{"id":436958,"date":"2026-02-20T23:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T23:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/436958\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T23:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T23:58:09","slug":"celtic-chairman-seeks-end-to-debilitating-conflict-with-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/436958\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtic chairman seeks end to &#8216;debilitating&#8217; conflict with fans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Last night was deeply disappointing for the club in many respects,&#8221; Wilson said. &#8220;This started with an orchestrated disruption of the game, causing a delay to an important match.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Over the past two weeks, I have met with a range of supporters&#8217; groups and individual supporters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I have met in good faith with representatives of the Green Brigade and was hopeful that progress could have been made; indeed this remains the case. I also met in good faith with representatives of the Celtic Fans Collective.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;When I came into this role, I asked for unity inside the stadium to support the team while trying to resolve other issues. I want to see suspensions lifted and differences set aside, but this cannot be unconditional.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Wilson had taken over as interim chairman after former chief executive Peter Lawwell stood down in December citing &#8220;abuse and threats&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Relations appeared to be thawing in January when the Celtic Fans Collective praised Wilson&#8217;s appeal for unity and appealed for common ground while again calling for changes to the club&#8217;s hierarchy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The latest tennis ball protest led to criticism from team boss O&#8217;Neill.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Last night&#8217;s disruption and the reasoning behind it illustrate the difficulty we face and have repeatedly had to contend with,&#8221; Wilson added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This is not intended to deflect from other issues that affect the club and are fully recognised. However, the possibility of further disruptions needs to be addressed urgently. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Surely the priority must be to give Martin and our players every opportunity to achieve their objectives within the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;On that basis, I will continue to seek an end to this debilitating and unnecessary atmosphere of conflict.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8220;Last night was deeply disappointing for the club in many respects,&#8221; Wilson said. &#8220;This started with an orchestrated&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-436958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}