Prove us wrong and come down from your pedestals. Commentator letters special: Readers have their say on the crisis in Paradise

Mr McCann, you yet again state that no individual is bigger than Celtic. This is indeed true, but Mr McCann, you could do well to remember that neither are you, and your arrogant sidekick would be advised to do likewise.

You continually declare that the Celtic supporters are the life-blood of the club, but from where we stand today, it certainly does not appear that way. Indeed, it seems that the very life-blood to which you allude is being sucked out once again, and this time from a pair of individuals who yet again purport to have the best interests of the club at heart.

Mr McCann, why do we continue to treat the most loyal supporters of any football club in the world in such a derogatory way? How can you obstinately refuse to be made aware that the shareholders of Celtic FC were, are, and will remain the supporters of Celtic FC? When will you realise that those individuals who initially invested in your damned shares did so in order to move the club forward, and put it in a position to compete with the best in Europe?

While a substantial return on the share issues has been appreciated, especially as the majority of investors did not have your vast resources at their disposal to publicly display their allegiance to Celtic FC, a financial return will always be regarded by the majority of investors as secondary to success on the park. In any case, one should not be considered naive in assuming that the former will almost certainly follow the latter. Perhaps not by next year though, by which time you will have gone, Mr McCann, but the true Celtic supporters will still be here.

Jock Brown only yesterday alluded to Wim Jansen's refusal to consider long-term strategy as one reason for his dismissal, which, it appeared, would certainly have happened if Jansen had not taken the honourable route and resigned. Just what had Jock Brown got in mind? Another Ten Year Plan perhaps? Thanks, but no thanks. One Ten Year Plan has been quite sufficient. We want success and we want it now, and you, Fergus, as a self-proclaimed, lifelong Celtic supporter should not need us to remind you of that. Anyway, who are either of you to talk about ''honour'', as if it was a personal quality that either of you espoused in abundance?

Your collective arrogance, gentlemen, is beyond comprehension, and is matched only by your apparent collective indifference to the hopes and aspirations of true Celtic supporters. Prove us wrong and come down from your pedestals, and do remember that it was Celtic supporters who put you there in the first place. You do not live in an ivory tower, Fergus, however much you would like to believe that you do, and you do have more of an obligation to genuine Celtic supporters than to any of the Armani suits at the Alternative Investment Market in the City of London.

Yes, Fergus, you do deserve all credit for rescuing Celtic FC from oblivion when you led our ''glorious revolution'' and proclaimed victory for the rebels from the steps of Paradise, but you will get your payback. You surely did not invest for purely altruistic reasons and you will leave Glasgow next year with a few more greenbacks in your back pocket than when you first arrived.

So then, why all the claptrap? Why this continuing, tired exercise in self-delusion, except of course that it is not self-delusion in the sense that you cannot see the bigger picture, for you can and we know that you can but you continually refuse to acknowledge it. Remember, Fergus, you are not deluding us. We did not come up the Clyde in a big green bubble, and we abhor your treatment of those people who do have the real interests of Celtic Football Club at heart. You are not really one of those people, Fergus.

Rumour has it that as a result of Wim Jansen's departure, several Celtic players are now considering their future at the club. Mr McCann and Mr Brown, is it not about time that you gave your own future at Celtic FC the same consideration? To have treated Wim Jansen in the way that you have is despicable, underhand and worthy of nothing but contempt - grating as it does against everything that Celtic FC has stood for, currently stands for, and hopefully will continue to stand for - but not as long as you are at the helm of the ship, and your stooge remains as your first mate.

Where once we saluted you, Mr McCann, we now despise you and everything you stand for. You have built us a stadium, but it will not be forgotten that it was Wim Jansen who led us to our promised land. As for you, Mr Brown, there was, and still is, a greater degree of common decency and principle in Wim Jansen's little finger - the same finger that plugged the dyke, as it were - than in all the hollow rhetoric we have come to expect from the banana republic to which you currently claim allegiance.

The gauntlet has been laid down Fergus. Instruct Little Jock to ''smell the glove''. After all, it's what you pay him for, is it not?

Chris McAuley,

President - FOC Celtic

Supporters Club,

Shawlands.

q I WISH to publicly lambast the behaviour of Fergus McCann and Jock Brown, the majority owner and general manager respectively of Celtic Football Club.

