Everything at Celtic is done with a clear strategy. Even the timing of their club statement in response to fans anger at their transfer policy has been meticulously thought out to try and take the sting out of the growing unrest at the way they run the business. 8.42pm on a Saturday night, perfect timing on an international break with news desks and broadcasters in short supply.
Let’s deal quickly with their statement.
Transfer activity attracts enormous attention and speculation, particularly across social media, and the mainstream media has commoditised the transfer window in its relentless search for content.
In connection with Celtic, we recognise that debate around this subject reflects the passion of our supporters. Unfortunately, as is often the case in the media and social media, there is inaccurate or misleading information in circulation.’
There is no misleading information. The transfer activity is there for all to see. The club’s results are in black and white and the manager’s comments in press conferences have left the supporters in no doubt where the fault line is in their failure to make the Champions’ League group stages.
The team has been asset stripped and the performances not good enough to beat a mediocre Kairat Almaty from Kazakhstan. The players brought in are being signed by the recruitment team from a boardroom strategy in place since September 2003. The apparent mutiny from supporters has not been mobilised by mainstream media.
The supporters’ associations have all come together because they are pissed off with your actions. Furthermore, they are not fooled by Saturday’s late statement, they’ve seen that statement before over the last twenty years.
Celtic supporters are not daft, but they are loyal, and they want their hard-earned cash to be spent on dining at the Champions league table. They don’t want it sitting in a bank while you all give yourselves a pat on the back in the boardroom and they eat off scraps in the Europa League. They deserve better.
Celtic’s board keep bleating on about adhering to their model. The model needs an upgrade. Not one Celtic fan I know is asking you to put the club in debt and spend all their millions on Europe’s best players. They want good players that can become better. They don’t want bargain basement signings or projects that the manager doesn’t want.
They also want players signed early in the window. They are no longer buying your spin that they don’t want to come until they see whether you are in the Champions league or not or they wanted too much money. Many clubs can sign quality players early.
They also would like you to try and give the manager the quality he asked for after he fulfilled his part of the bargain with a first-class performance against Bayern Munich in the Allianz arena last season.
He managed to do that after you sold the club’s best striker in Kyogo and never replaced him. What did you do in the summer to back him? You sold Khun and then brought in seven signings that he himself admitted are not the quality he was looking for.
As for the Uefa regulations, Celtic are well within those parameters. If you want to deal with financial facts. Celtic had £77m in the bank in the last set of figures. They had a Champions league run, merchandise sales, season ticket money and almost £13m profit for the summer transfer window before we even mention add-ons for players sold previously.
As for the continuing investment in academy players to become Champions League players. Since 2003, how many of Celtic’s academy players have made it into the first team on a regular basis and played regular Champions League football in green and white? Five! James Forrest, Callum McGregor, Kieran Tierney, Stephen McManus and Aiden McGeady.
Let’s deal with the last couple of paragraphs from the statement.
Unfortunately, it is not always possible to conclude transfers, either within the timescales that we target, or at all. There are many factors and challenges at play in the global transfer market, many of which are outwith the Club’s control, including selling clubs seeking fees beyond our valuation or waiting until the end of the transfer window to seek the maximum price, and players choosing to join another club or requesting contractual terms we cannot responsibly meet within our financial model.
Celtic fans accept that there is a bartering situation to not pay over the odds for certain players, but when it happens regularly every season to the point where half decent players go elsewhere on a regular basis, something is wrong.
This board consistently wait until the last minute and then walk away with the same excuses trotted out the day after the window closes. Look at the evidence, it’s not made up by the mainstream media.
The second last paragraph is laughable!
It follows, therefore, that much of what is written in the media or online about our transfer dealings is inaccurate. We also understand that this leads to frustration among supporters. While we cannot comment during ongoing negotiations, we are exploring ways to seek to address the gap between speculation and reality once each transfer window closes, in order to improve clarity for our supporters.
Brendan Rodgers has provided clarity on what he wants and what he got in the transfer window. When he didn’t get what he wanted, and he lost in the Champions League qualifiers, he stated there was a lack of quality in the side.
Rodgers stated this in the months before the draw. He stated he did not want to be a manager that stood still at Celtic, he wanted to make them better and achieve more. Sadly, his ambitions have not been met by the board and subsequent managers before him have been caught up in the same movie.
I have said on many occasions that hurling abuse at Dermot Desmond, Peter Lawwell and Michael Nicholson is not the Celtic way. They are indeed good Celtic men and supporters; they should be applauded for some aspects of the business of this great club.
However, their ambitions don’t match the supporters, and it is time for them to move on and accept that the fans want a new strategy, a new blueprint, and fresh faces in the boardroom to change the way the club is run. Yes, they want to retain certain aspects of prudence, but they want a different way of doing things and it is time for the recruitment team to be replaced and for you to hand over the reins.
Don’t hold your breath!
