When Brendan Rodgers returned to Celtic in June 2023, it was billed as a reunion of proven manager and club, a chance to reset. The board — anchored by Dermot Desmond, Peter Lawwell, and CEO Michael Nicholson — presented it as continuity. For many supporters, it looked like déjà vu.
Two and a bit years on, Celtic sit in disarray. Uninspired football, a fractured fanbase, and a board accused of arrogance bordering on contempt. Yet none of this should surprise anyone. The warning signs were there from the start — even dressed in red and white.
The Santa Moment: When the Board Learned the Trick
EARLY WARNING SIGN FOR RODGERS
The story begins with a cold afternoon in Rodgers’ first half-season back. Celtic lost at home to Heart of Midlothian. The performance was poor, the crowd restless. When the half-time whistle blew, the boos rained down. Celtic trailed 2-0, the previous week they had lost at Kilmarnock.
On the pitch at that exact moment stood not a player or coach, but a man in a Santa suit, running the club’s half-time draw. The fans’ frustration at the team, the tactics, the board’s inaction landed on him.
By the following day, the headlines had written themselves: “Celtic fans boo Santa.” The club’s briefings echoed the line. Anger, legitimate criticism of direction and investment, was turned into farce. The board escaped scrutiny by turning the fans into the villains of their own story.
I said it at the time — and have said it ever since — that was the moment Celtic lost control of their own narrative.
Later that season, when Celtic won the league, Santa was wheeled out again on trophy day. The crowd laughed, applauded, played along. Harmless fun? Not quite. The joke’s target wasn’t Santa — it was the fans. The message: You booed when told to clap. Now you’ll clap when we tell you to.
Fast Forward to autumn 2025: The Cracks Burst Open
Two seasons into Rodgers’ second spell and the illusions have worn thin. The football looks tired, recruitment uninspired, with European campaigns predictable and painful.
The fans are split. Some are finally organising, taking aim at a board that has long stopped pretending to care. Delayed walk-ins, boycotts, banners, a refusal to play along with PR gloss. Others? Still scolding their own for daring to protest, still arguing online about loyalty.
There’s no real unity because too many have become comfortable. Winning the league has become a sedative — as if that alone wipes the slate clean every year. The hierarchy know it. They’ve built the system on it. The fans carry the tradition, the heart, the history — the board cashes in season after season while treating them like background noise.
GRIM PROSPECT OF CHRISTMAS 2025
And that’s where the rot set in. It didn’t start this year — it started with the Santa farce. That was the moment the board realised they could humiliate the support and get away with it. What looked like light-hearted theatre was actually a lesson in control. The crowd’s anger became the board’s punchline, and the laughter that followed on trophy day was the sound of a fanbase being played.
Now, as the team drifts and Rodgers faces questions he can’t answer, the same boardroom sits insulated. Desmond, the absentee kingmaker; Lawwell, chairman and face of corporate continuity over ambition; Nicholson, CEO, known for his literal shoulder-shrug in meetings; and Chris McKay, whose detachment during board-level crises has become a talking point among supporters.
The fans who once booed Santa now face a choice: either learn from that day or live through it again.
Another shout for this week’s #FanDenial, as poor ‘ol Santa Claus feels the wrath of angry Celtic fans… pic.twitter.com/1eHCudbq6V
— Paddy Power (@paddypower) December 19, 2023
