{"id":364217,"date":"2025-12-22T19:53:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T19:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/364217\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T19:53:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T19:53:20","slug":"martin-oneill-shares-honest-celtic-board-verdict-that-might-upset-people-amid-surging-fan-tensions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/364217\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin O’Neill shares honest Celtic board verdict that might ‘upset’ people amid surging fan tensions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chairman Peter Lawwell is leaving Celtic Park amid ongoing anger aimed at the board by sections of the Hoops’ support\"FormerFormer Celtic boss Martin O’Neill<\/p>\n

Celtic legend Martin O’Neill<\/a> has reminded irked supporters over the success the Parkhead board has achieved over the decades as anger ramps up.<\/p>\n

During his interim stint in charge, O’Neill witnessed the tensions boil over first hand over at the Glasgow giants AGM with shareholders protesting against the board before chairman Peter Lawwell called a halt to proceedings. The dispute rumbled on with the Celtic Fan Collective demanding answers to questions<\/a> that were not put to the decision-makers in the curtailed summit.<\/p>\n

Since then, Lawwell has announced he will leave his role at Parkhead while fan protests have continued – including a protest before the clash with Aberdeen as Wilfried Nancy <\/a>secured his first win. However, large sections of the Celtic Park stands remained empty throughout the 3-1 win.<\/p>\n

Asked by Jim White on talkSPORT if Nancy’s win could be a step towards cooling the heat from the support, the 73-year-old said: \u201cBig win. Big, big win.<\/p>\n

“Really important. When you aren\u2019t winning football matches, it doesn\u2019t matter what club you are at; the pressure mounts on you. And this was an enormous win, to get a couple of late goals as well. They deserved to win the game.<\/p>\n

“But Aberdeen, with ten men, that would have been, if they had held on for a draw, it would have been pretty poor news. But they deserved to win, and they got the late goals, and well done to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was then pressed on the latest action by the Celtic Fan Collective before the win over the Dons. O’Neill said: “I was at an AGM some weeks ago that descended into chaos, really, and that’s really unfortunate because Celtic Football Club has been unified for a long, long time, maybe since Jock Stein’s days and maybe before that.<\/p>\n

“There was an intimidation at Celtic Park, because the crowd forced that, and this discourse between board and supporters will have to end at some stage.<\/p>\n

\"CelticCeltic fans hold up a banner which reads ‘one down, more to go’ (Image: SNS Group)<\/p>\n

\u201cThis might really upset a lot of Celtic <\/a>fans in this sense that there has been great success over the last 20-odd years, 38 trophies.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes you can have a dip, it happens and it happened to Celtic before then. In the 90s, I think they won maybe three trophies in 10 years or whatever the case may be.<\/p>\n

\u201cCeltic will come again but Celtic will come more quickly, if there is a sort of a spirit there, a togetherness, and that has got to come.”<\/p>\n

White then discussed the abuse detailed by Lawwell<\/a> after he announced he was leaving Celtic Park. O’Neill went on: “You can be frustrated as a football fan, you can, but please, taking it out in the manner in which they\u2019ve done, as Peter mentions, the abuse is \u2018intolerable\u2019, and it is strong.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it gets to your family, listen, you\u2019ve got to stop, you\u2019ve got to really, really stop and think about this here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chairman Peter Lawwell is leaving Celtic Park amid ongoing anger aimed at the board by sections of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[124829,179317,71705,140342,81301,81299,40481,403,99,152829],"class_list":{"0":"post-364217","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-aberdeen-fc","9":"tag-celtic-fans-collective","10":"tag-celtic-fc","11":"tag-martin-oneill","12":"tag-michael-nicholson","13":"tag-peter-lawwell","14":"tag-scottish-premiership","15":"tag-soccer","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-wilfried-nancy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}