Communicating the message is important. It is not always sufficient, but if you are unable to communicate frankly, you are not going to make the right decisions for your business.
Nokia owned the mobile phone market in the first decade of this century. Early on in that period, they sold over half the units bought on the world and by the end of the decade they still sold north of a third. As they reflected on their 2010 performance, chief exec Stephen Elop, told employees the company was “a man standing on an oil platform in the North Sea and facing a raging fire on multiple fronts, who has no choice but to jump into freezing water to survive.”
Elop knew what the future had in store for his mobile phone business, as did the execs at Google, who were gaining round with Android, and at Apple, where the iPhone had already made an impact. That North Sea platform analogy was lacking in taste, but Nokia needed a major change of direction and an analogy that cut through with people was necessary.
Unlike Nokia, Newco are not the leading player in their market, but they are also standing on a proverbial burning platform. Instead of explaining this to their stakeholders, a different message was promoted with their annual accounts, “Profit”, we were told, although the word was qualified by “operational”. “Loss” was the effective word used in the accounts, for those who can understand a P&L, although few news reports got that far.
Hearts were the same yesterday, proclaiming “season 2022/23 saw the club post a record turnover of £20.8m”. This is correct and Hearts were able to report they have more money in the bank than their Glasgow cousins.
Fan comments after the news was almost universal: ‘spend more money’ but wait! Hearts record turnover came because of Europa League qualification, which didn’t happen this year. Even that was not enough to keep them out of the red, they relied on Donations of over £6m (30% of that turnover) to pay their bills.
Hearts have a shock coming in the post. Income will fall away without the Europa League. That £6m donations figure is made up of £1.6m from Foundation of Hearts members and £4.5m from other benefactors (believed to be James Anderson).
Call me cynical, but the Sugar Daddy thing is unwise. Football fans cannot rely on a rich benefactor, the game is littered with morality tales. They also cannot rely on donations from ordinary fans to hold up at the same levels as Edinburgh mortgage payments rise next year.
Stephen Elop ended his talk to staff by saying, “The burning platform, upon which the man found himself, caused the man to shift his behaviour, and take a bold and brave step into an uncertain future. He was able to tell his story. Now, we have a great opportunity to do the same.”
He was unable to reverse the decline of Nokia’s mobile phone business, but today they employ 92,000 people with a turnover of €23bn. Shift behaviour, step into an uncertain future – that is the message which should be coming out of clubs living precariously close to the edge, not this ‘everything is great’ nonsense.
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Port Vale has a home league cup quarter final against Middlesbrough in a few weeks time.
We have a box there on the season ticket – they want the equivalent of £100 each for the game – normally works out at about £43 per game.
Now that’s a rip off
Gene@4:41
As a matter of interest, what are you getting for your cash, not just a heated seat.
Daughter bought hospitality at a Stenhousemuir game, said it was fabulous. If your question is why did she, I have no idea 😅🤣😂
The box is for 8, no heated or even padded seats, tea or coffee, food and drink extra.
You can watch the game from inside the box
I go with my 2 sons, their wives and 3 grandkids
GGH,
Re, Shankland.
No idea who you know that “knows Shanklands thoughts” All I can add is the boy is the partner of a very good friend of mines daughter.ST holder,and Celtic fanatic,as is Shanklands partner.My mate thinks the world of him.The couple have a baby,and it was a big reason for leaving Belgium,to come back to her family.He would sign for Celtic tomorrow.No bitterness or bigotry,or whatever in the boy.We all grow up.
Shankland is far too ugly to be a Celtic player.
And for that reason.
I’m out.
HH
Whoever calculated the Sevco balance sheet is a ‘ funny guy ‘
Goodfellas CSC
Big Wavy
“Only a fool couldn’t see that our strategy is being joined at the hip with our forever bestie, for the sake of Sky, the SFA and sponsors. We looked lost when they weren’t around. They overspend to get near us, we underspend to keep them in range. They’re a basket case.”
—————————————
At the risk of being boxed in by your logic into declaring myself a fool, I will venture that you are mistaking an unsought inevitability for a deliberate strategy.
There is no doubt that we actively explored both the alternatives of an invite to England and some form of Atlantic or North Atlantic League. We did not unilaterally abandon them through cowardice, risk aversion or an unrequited love affair with the Ibrox club. All those doors were closed to us, offers withdrawn and/or advanced with insufficient thought or support. None ever came into existence nor are there any currently in existence for us to take. Scotland hates us but won’t let us move without paying compensation. Sky were only interested if Celtic could persuade FC Basket Case to accompany us and preserve ancient rivalries. We were never offered a one club moving deal….. anywhere.
In effect, we are currently prisoners of the SPFL and most Celtic fans are happy that it is so. I find it to be a form of slow death but mightily enjoyable. Like winning the Over 40’s league because you are not fit to play against the young ones, they Europeans, anymore. We win a lot but we are not winning at the top table anymore.
Your second charge has more weight. How much did we facilitate their return? Who knows fully but there is strong evidence that we were consulted on and signed up to the 5 way agreement. Whether by default, not fully consenting, is immaterial. We did not oppose the development with any strength at all. We made no public pronouncements and we got on with that stitch up without a murmur of anything other than acceptance. Therefore, the compliance and collusion and acceptance can amount to proving the charge that we accepted that inevitability by standing by so cravenly.
And yet……
I would have gone even further …
I would have kept them in the SPL for season 2012/13. I have always said that handing their fate over to the tender sympathies of Jim Ballantyne et al was a mistake. None of the clubs in the 2nd , 3rd and 4th tier had any grudge against them. They had not robbed anyone there of titles and trophies and they were mightily appreciative of the Sevco Pound- so they weren’t going to bite the hand that fed them.
