Yesterday was AGM day, a time when those of us who care about the club get a chance to put our views across to those who don’t.<\/p>\n
And don’t give me any of that nonsense about how they are all Celtic fans , and they have our best interests at heart.<\/p>\n
Or any of that crap about how they are in it for the club.<\/p>\n
Yesterday they proved that they weren’t, and they proved, in what can only be described as a Gerald Ratner moment, that they don’t give a toss about the fans either.<\/p>\n
We are being taken for granted.<\/p>\n
Celtic, as expected, said they were not going to sign up to the Living Wage Standard, despite paying a living wage to all the full time staff. This is because some of the contractors don’t pay it, and although i agree that its not for the club, or company, to tell others what they should pay, this is one of the factors they should take into consideration when awarding these contracts.<\/p>\n
Not entirely unexpected, but a shift from what the club stands for.<\/p>\n
And to me, what the club stands for is one of the resons that it’s had fifty years of support from me.<\/p>\n
Emotional, practical and financial.<\/p>\n
Then Iain Bankier took to the stage in defence of his colleague Lord Livingston, claiming he had been<\/p>\n
subject to a torrent of utterly base personal abuse conducted over social media over recent weeks\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018The messages posted, in quite a few cases are criminally racist and in all cases the vocabulary chosen is base and highly abusive.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018And what sickens me to the core is that the campaign is conducted in the name of (Celtic founder) Brother Walfrid.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018Ian Livingston is a consummately able business executive. We are grateful that he is prepared to devote his time and considerable talents to the affairs of this club.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n The fact that he also happens to be a member of the House of Lords creates no conflict of interest with the business of Celtic.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018We are a football club. We play football – and we are good at it. Our fans come from every quarter of society and share the common bond of supporting the team.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018We are not a conduit for political statements and campaigns. No fan or section of fans has the right to set up a stall that proclaims political intolerance in the name of what they invariably cite as their club.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018Our club is not available to anyone for that purpose.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018I condemn this activity and appeal to you to see it for what it is because intolerance soon leads to hatred and hatred leads to a lot worse as we well know.\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n None of the racist and abusive “messages ” were offered as evidence.<\/p>\n No charges or complaints were made at the time.<\/p>\n All we have here is someone adopting the Conservative party policy of deflection and , er, lies.<\/p>\n Later, he issued a statement to try to play down his words,<\/p>\n \u2018I have not branded our supporters racist and it is outrageous to suggest that I would ever do that,\u2019 it read.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018I was only referring to a small number of specific comments which have been made on social media, which I believe are unacceptable, and I know Celtic supporters would agree with me.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n Accusing someone of racism , or anti semitism, is the default position of right wing governments all over the world. A connection i made that saddens me where Celtic are concerned.<\/p>\n And as for us making unacceptable comments ?<\/p>\n \nWell, he got that wrong. As far as i can see there’s only one person making unacceptable comments.<\/p>\n Bankier.<\/p>\n I don’t agree with him, and several others don’t either.<\/p>\n And I do not want my club represented in any way, shape or form by someone who bandies such accusations about, especially with no evidence.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n For me , Celtic is a club like no other.<\/p>\n In recent weeks it has become just like all the rest.<\/p>\n The support remains magnificent, as the foodbank collection at todays game will show.<\/p>\n Why Peter Lawwell allowed Bankier to make such claims is a mystery, and I’m not going to pontificate on any behind the scenes politics.<\/p>\n Because, this morning, I realised I don’t care.<\/p>\n We’ve lords voting for tax credit cuts for the poor, and when he’s criticised the chairman comes out and calls us racist ?<\/p>\n Think about it for a minute.<\/p>\n This is Celtic.<\/p>\n We’re supposed to be the good guys.<\/p>\n \n I’m done.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Until that lot have gone, I’m not stepping foot inside Celtic Park again.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n I’m not spending another thin dime on any merchandise, and I’m going to try not to bother with results.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The last one will be difficult, it’s hard to break a habit.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n But fuck ’em.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n They don’t give a toss about us, so why should I give a toss about them ?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \n \n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday was AGM day, a time when those of us who care about the club get a chance to put our views across to those…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":8177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/etims.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/racist.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2J7If-27S","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8176"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8178,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8176\/revisions\/8178"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}