As a lifelong fan of the club it was with enormous relief that I celebrated the club achieving their first championship title in 10 years last Saturday. This great joy was brutally curtailed when hearing of the news of the departure of the head coach, Wim Jansen following on from his resignation yesterday.

Mr Jansen achieved not only the winning of a championship made the more crucial due to Rangers pursuance this season of a record tenth title in a row, but cross European respect for the style and method developed with the team over a very short period of time which ultimately proved to be extremely successful.

The tragedy arises from the fact that Jansen has only had a few short months to develop the team at a club which is probably the best supported in Britain and which is about to enter the ultimate challenge of the Champions' League next season.

The failure on the part of Messrs McCann and Brown to understand the footballing issues involved only serves to highlight their complete misunderstanding of the Celtic support. My local corner shop proprietor (without wishing to disrespect him) will, as Mr McCann has done, turn a business round in a relatively brief period of time (four years in Mr McCann's case) where there is a guaranteed base of custom and support ever willing to part with their hard-earned cash to support a club they love. Mr McCann's financial achievements should not therefore be over-emphasised in the context of the enormous season ticket support that exists at Celtic. McCann and Brown have lost all sight of footballing reality and should have moved heaven and earth in an attempt to retain Mr Jansen who now leaves the club with dignified and considered comments. McCann and Brown on the other hand attempt to blacken

a man who has achieved so much in such a short period of time.

In the circumstances therefore I would be grateful if Mr McCann could sell up as quickly as possible, taking Mr Brown with him, as their continued presence at Celtic Football Club will only serve to constrain and deform a club that could, if run by those who understand football, go a long way towards achieving the repeat European Cup success of 1967. With McCann and Brown at the helm, this remains a forlorn prospect.

John Mullen,

45 Ravenhurst Road,

Harborne,

Birmingham.

q HAVING just read Ken Gallacher's article of Wim Jansen's departure in the Electronic Herald, my delight at Celtic winning, at last, the League Championship has been somewhat tempered. I am worried, and I am sure I am not alone in this viewpoint, that the ambitions of the directors, once again, is relatively limited compared to that of the fans.

Being a Scottish transplant here in the United States, I am unable to follow the daily activities of the club save the information I get from my family and friends in Scotland. However, even with this 'handicap', certain aspects are clear. Whether or not Jock Brown and Wim Jansen had difficulty communicating with each other is secondary, albeit important. Celtic winning a championship is directly related to Wim Jansen's undoubted ability as a talented coach. Consequently, the following questions have to be asked: Who, of equal or greater ability, is available to replace Mr Jansen? And if someone suitable is available, do the personality conflicts of executive management supersede the success of the team and thereby undermine the abilities, practices and methodologies of the coach and his assistants?

A look at basketball's Chicago Bulls (a veritable case study in personality clashes between management and playing staff) proves that such organisations can look beyond that and win five (probably six) NBA World Championships. If the club cannot maintain its focus on being a success both on the field and as a business (and this is the difficult part of the equation), it will be no better off than the previous regime. There is one big difference: Management now have to defend all their actions at the AGM against a sea of shareholders who just happen to turn up every Saturday afternoon with their season tickets.

Martin G Rodgers,

3529 N Oakley,

Chicago,

USA.

q KEN Gallacher finished his entirely predictable piece on the resignation of Wim Jansen by referring to ''the men who made Jansen's job untenable''. Wim Jansen's previous employment record surely would indicate that it is at least as likely that it was Jansen himself that made Jansen's job untenable. I remember very clearly the reports of similar turmoil that attended his abrupt departure from his previous job and the string of resignations from all his other posts.

Which is not to say that he is not a very good coach. He may well be, though Celtic success against a Rangers team playing rather better than it did this year or real progress in the European Cup would be a more realistic measure of that.

What Wim Jansen should do is personally lay out about #10m buying himself a near bankrupt football club with a rundown and outdated stadium. He should then manage it in such a way as to raise the finance to pay off the debt, invest #25m in players and build a 61,000-seat stadium for about #30m which is full to capacity every home game. He would then be in a very strong position to insist that that club is run the way he wants it to be run.

Failing that he should accept that his job is to do exactly what those who pay his wages employ him to do.

In the meantime I'll stick with Fergus McCann, Jock Brown and the rest of the team that has dragged Celtic into the second half of the twentieth century and look forward to interesting times with a new chief coach.

David McEwan Hill,

26 Graham's Point,

Kilmun,

Argyll.