The snow has gone here, and life moves on again in Dún na nGall.
So Josip Juranović is off to Berlin with the good wishes of Ange and the Celtic support.
A snip at £2.5m, he really should have fetched a much higher price after his outstanding World Cup performances.
Sadly terms and conditions apply.
Read the small print.
My information is that Georgios Giakoumakis was signed up on a similar basis.
The only positive is that the person responsible for this apparent contractual clusterbùrach is no longer in the building.
Across the city, a combination of cash flow and UEFA regulations has meant that Mr Beale hasn’t been able to bring in any new faces so far.
It will be instructive to look at the exact net spend in this window.
The Kremlinology of the Blue Room will reveal a lot.
Of course, the venal invertebrates in the Stenography Corps will cover for the Sevco High Command and their current manager.
Unlike your humble correspondent, they will not follow follow the money.
While Mickey B continues to win football matches, by whatever means, Sevco’s emotionally fragile klanbase will remain onside.
For now…
Now, if mild-mannered Ryan Kent gets his new deal, he would be on a par with the highest earners at the eleven-year-old club.
Unfortunately for the Sevco High Command, the folks at Nyon can read a set of accounts.
The world-class administrators at Hampden must be eternally grateful that the intrepid chaps on the sports desks aren’t going after Vargate.
Those who walk in the brogues of the late Jim Farry did not have any explanation to offer Celtic about the series of baffling decisions this new toy has produced.
The featured image is a tweet of mine about two books I have been reading in tandem.
Suffice it to say the David Low version of events more easily fits in with my understanding of those days.
Despite Michael Kelly predicting that the new Celtic Park would never be finished it is, 29 years after we sacked the board, the biggest football stadium in Glasgow.
He simply did not have the vision, or the courage, of Fergus McCann.
At its core, the new stadium is the foundation for the financial hegemony of the Parkhead club in this century.
There are more season ticket holders at Paradise than there are seats inside Ibrox Stadium (50,817).
Until that fundamental reality is altered, then Celtic will be able to sustain a larger football budget than their Glasgow neighbours.
Quite simply, the new FSR ordinances laid down by UEFA mean that there isn’t any way for a club that plays their home games at the stadium John Brown played for to compete with the Parkhead outfit by legitimate means.
It is a matter of legal fact that the first decade of the new Celtic stadium coincided with EBTs and side letters at the original Rangers.
That all led to the wonderful year of 2012.
It was a sports quake that blindsided the copy-and-paste fusileers on the sports desks.
Of course, they had been dismissing regular warnings from this Fenian seismologist in Donegal.
Of course, my readings were correct, and the original Rangers did indeed die.
Since then, the Sevco shitshow has been one thing after another.
The Nelsonian eye from Hampden and the succulent obedience of the sports desks has helped it to limp along.
Crucially, people in Nyon have implicitly stated by the adoption of FSR that they will no longer take the word of national associations about financial matters.
Anyone who doesn’t see that as a game changer hasn’t been paying attention.
Since Bunnet built that stadium and filled it with season ticket holders, the tectonic plates on Planet Fitba have shifted.
Indeed, this could lead to a climate emergency in the Blue Room as they detect a chilling effect from our gallant allies in Europe.
The denial is strong in the Stenography Corps as they wish it were otherwise.
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“The Kremlinology of the Blue Room.”
Could maybe change that to: “The Azov-ology” of The Blue Room.
Or use either.
Anyone have any idea why Chelsea, whose routing of UEFA FFP, along with Man City, PSG etc, have led to the new FSR, are still spending wildly, approx half a billion in 6 months and don’t seem in the slightest perturbed by these new regulations?
A tribute act plays out of Ibrox. There is no 55 titles. No 150 plus years of history and no “Old Firm”. The people who support the tribute act can best be described as the same flies but Sevco is most definitely a different shite. What I don’t get is why is the continuity lie allowed to be accepted without challenge. There is no Rainjurs and the media should not be allowed to keep saying there is.
Kismet Hardy !
Sorry for your loss Phil… no Land Rover for you…
Follow following a pretty underwhelming display against a really poor St. Johnstone side yesterday…Mick was given the “honour” of selecting the music on the Sevco team bus back home…
He chose an album by Frank Sinatra called…
“Luck be a Lady.”
“The stadium John Brown played for lol.Gets me every time that one.
Excellent…. as ever.
I also recall Kelly commenting on Fergus’s intention to pay a dividend in shares as never going to happen. I have received my dividend statement every year without fail and it is re-invested in the club. The Kellys and Whites really were The Keystone cops of football ownership. As everyone knows the crowds were regularly reported as an unbelievable figure. Before any sevco fans get on their high horse about financial irregularities, Celtic were the victim here. Money potentially being siphoned off from the club’s coffers. I specifically recall the 1988 title winning game against Dundee. It was mayhem outside the ground. How no one was crushed was a miracle. Then inside the ground was further mayhem to such an extent that they allowed at least the Celtic end terrace to overflow onto the area to the rear of the pitch. Lo and behold, when the crowd was announced it was exactly 60800 which was the capacity then. Now considering it wasn’t a ticket game and there was no technology then to link the turnstiles how they managed to co-ordinate closing all those turnstiles at precisely the same time to stop the crowd at exactly 60,800 was to say the least a miracle. I didn’t hear of anyone failing to gain entry so we can be quite clear the turnstiles kept turning. Where did that extra cash go Michael ? Also, the old board didn’t lift a finger to get an all seater stadium in place. Something Fergus new had to be done. Of course, it is easier to count bums on seats that people standing crushed into terracing. If the turnstiles kept turning in an all seater stadium it would be quite clear there was over crowding.
Transfers were another source of shenanigans. Players transferred for strangely lower than expected fees with the stench of a bung in the air. Catering in the stadium was always ripe for any irregularities. All alleged you understand. I have absolutely no evidence to support such a thing and it is just me speculating 🙂
Kelly’s assertion that the stadium would never be completed was based on the tripe they told us about mine workings under the ground making it impossible to build a bigger stadium there. That ended with Old man Steptoe pictures at a toxic waste site in Cambuslang with our equivalent of hover pitches and casino’s. The brave new world of a stadium, sponsored by Ford if I recall, being built on toxic ground. Fergus just employed builders to deal with the problem and keep us playing where we always had. I believe they just filled the mine workings with concrete.
So jog on as they say Michael. A bitter man with nothing but his and his own family’s interests at heart.
JS
You can go back an awful lot further than that to the late sixties early seventies, and there were games where you quite literally could not move your arms to put your hand in your pocket. You picked up a newspaper the next day and the “official” attendance was 35-40,000.
the sevco fans will turn soon, trust me. and i dont think the board in the blue room will dip there hands in there pockets again
Nelsonian Eye…😂😂
Very good Phil..☘