Brendan Rodgers has full-back dilemmas to solve for Rugby Park

But the challenge has been fragmentation. The Trust has its niche, the ARCSC another. The Green Brigade’s North Curve is powerful in direct action and has now proven it can garner and gather support. Bloggers, podcasts, and fan media amplify voices, but often scatter energy in different directions. The Irish supporters group (AICSC) and the Celtic Supporters Association stepped up brilliantly to the plate at the weekend and the momentum among a united support seems at the moment to be unstoppable. Collectively we know the road we want to go on but what has to be decided is the way we get there.

This brings us back to an idea first raised in 2021

This brings us back to an idea first raised in 2021 by Auldheid, a prominent Celtic supporter and a driving force behind the hard-fought Resolution 12. Persistence beats Resistance was the campaign message for that and it certainly ruffled plenty of feathers at Celtic, the Scottish FA and indeed at UEFA.

His, alongside others, work exposed how Rangers had secured European licences improperly for at least three years, with the complicity of the SFA, and revealed Celtic’s unwillingness to pursue the matter. He also highlighted the folly of Celtic accepting the Five Way Agreement and played a key role in demonstrating that Peter Lawwell had misled the AGM when he claimed never to have seen it.

Without his efforts, much of this would have remained buried, and the wider Celtic support would have been none the wiser. In short, he has first-hand experience of how Celtic operate, and, crucially, how to challenge them successfully. His idea, formed from those experiences, was a professional, properly funded Celtic Membership Scheme.

The concept was simple but powerful.

• A one-member-one-vote structure, accessible to all Celtic supporters, not just shareholders. Monthly subscriptions — as little as £5. More if affordable, less or nothing for the unwaged.
• Funds used not just for share purchases, but to employ professionals: legal experts, administrators, IT staff, media analysts, and a small management team to oversee operations.
• A centralised business portal allowing members worldwide to communicate, debate, and contribute their expertise, skills and contacts from their own diverse fields.
• The ability to hold the PLC to account legally, financially, and in the court of public opinion.

With let’s say 20,000 members subscribing – and it could become much more – the scheme could become a global force. It could unite disparate groups — the Trust, the North Curve, ARCSC, the CSA, AICSC, The Green Brigade, Bhoys Celtic and most of the fan media and more, alongside ordinary fans who have never felt represented — into a collective too large to be ignored.

It could also attract figureheads, whether business leaders like Duncan Smillie or David Low, now seemingly disillusioned with, and having walked back from, The Celtic Trust, or philanthropists like Willie Haughey. Many will have their own views on others who could help raise the profile of such a scheme.

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