Opinion: Faithful Through and Through – Fine but shouldn’t be exploited

Jock stein once said “football without fans is nothing”, sadly it’s now been replaced with ‘balance sheets without fans is nothing’…

Celtic are in the coming days expected to release their yearly financial results and it’s anticipated that it will paint a very healthy picture indeed, and don’t be surprised if the bank account hasn’t got an incredible £100m in there gathering gold dust for the PLC shareholders.

That’s all well and good for the money men, but to us ordinary supporters it will be yet another kick in the teeth. We pay good money, season after season, whether it’s through purchasing season tickets, Champions league packages, or merchandise purchases, we contribute a very healthy portion to the clubs coffers.

That ever swelling bank balance wouldn’t look as healthy if it wasn’t for the contributions of the fully committed Celtic support. The ordinary working man and woman, so Jock Stein was right all those years ago when he proclaimed “football without fans is nothing”.

Perhaps it should now read as “ balance sheets without fans is nothing” for that’s all our current owners care about, that ever growing bank balance which secures them a healthy dividend when it comes to dishing out the bonuses or giving jobs to their boys.

In a similar way to the fat cats of the energy companies who charge over the top prices from the hard pressed public, but still have the nerve to release record profits, they get richer at the expense of those less fortunate. That’s what our club custodians seem to be doing and it stinks from the high heavens.

We part with our hard earned cash year after year, but get shortchanged in return. They are laughing at us, make no mistake. Perhaps it’s time we started to take action against those cashing in on our naivety. Then we’d hold the aces, it’s time we remembered that. Being faithful through and through is fine but where has it’s got us?

Just an Ordinary Bhoy