Representatives of the Celtic Fans Collective met with Celtic Football Club on Tuesday the 22nd of September at Celtic Park.
Representing Celtic FC at the meeting were:
George Campbell
John-Paul Taylor
Jennifer McGrath
The Celtic Fans Collective was represented by:
Alison Docherty
Paul Quigley
We structured the meeting around:
- How the meeting was arranged
- The Collective’s wider criticisms of the Club
- The critique of Celtic Connect
- The Collective’s alternative proposal
- A timeline for further engagement
The meeting followed a commitment from Brian Wilson that Celtic would engage with the Collective. In anticipation of that discussion, the Collective undertook detailed work on a proposed Fan Advisory Board and sought to arrange a meeting from June onwards.
Instead, Celtic published its Celtic Connect consultation online without discussion. It was promoted with little fanfare and the Club appeared reluctant to issue reminders to supporters. For a consultation intended to improve engagement, remarkably little effort seemed to be made to encourage engagement. A meeting was eventually offered the day after the defeat at Ibrox.
We placed Celtic Connect within the wider context of a culture supporters increasingly associate with compliance, nepotism and a lack of transparency. We also raised the Club’s failure to learn from last season’s mistakes, both on and off the park, and the growing disconnection many supporters feel from those running Celtic. The Club acknowledges that communication and engagement must improve, but its approach to Celtic Connect has done little to demonstrate that it has understood the problem.
Our central criticism of the Celtic Connect proposal is that a body cannot credibly represent supporters if the club appoints each supporter representative and retains significant control over its leadership and agenda.
We explained that this position is supported by:
The 2021 Fan-Led Review of Football Governance, which warned that club control over appointments and agendas can weaken supporter engagement.
Football Supporters’ Association guidance, which rejects clubs hand-picking the people intended to represent and scrutinise them.
Established supporter-engagement models across Scotland, England and mainland Europe, which demonstrate workable alternatives involving supporter elections, nominations by recognised fan organisations, independent oversight of selection and representation based on meaningful supporter constituencies.
University of Glasgow research involving 7,791 Celtic supporters, which found substantial support for a representative and institutionally protected Fan Advisory Board.
Our wider criticism was that Celtic Connect reflects many of the problems it is supposed to address. The Club would control the selection of every supporter representative, without clear published criteria explaining how applicants would be assessed or chosen, while retaining considerable influence over the chair and agenda. Most representation would be organised according to where supporters sit rather than how the support is actually constituted, with insufficient consideration given to its diverse needs, experiences and demographics. The model also offers no guaranteed voice for established supporter organisations and lacks clear institutional protections against the Club changing or withdrawing it. This risks creating a managed consultation forum rather than an independent body capable of representing supporters, raising difficult issues and holding the Club to account.
We then presented the Collective’s alternative model. This would give representatives a genuine mandate through supporter nominations and democratic elections. It would also provide greater protection over representation, chairing,
agenda-setting, transparency and accountability.
Celtic FC reps appeared to recognise that aspects of our proposal had merit. However, there was clear reluctance around democratic selection and whether elections were necessary. Some exchanges were challenging, but the meeting remained professional and the Collective position was presented robustly. We concluded by asking Celtic to commit to continued engagement with the Collective before finalising its model. George Campbell did not provide a firm commitment, but John-Paul Taylor agreed to provide a response to this quickly.
We will update members with any developments in due course.