell as Celtic Chairman. On Tuesday night the meeting was told that the Collective had offered Wilson three suitable dates for a meeting but no response had been forthcoming from him.
That changed this evening with Brian Wilson sitting down with Gerry McCulloch for an interview designed to avoid the threat of a boycott with promises of meetings with supporters organisations. All of the supporters organisations such as The Celtic Supporters Association (CSA), the Affiliation of Registered Celtic Supporters Clubs (ARCSC), the Association of Irish Celtic Supporters Clubs (AICSC) and others have reached out to the club in recent weeks requesting meeting with none forthcoming.
Brian Wilson did NOT specifically mention whether his plan is to deal with the CSA. AICSC and the Affiliation separately or whether he plans to meet with the wider body of Celtic supporters, namely the Celtic Fans Collective of which all of the above organisations are members.
As things stand we know that he has reached out to some if not all supporters groups listed above.
Also in the Collective are hundreds of individual supporters clubs plus the ultra groups, The Green Brigade and Bhoys Celtic plus the vast majority of the Celtic fan media including The Celtic Star.
After a month of silence from Celtic it now looks like there are going to be discussions, whether meaning of not remains to be seem. Wilson did talk about wanting a ‘full stadium’ again and that doesn’t happen unless all seats are occupied to fill it and its the ongoing indefinite ban of the Green Brigade that, as a matter of fact, prevents a full stadium result to be delivered.
Lifting that ban is non-negotiable and that is as good a place as any for the interim Chairman to start. Yes, there has to be conversations about following the rules and as we suggested on The Celtic Star yesterday, the clever thing for Celtic to do is to delegate this to the Celtic Fans Collective to effectively control its own members.
The censorship ban on the Celtic fan media is a disgrace but as we stated yesterday it is much less significant than supporters – of all ages – paying their season tickets only to be denied access to the stadium – because an incident happened that has already been dealt with by the courts.
The Celtic Women’s team has suffered disproportionately because of the club’s unbelievably petty decision to widen the ban to the women’s game. Our coverage has effectively stopped and at the weekend both The Celtic Star and the Cynic applied to theRangers (who are usually much better to deal with than Celtic have ever been) but were denied access to the Sky Sports Cup semi-final which Celtic lost on penalties after a 3-3 draw. Why did theRangers decide to withdraw access to Cynic Women and The Celtic Star, the two outlets that have covered the women’s game more thoroughly than the rest of the Scottish media put together?
Maybe it’s me who is the cynic on this one. The result was ZERO coverage but we actually have around 70 really good photographs from the match that had no coverage to go alongside on The Celtic Star. Meanwhile Claire at Cynic Women (no coverage of mens team just Celtic FC Women) posted an emotional statement this week basically stating that she’s having to stop after five years of sold coverage because of the bans.
🚨Celtic FC Women Coverage Update
We have an update from @CynicWomen on the coverage of Celtic FC Women and how it has been impacted by the Fan Media ban.
Available ⬇️https://t.co/6yoZ5tqEJL pic.twitter.com/9Pf5nGtEwO
— The Cynic (@90MinuteCynic) February 3, 2026
If Celtic are going to be a modern club in the modern world they need to have a functioning women’s team and to grow that they need to have the engagement of the Celtic support. It was through sites like The Celtic Star and Cynic Women – and also through the support of The Green Brigade – that Celtic Park achieved a record breaking attendance for the women’s game in Scotland at Celtic Park and had double the size of theRangers support in the 2023 Women’s Scottish Cup Final (see pic below).
Two weeks ago Celtic were playing an SWPL match which they won 1-0 and you could watch on the BBC Sports website, where the number of views were shown. The highest it reached was 72. The attendance at the game looked even less than that for a Celtic team being starved of the coverage it needs to grow. No media conferences for that team now because the regulars are banned and the MSM only attend when it suits.
Many times I’ve done media conferences with the Celtic FC Women manager as the ONLY journalist turning up. Claire has been in that position too.
Mr Wilson should arrange to meet the Celtic fan media sites who were on the rota and to the best of my knowledge were all abiding by the club’s rules, acting professionally and giving the club no problems whatsoever until THEY themselves pulled the rug from under the carpet shortly after the Celtic Fans Collective was formed.
Brian Wilson referred back to his earlier interview with McCulloch when he was announced as Interim Chairman. He said: “When I did that interview I spoke about unity and I spoke specifically about unity within the stadium.
“I don’t expect the issues to go away suddenly but what I did ask for was to get unity behind the team. Let’s sort these issues. I am in no way dismissing them or marginalising them. We want to engage with them.
“But short term it is imperative to support the team and it’s up to each individual to make a decision on whether a boycott insider or outside of the stadium helps that.
“What I can say is that I do accept there hasn’t been enough engagement as I would have liked over the past month for a range of reasons, but mainly because of the focus of the transfer window.
“What I can say is that we have reached out to all fan groups and we hope these meetings will take place over the next week. There is no reluctance on my part to engage and I hope that can be put that into practise soon.
“Unity in the ground is one thing. We won’t agree on everything to do with these issues but we can talk about them. But don’t let it distract from what’s going on inside the stadium. That’s all I’m asking for.
“What I want to see is a full Celtic Park with a great atmosphere and everyone getting behind the team.”
Here’s Brian Wilson’s interview with Celtic TV. Have a listen…
One can only hope Brian Wilson has experience in dealing with little crybaby infants who have never been taught how to behave, never heard the word “no” and never been scolded by their useless parents!
Thank fuck wankers like yourself are a dying breed Joe
On the flipside Joe, one can only hope that Brian Wilson has the skill set to deal with the broad church of Celtic supporters who are incredibly disillusioned by the dysfunction at the club. I for one have seen zero leadership capability from any of them, just outdated, entitled, ivory tower pontificating. A staggering example of how to alienate your only source of reliable income as an entity. It’s not just angry kids as you suggest, it is almost every Celtic fan I know, from all walks of life and all ages. We deserve so much better.
Excellently written article above by the way. Well said.
Couldn’t agree more Andy, well said!
With a club & support of the size of Celtic you will always get difference in opinion. And that’s normal. Even with these differing views most folks seem to express themselves with integrity & respect. Those few that don’t could learn a life lesson from those who do.
As for Brian Wilson’s piece to camera, my initial response is about time too! I hope it’s the first step in a very long awaited road to modernising. But the promised dialogue has to be channeled through the Collective & not used as a tool to divide by speaking only to selected organisations. There’s an easy first fix here & our Board are the only ones that can do it. Left the bans immediately & commit to dialogue. Do that & you’ll get your full stadium.
At last, some common sense prevails, now let’s get the GB back and go all out for this season’s title and in doing so seriously piss off the corrupt Scottish establishment and their trusted 3 (Beaton, Aitken & Dickinson)
HH
I don’t understand all the protests, we, have won the last 4 leagues still in Scottish cup also still in urrope,
signed five players, great manager MON and his support team what more do you wan’t. Support the board!!!
John Hail Hail
Green huns like yourself make me want to vomit.
The wording of the “invitation” is very loose – total politician speak! Lets hope this does not extend to defining who can/cannot attend the meeting.It has been a huge piece of work to get the collective up and running, so lets not fall for divide and conquer! The CCL is the united approach we need!
Why you not reporting on the Affiliation leaving the Collective? Lying to the fans to save face is a disgrace.
We did report on it. Making up lies is the real disgrace.