Celtic Supporter Liaison Officer John Paul Taylor is not just a fan doing a tough job. He is an employee — first and foremost, a member of staff at Celtic Football Club.
What happened to him at the meeting on February 18th is not just another PR disaster. It is a massive corporate scandal.
It exposes a fundamental failure of duty of care by the Celtic hierarchy.
This board does not possess basic corporate decency.
The £17k-a-week CEO Michael Nicholson and CFO Chris McKay were cowards — complete no-shows for a meeting specifically arranged to address the crisis they created.
Instead of facing the music, they hid in their offices. They left Interim Chairman Brian Wilson — disengaged and uninterested — to face the fans. But Wilson wasn’t taking the bullets alone.
They threw their own employee under the Parks of Hamilton company bus. John Paul Taylor was invited to this high-pressure meeting the evening before it took place.
He was pushed into a room with the Celtic Fans Collective— who have had their fill of these disingenuous windbags who hold office atop the Celtic Way, surrounded by mahogany and sycophancy — entirely unbriefed on the matters to be discussed.
WILSON PUSHES UNBRIEFED JP AS THE BOARDROOM SHIELD
During the meeting, Wilson deliberately invited Taylor to comment on the development of a formal fan engagement framework. The board forced their own Supporter Liaison Officer to candidly admit to the room that he was “not fully sighted” on the club’s own plans.
He had no details. He had no timelines. Because his employers deliberately kept him in the dark.
They humiliated their own staff member. They used him as an unprepared buffer to absorb the anger meant for the men who ruined Celtic.
At the end of that meeting, Taylor confirmed he had consistently communicated the absolute seriousness of supporter anger internally. He had warned them. He told the boardroom exactly what was coming.
The executives ignored his warnings, then used him as a human shield.
This brings me to the soup takers. The forum commenters and “reasonable” voices telling me I am “worryingly dogmatic.” The people demanding we “hold the centre” and “negotiate with all kinds of parties.”
Hold the centre with whom?
Why should any fan negotiate in good faith with a boardroom that operates with such staggering bad faith toward its own staff?
WHAT IS THE ‘CENTRE GROUND’ AT CELTIC?
To “hold the centre” means compromising with a cabinet of plutocrats who treat their own employees like disposable baby wipes. It means shaking hands with people who have no future in this club, no credibility, and who are, in my view, anti-Celtic in their wanton vandalism of the football team and the infrastructure surrounding it.
I don’t hold the centre, I don’t compromise with charlatans. I don’t bow to any master, any billionaire, or any nepo baby scared of his own shadow.
When you tell me to park the protest and engage reasonably, you are asking me to soup-take from an administration that lacks basic workplace morality — let alone the will to address the reasons the Collective exists in the first place.
If refusing to negotiate with men who abuse their own staff makes me dogmatic, then good.
This is exactly why the “Evolution, not Revolution” middle ground is a total myth. You cannot evolve a corporate structure this rotten to its core.
They demand loyalty from the fans while weaponising their media allies to target the movement, criminalising and oppressing us — while showing absolute contempt for the people who work for them.
They are a disgrace to this club. Selfish, weak men with zero credibility.
Nothing changes until everything changes.
Sack the board. The CEO has got to go. The CFO has got to go.
Not Another Penny.
RELATED READING
- Dermot Desmond’s all out attack on Brendan Rodgers
- Pattern of assistance as VAR denies Celtic another penalty
Haughey opens up with ‘I’m not here as an apologist for anybody’ at 7 minutes he turns on the Celtic support for all of the current blame, referencing another mystery assault on a staff member outside of Celtic Park.
4 Comments
by Dan
Why has it taken you two weeks to write this biased article? Why didn’t you write it within 24 or 48 hours?
by Trough Watcher
Hi FanDan
The reason is simple. I do what I want when I want, and also, I do it to annoy a sad loser like you.
Toddleoh
by Charlienic
I’ve always hated the term ‘souptakers’, to me it implies people who were starving and forced to comply with certain conditions or see themselves and their families literally starved to death, in our privileged 21st century we can’t imagine people actually dying of hunger but they did and they were our people, I see it in america where many ‘churches’ force the homeless to sit through religious services BEFORE feeding them soup/food.
by Stevie c
Great article on what would probably have gone unnoticed, how these cowards can use someone like JP Taylor is truly despicable, this only goes to prove that they are not interested in having unity in Celtic Park and will batten down the hatches until season ticket renewal, that’s when they’ll come up with conciliatory messages. Don’t anyone be fooled. NOT ANOTHER PENNY.