An email from Celtic dropped into my inbox this morning.
A few days after the club published their accounts, it was too contrived for a novel if the author was trying to illustrate corporate types being out of touch with the supporters.
The bottom line on the bottom line is that, till June 30th this year, the Parkhead operation made a loss, and the legendary cash pile has been reduced to £66.4 million, down from £77.3 million.
That is the clear impact of failing to get past Kairat Almaty.
Consequently, the collapse against Lasc will show up in the figures for this accounting year, which will emerge in twelve months.
Season after season, European failure is now an undeniable pattern.
Different managers, different players.
What remains the same is the corporate approach.
The only part of the Grand Plan seems to have been to stay slightly ahead of the nativist neighbours.
Now even that modest objective is in danger.
There is little discussion on ACSOM yesterday that I can disagree with.
John Hughes points out that “the fans have no power”.
He is 100% right about that.
This isn’t 1994, and until King Dermot changes direction or decides to sell his shareholding, nothing will change.
For Celtic fans, this is the world as it is, not as many would wish it.
Meanwhile, the merchandising operation continues as if nothing else is happening.
It really IS too contrived for a novel.
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The “fans” have the ultimate power – don’t give them your money, any of it.
I do firmly believe the best weapon we have is Not Another Penny. I walk past the Celtic Store at every home game and apart from the first home game when there was a sizeable queue outside, it has been a very effective strategy. When that email dropped in my inbox I did have a look to see for myself just exactly was the availability of these offers. I found as I have in the past, that the sizes available tend to be in 2XL and up. What that tells me is that either Celtic stores are lying in regards to what size items are available or there are far more supporters still content to feed the money grabbing leaches currently infesting our boardroom. Keep up the campaign and starve them out!
More and more Celtic fans are realising that Dermot Desmond and his hangers on, are not capable of taking the club to the next level, and there seems to be very little that supporters can do about it, which is extremely worrying.
They continuously talk about having the clubs best interests at heart, but the evidence paints a completely different picture sadly. Repeated CL qualification failure over several seasons and a complete lack of vision and ambition seem to be the only signs of consistency at the club.
I have been a supporter for close to 60 years now and, like every Celtic fan I know, I will continue to support the team on the park till my dying day. That is something that hierarchy at the club should not be taking for granted. The contempt that they appear to have for the support could come back to bite them in the proverbial if they are not careful.
What can be said, other than CFC directors are gambling with Celtic’s future.
If we had the German model of 50%+1 fan ownership, I’d like to think we’d be in a different place.
Europa League is Celtic’s absolute limit right now but we are feeling that and that is sending the wrong messages to a board with no ambition and what’s more a desire to keep their face in corporate circles.
Celtic fans want Celtic to be giving bloody noses to all of the big names, the corporate giants. We know financially we can’t….in the Scottish Premiership… compete financially with the Real Madrid’s, PSG’s etc but what we should be able to do is engender the Spirit of ’67 and take all these “mega clubs” on, players, managers, board, fans united, man to man or die in the pusuit.
I’ll admit to a snigger when the same email arrived before instantly deleting it!
I’ve read elsewhere that the merch sales are thought to have had a bit of a downturn – I gather merchandising has been absorbed into a wider category in the accounts, possibly to disguise this. Can your egg-chasing buddy spare some time to shed any light on the figures?
If true there could be multiple reasons for this – It may be that Not Another Penny is having an impact, but it could be a natural downturn due to poor results, the operation having reached saturation point with its captive market or the availability of cheap Chinese counterfeit items for a small fraction of the RRP, but I think something is afoot with the merch numbers…..
When you repeatedly treat fans with such contempt then the connections that took years to build deteriorate. Due to the continuous lack of ambition fans feel conned, that they no longer owe the club and therefore grudge further expenditure over the bare minimum. The board have excelled themselves in achieving this outcome. Their customers feel undervalued and ripped off with the product. The product at Celtic isn’t trophies, or we’d all be happy, the product is dreams and a willingness to pursue them to the best of our ability. When was the last time our money was spent on that ? If the club do the bare minimum and buy second rate product, then so will the fans. Don’t figure !!!
I’m not too sure that even if we had champions league money every season that these cohorts of DD would find a way of spending it wisely, even the offspring of our “great leader” mentioned that Celtic are now no longer a Champions League club. If someone from a fan collective or the coaching team was to ask the board “What’s the plan?”
I’m certain the reply would be “We thought that was the plan” they knew in January that MoN would be done in May & they knew that Kasper the keeper would need replacing too & they came up with Rabbi Keane & not a single “top shelf” goal keeper in line with what we have had every season since Rodgers arrived the 1st time around. If anyone thinks that we still have players on our books that should be “nowhere near our 1st team squad” then it’s safe to say that “our board should be nowhere near our boardroom”
Not Another Penny is our power
Keane possibly making his mark already.