Martin O’Neill replaced the sacked Wilfried Nancy<\/a>, who lost four league games inside a month to leave the champions in third place in the William Hill Premiership.<\/p>\nBut the umbrella group remains intent on achieving personnel change in key executive roles.<\/p>\n
Wilson has shown willingness to address concerns during his two public statements since replacing Peter Lawwell on a temporary basis last month.<\/p>\n
The former Labour MP and UK Government minister admitted on Monday that the managerial change did “not address every issue” but appealed for “unity within the stadium to create the best possible environment for the manager and team to launch the fightback”.<\/p>\n
Wilson had previously given the clearest indication that Celtic were going through a “strategic” review to undergo a “process of change”.<\/p>\n
The removal of Nancy and head of football operations Paul Tisdale, plus the return of O’Neill, will take the edge off fan anger that was evident during and after Saturday’s 3-1 home defeat by Rangers.<\/p>\n
But ongoing talk of boycotts and indefinite suspension of the Green Brigade, who dispute the version of events which led to their ban, threaten to undermine O’Neill’s attempts to restore a positive atmosphere ahead of Saturday’s visit of Dundee United.<\/p>\n
The relationship between the board and wider fan base has spiralled over the past 12 months amid a series of events including two poor transfer windows which saw Celtic’s attacking options diminished; failure to qualify for the Champions League; principal shareholder Dermot Desmond’s confrontational statements towards departed manager Brendan Rodgers and board critics; an aborted annual general meeting; and the short but calamitous reign of Nancy, who lost six out of eight games.<\/p>\n
“Where we do agree with a board member is in interim chairman Brian Wilson’s call for unity.”<\/p>\n
The Celtic Fans Collective stated its desire to “move towards a period of reconciliation and systemic change”.<\/p>\n
“Where we do agree with a board member is in interim chairman Brian Wilson’s call for unity,” a statement read.<\/p>\n
“This has been sorely lacking all season and Celtic can only reach its true potential where there is unity across the club: board, manager, players and, crucially, the Celtic support.<\/p>\n
“This is something that all fans want to help push the team in the race for the league title. However, that can only come though a process of mediation, contrition and reconciliation.<\/p>\n
“We are calling on Brian Wilson and representatives of Celtic Football Club to meet with Celtic Fans Collective on the spirit of reconciliation and a genuine desire to achieve unity.”<\/p>\n
However, the group issued three caveats, calling for modernisation and effective communication of the club’s football strategy including merit-based appointments.<\/p>\n
The statement also demanded a reset of the executive team, arguing that chief executive Michael Nicholson and finance officer Chris McKay should step aside “given their stated responsibility for the appointments” of Tisdale and Nancy.<\/p>\n
Representatives also sought the reinstatement of the Green Brigade and fan media credentials and for engagement with supporter groups.<\/p>\n
The statement added: “We are keen to get behind the manager and players given the importance of the months to come.<\/p>\n
“However it’s worth noting that 142 active supporter buses contacted us over the weekend urging the steering group to call for a boycott of an upcoming home match.<\/p>\n
“Fan anger has reached a breaking point and the underlying causes of this must be addressed.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Celtic board face major decisions on how to achieve some form of unity during the title run-in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-232956","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}