Close season success guaranteed for Sevco

This is a tough time of year for Celtic.

Moreover, it probably won’t get better anytime soon.

That’s because no matter what they do they will always lose the close season.

That is the part of the football calendar that sees Sevco clean-up year after year.

It really is a remarkable record of success and possibly a world record for the seven-year-old club.

If some uninformed outsider stumbled onto Planet Fitba at the moment they could only conclude from the mainstream media that it was Sevco who were preeminent.

Indeed, they would be shocked to learn that the club portrayed as having close season difficulties currently held all of the domestic trophies and have done so for the past three seasons.

That certainly ticks for the box marked “full spectrum dominance”.

When there are no football matches to get in the way the high-Level spin on matters Ibrox is on an industrial setting.

Essentially the narrative is that everything at Sevco is hopeful and positive and there are only negatives on the horizon for the club that is actually dominating Scottish football.

If you don’t know the local culture then this coverage is utterly baffling to any outsider with a facility of reason.

Like the turning of the year, it is utter folly to try and resist these seasonal realities.

Consequently, I did not contribute to the noise level over the attempts to by Celtic to acquire the services of David Turnbull from Motherwell.

Initially, it provided some gleeful copy for the Stenography Corps as it could be packaged as a failure by the Parkhead club.

A well-placed source had counselled caution over this and told me that there was likely to be a twist in the tail and so it proved to be.

My information is that the kid stated in quite unequivocal terms that Norwich was not his preferred destination.

That he did so when he was in England to discuss his move probably wasn’t what his agent had in mind.

I would also resist any narrative that Celtic had to up their offer in order to secure the lad’s services.

Both the fee and the personal terms are easily within budget at Parkhead.

Regular readers will know that I am no fan of the current chief executive at Celtic.

However, credit where it is due and he handled the situation with aplomb.

Which brings us back to the difference in the margin of error at both Celtic and Sevco.

The champions can safely spend £3.25m on a development project.

Moreover, they do not have to borrow the fee at punitive rates from the distressed finance sector.

When this transfer window closes at the end of August it will be clear which of the two clubs has spent the most on new players.

At Sevco the Director of Fantasy is currently doing his best to find unloved bargains in the lower leagues in England.

I think it is fair to say that his conclaves with the Serious Professional over the last couple of weeks have been rather tense.

Of course, any Sevco acquisition will be trumpeted by the Stenography Corps as a brilliantly shrewd piece of business.

Sadly, during this most successful part of the year for Sevco things can still go wrong.

I’m told that the Serious Professional was less than impressed with the interview by the Club 1872 person which appeared in the Evening Times.

Actually, I thought Ms Fawkes did ever so well.

After all, it wasn’t as if it was one of those interviews where the questions had been agreed beforehand or anything like that.

No, this was hard hitting stuff.

You can read all about it here.

I must say that I think the decision by Club 1872 to allow their shareholding to be diluted, despite that being against their stated raison d’être, was very brave.

Churchillian even…

That debt for equity swap does improve the UEFA Financial Fair Play situation although the current Close Brothers loan still might require a bit of explaining.

However, the growling gorilla in the corner of the Blue Room at the moment is wearing a Sports Direct jersey and not a Hummel one.

I think it is fair to say that most of the Sevco High Command reach for the Andrex when they think of how this will eventually play out in court.

The new retail deal signed in June 2017 was a huge victory for Ashley.

Of course, at the time the Stenography Corps hailed it as a huge victory for King over Big Mike.

For the avoidance of doubt, your humble correspondent stated otherwise at the time.

I did say that the devil would be in the retail.

In June 2017 my Shirebrook source had told me that General Ashley’s legal team couldn’t believe how easy it had been.

Once the Sevco High Command realised how they had been contractually outmanoeuvred by General Ashley they decided on the Elite Sports move.

It was a desperate gamble by King, but they needed the cash.

Moreover, it was a crucial error that Big Mike was happy to let him make without any interruptions.

I can only imagine how the folk at Hummel HQ in Aarhus feel about their branch operation in the UK and their role in this Sevco shitshow.

Dear reader, expect fresh litigation…

Of course, Mr King in South Africa is rather Zen-like about the entire shambles.

For the avoidance of doubt, it is never Dave’s fault.

Despite all of these storm clouds over Ibrox Sevco will win the close season again.

After all, they always do.

I’m sure that I read that in a newspaper…