Martin O’Neill is perfectly entitled to his view that pulling on a balaclava, throwing tennis balls at Dermot Desmond at St Andrews and embarrassing the Irishman in front of his golfing cronies is not what Celtic is about.
He’s perfectly entitled to conjure up memories of the days of 80,000 punters – or 1,880,000, depending on who you listen to – travelling to Seville for the 2003 UEFA Cup final as an example of how things are better when everyone is on the same page.
The only problem is those days are distant history.
Back then, Celtic felt they could take on anyone in Europe. They did take on allcomers. When Bobo Balde took a rush of blood to the head early in extra-time against FC Porto in that final and got himself sent-off, the feeling for those of us in the ground, at least, was that momentum was moving in the Parkhead side’s favour and a second European trophy was on the way.
If you’re going to look at what unfolded at the Old Course and say ‘that’s not Celtic’, there’s a need to consider what else Celtic should or shouldn’t be right now. A need to ask precisely why this absurd, quite surreal, juncture has been reached.
Contrary to the highs and expectations of 2003, the Scottish champions have become nothing other than a long-running joke at European level.
They haven’t won a knockout tie in any UEFA competition proper since 2004. They’ve been dumped out of the Champions League qualifiers in their last six attempts – and lost out on hundreds of millions of pounds – to Kairat Almaty, LASK, Cluj, Midjtylland, AEK Athens and Ferencvaros.
Going to Benfica on Europa League duty on Thursday, having just been humbled at home by Ferencvaros again, has the smell of annihilation about it.
Is that Celtic?
Martin O’Neill is caught between the club board and the dissenting supporters
Chief executive Michael ‘Mr Invisible’ Nicholson is rarely spotted outwith AGMs and suchlike and almost never opens himself up to genuine public questioning. He did state in a meeting with fans in October 2025, though, that the European record in recent times was ‘satisfactory’.
Is that Celtic?
O’Neill was not given a replacement for £22million midfielder Arne Engels before the Champions League capitulation to LASK. Brendan Rodgers left first time around after throwing mud at the board over recruitment prior to AEK. No direct top-level replacements for Kyogo Furuhashi or Nicolas Kuhn were signed before Almaty.
Is that Celtic?
After starting with £30million of recruitment on Kasper Hogh, Camilo Duran and Haissem Hassan, the club ended up scrambling around in scattergun fashion in the dying embers of the transfer window just gone to bring in four loan deals, a Dutch kid who doesn’t play and a right-back from Feyenoord who has barely been seen either. The club ended a window in which large-scale recruitment was needed making something like £15million of profit following the sales of Engels, Daizen Maeda, Reo Hatate, Maik Nawrocki, Luis Palma and Johnny Kenny.
Is that Celtic?
There has been no full-time chairman since Peter Lawwell stepped down at the turn of the year. Brian Wilson, a 77-year-old on the board for over 20 years, has been an ‘interim’ option ever since. Likewise, Paul Tisdale has not been replaced as head of football operations after leaving in January and no one appears to have any idea if he ever will be.
Is that Celtic?
When Brendan Rodgers left, major shareholder Desmond was allowed to shove out a statement on the official club website late on a Saturday night that was widely viewed as a character assassination of the former manager. It was unprecedented in its tone. Fans are now salivating over Rodgers’ return to Glasgow at the end of the season for a show at Royal Concert Hall in which he is expected to exercise his right to reply.
Is that Celtic? It’s certainly pure pantomime.
Desmond’s son Ross railed against sections of the support at the club AGM last year before it was shut down during scenes of disorder. Desmond junior also confessed the Parkhead club were pretty much raising the white flag in Europe due to ‘an enormous change in the financial landscape’ since 2003. Similar chaos is expected at this year’s AGM as a result of fans believing the club have failed to deliver on signings and promises of improved communication.
Major shareholder Dermot Desmond had tennis balls thrown at him during the Dunhill Links golf
Is that Celtic?
Celtic have won 14 out of the last 15 titles. They have advantages over Rangers in terms of finances and infrastructure. They also have a 74-year-old man as manager, who hadn’t been in a dugout for six years before answering an SOS from Desmond to replace Rodgers last season, and ought to have left last summer after getting over the line in a title race three minutes away from being handed to Hearts. Last January, another chaotic window, he was trying to cobble transfers together on his phone along with assistant Shaun Maloney.
Is that Celtic? Or, at least, a modern-day Celtic with a proper vision of the future?
The list of issues could go on and on. And the mayhem never stops.
On the field, it is hard to know what lies in wait. Performances in the two Old Firm derby defeats before the break and the Europa League loss to Ferencvaros were atrocious.
Callum McGregor admitted the team looks ‘a little bit broken’. O’Neill switched up his tactics in the league derby with Rangers and it didn’t work.
O’Neill really has to show he can get a grip on things after disappearing into the ether saying he was going to consider his future and then failing to clarify what that meant for 16 days before doing some soft-soap video for club TV.
That, alone, showed Celtic still don’t have the communications with their fanbase anywhere near right. And that’s before we even get to the latest Saturday-night website ramble having a go at those who targeted Desmond on the putting green.
For starters, it would have been exactly what those responsible for the protest would have dreamed of. It took their message to a nationwide audience and made it look, again, like Desmond – whether it’s the case or not – was hijacking official channels.
Cutting off all talks with the Celtic Fans Collective is only going to heighten tensions too. These guys don’t just represent the ultra mob in the corner. All sorts of supporters groups and podcasters have signed up.
Their protest might not be in the image of what O’Neill believes Celtic ought to be, but can’t he see their actions are a cry for help, a desperate plea to be listened to by a club that looks absolutely nothing like what they expect either?
Derek McInnes has done well to get Rangers back challenging after a nightmare start to the season of his own. That was helped by big investment by the Ibrox board towards the end of the window and a win over Kilmarnock on Saturday will really turn up the heat by sending them top.
Celtic chief executive Michael Nicholson rarely puts his head above the parapet
O’Neill should have walked away from this on a rose petal-covered sea of goodwill at the end of last term. He chose not to. And he’s now going to end up caught in the middle of a campaign destined to be scarred from now until May by sheer toxicity.
He might not want to put himself up as some sort of peacemaker any longer, but there’s no escaping the stress this is going to put him under.
He can’t take the Rodgers road out either by going against his paymasters. He’s Desmond’s man. That’s as clear as the nose on your face.
It would be a tragedy if his legacy ends up tarnished by this civil war about to move into new territory, but it’s a distinct possibility. One or two bad results and the ugliness will only increase tenfold – and O’Neill should have seen this coming.
Like it or lump it, this is Celtic. And no one inside the club looks like they have the inclination to sort it out as the invitation to remember what the club really was, the 60th anniversary of Lisbon 1967, draws ever closer – with an Oasis concert in an ageing stadium fine for music acts, but in desperate need of being upgraded for big-time, modern-day football.
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