The charge against Celtic is maladministration and I believe Brendan Rodgers is a victim of betrayal – Hugh Keevins

Tensions are rising at Celtic Park due to a lack of transfer business in Glasgow's east end

Celtic left themselves hostages to fate in the second leg of their Champions League play-off with Kairat Almaty.

They have been taken captive and imprisoned by the club’s own lack of ambition.

Manager Brendan Rodgers is victim of boardroom betrayal and supporters have been taken for fools by the Celtic Park hierarchy.

The cost of corporate neglect is stagnation on the park and the worsening of the disconnect between club and customers.

I wrote here last week it was as if the Celtic board had a death wish the way they were going about their business in the transfer window.

And after observing the crowd’s poisonous reaction to the lifeless 0-0 draw with the Kazakhs on Wednesday night, I rest my case.

The year is 2025. The atmosphere is 1994.

The difference is that when Fergus McCann arrived to save an institution from closure in 1994, Celtic were in debt to the tune of millions of pounds and floundering under a board of directors who had no idea how to run a football club.

Today Celtic face expulsion from the Champions League, with the associated loss of substantial revenue, while having tens of millions of pounds in the bank.

It’s as unbelievable as it is unforgivable in the eyes of those who partly created that level of wealth through slavish devotion to the club.

The mood of 1994 also came to mind when a fans’ group, Bhoys Celtic, issued a statement condemning the board for incompetence and disregarding the fans.

The battle has started. The rebels are restless. What was once a good team has now been significantly diminished by the loss of quality players such as Kyogo Furuhashi, Nicolas Kuhn and Greg Taylor.

None has been replaced by anyone nearly as good. The long-term loss of Jota to serious injury was met with similar indifference and Rodgers now makes obvious his total disillusionment with his employers every time he speaks in public.

An accident that was always going to happen occurred on Wednesday night. You can’t be surprised by something you knew was going to take place.

The board were sitting up and begging for insurrection to take place – and they’ll get it if defeat by an equally-troubled Rangers at Ibrox next Sunday follows a Champions League exit in Kazakhstan.

If it really is 1994 all over again, Save Our Celts will soon be reformed.

My mind goes back to that 8.50am phone call in which Celtic chairman Peter Lawwell loudly instructed me he had nothing to do with the club’s recruitment of players.

Peter was reacting to me writing about a radio caller who had said Lawwell’s hand was “all over” a lack of signings.

I have written, and spoken about, his noninterference in those matters with regularity.

But now it seems fair to ask the chairman exactly who is responsible for recruitment and wonder out loud if money is being deliberately withheld from the manager.

Rodgers is already on record as saying his squad, as it stands, isn’t good enough for the Champions League groups.

Today he will leave for Kazakhstan without his best full-back Alistair Johnston due to injury. His replacement Anthony Ralston is an honest but limited footballer.

Kieran Tierney is a shadow of the player who once earned Celtic £25m from Arsenal, unable to last 90 minutes. But there is no back-up for him because none was bought.

The hope for a clean sheet on Tuesday is threatened by a concern the normally- reliable Cameron Carter-Vickers seems to have been affected by the malaise afflicting the team as a whole.

James Forrest is, at the age of 34, is being flogged to death in attack because there’s no one better from within Rodgers drastically-reduced list of alternatives.

Any semblance of a goal threat up front appears to have gone as well.

Daizen Maeda looks like someone having an out-of-body experience whenever a chance presents itself.

And Adam Idah was taken off at half-time last Wednesday night because Rodgers was clearly fed up looking at him.

Idah is £9million that Celtic will never see again. He should want to justify the money spent on him but seems to lack the basic requirements of a player in his position.

I do believe Rodgers when he says this is the lightest he has ever been in the key area up front. What happens in Kazakhstan will not be about a lengthy flight, passing through different time zones or playing at high altitude.

Almaty made the same journey in reverse and gave Celtic a fright in Glasgow.

The tie will be about the degree to which the team has been allowed to decline without due care and attention having been paid to it since Kyogo was sold and not replaced.

The current squad might not even be good enough to retain the Premiership title and the supporters are voicing their concerns and apportioning blame.

Maladministration is the charge they are bringing forward while knowing, as the history of the club tells them, that they can mobilise and collectively do something about bringing a prosecution.

Chants of “Sack the board” came at a time when Celtic were undefeated in the league, through to the quarter-finals of the Premier Sports Cup and able to say they had won 13 of the last 14 championships.

What might it be like when there’s bad news?