Now the LNS fix up maybe wouldn’t have been changed but, if Sevco were still in the SPL, there were clubs there who had been robbed of leagues & cups and there were fans of those clubs who could have nursed their wrath and not thought that “relegation” to the 4th tier was an adequate punishment for their sins. I felt and argued that there was a higher chance of titles and cups being stripped or set aside by the fans of Scottish Premiership clubs than by anyone else. A higher chance but no guarantee that the dark forces would not have thwarted them and us too.
And as you pointed out, we did not cover ourselves in European glory during those 4 years when we were not honing our game in those 4 or 5 “vital for the outcome of the league” clashes with our main rival. And they remain that, no matter how much we dissociate from the O** F*** tag and no matter how dominant we are in winning leagues and titles. I hear that message on here every year; the fear of them getting one over on us. I rarely hear that fear expressed about Hearts and Aberdeen though I still assert, there were many warnings during the Sevco Journey years, that, “if we keep playing like this, we could lose this league” were made during many of those seasons where “they” were not in it.
Celtic would, I believe, prefer not to be shackled to a basket case but where do we go and what do we do if that is the only league we are allowed to join and they have, eventually found a way to get their “basket of assets” into the SPFL, as it now is called, and most club fans have lost their wrath and accepted the “fix” cannot easily be challenged or changed now.
Worse still, they had the gall to win one of the 7 leagues they have contested since getting to the top flight. And, they have garnered more European co-efficient points than us and came within a whisker of winning in the final minute, before a penalty miss from a much sought-after non-project player denied them the trophy. It genuinely looks like their more rigid defensive style gives them a higher chance of scraping draws and solitary goal wins than does our more adventurous and entertaining style of play. But , that is a long established contrast in playing style. Celtic have always taken pride in being swashbuckling and cavalier, emphasising skill over brawn. The Ibrox lot have always emphasised a they shall not pass defence coupled with tall athletic players and an unexciting approach. Amazingly they look more suited to Euro football than us and that is precisely where they do not have their 12th man refereeing them in a Masonic stylee. Go Figure!
There are lots of faults in the CP Boardroom, I’m sure but a desire to be in partnership with Sevco and help them succeed is fanciful, in my view. An acceptance, however, that much of the world sees it that way- well that I can accept.
Shankland sounds too much like Shankhill😀
Far too much gravitas and not enough levity on the blog tonight. Some crap jokes needed and I don’t mean the hun.
SFTB starts it off.
SFTB,
Cheers for that. All good until:
“a desire to be in partnership with Sevco and help them succeed……”
Never said that. We had choices a decade ago but we (the board) accept that the game locally needs them uns. There was no poll of Celtic fans to see who wanted to see natural justice deployed and asterisks galore put in place. A group tried and were dangled for years.
Could we build a strategy without them? We looked lost in the Ronny years, knew they’d be back and then DD unleashed Rodgers. England may call and we need our ugly sister to be part of the OF move when the top 4 hit the arabian desert to play in the sooper dooper league.
You know my view. I’d much prefer we looked outward and built the football operations to make a dent in Europe instead of that long bet. If they aren’t being deliberately malicious then maybe they are just utterly crap at this building a new club in the modern era. But as a bunch of 70 and late 60 year olds I think they are also clueless, still living off the fumes of McCann’s 60k seater strategy to keep us ahead.
HH
BIG WAVY
So the Celtic board have been plotting to stay just ahead of Rangers you say.
How do you explain this generation of domination?
How do Celtic go about keeping Rangers in business and stop them from going bust if they continue to live beyond their means?
Do you believe Celtic have been giving them money to keep the lights on?
You haven’t a bliddy clue what you’re talking about.
Turkeybhoy
Glad to hear that.
Person knew him in his younger days , not recently. We had spoken about him as a possible Celtic prospect when he was scoring for Ayr. He expressed the view then that he was from a big Rangers family and it was his wish to play for Rangers so if it came to the choice, we would need to be very convincing.
As you say rightly, people change as we get older.
HH
SFTB
I would have gone even further …
I would have kept them in the SPL for season 2012/13.
————————
Wee faux pas there, I’d assume but worth clarification, you can’t keep what isn’t there no license, no club therefore you’re keeping them in was a non starter.
Every Premier club with the exception of Kilmarnock who abstained, voted that along with their new licence, the new club began in the lower divisions.
TB
Specially when the love of a woman is involved. :)
TOM MCLAUGHLIN on 15TH NOVEMBER 2023 6:09 PM
Read my posts. Stop making shite up like ‘plotting’ and ‘keeping Rangers in business’ and remind your aging old grey matter that our board happily collude in keeping the timeless toxic brand alive…
Our sooper dooper administrator Lawell has been so effective the pathway to redemption is quicker after the next death…
HH
BRRB
Have you ever drank in the Fiddlers in Partick.
Great wee pub and certainly not a vile Inn.
Boom boom.
Big Wavy,
No Huns in the league.Gone.Do you honestly think anyone in the world would really care if we did 15 in a row?.
Honestly?.For over 100 years it has been the centrepiece of our game.Football fans all over the world knew of it.The Old Firm,as it was then.Both battling it out for trophies.Thats the world view,and more importantly,the TV companies view.We have all been in Pubs abroad,even,England,Celtic on TV,no interest,Celtic and them,much more.Without that game,really,what is the attraction.?
Its not a great attraction,a one horse race,due to sheer lack of finance,population,is what it would be.
You say we only spend enough to keep in front of them.How much less would we have to spend,if they were not there.How strong would we be in Europe?.If
people and players think its a duff league now,what then?
Another nonsense,we cannot do anything about their results against other teams,that is not us keeping them afloat,its teams with less money,less fans not being able to compete over a season.Of course they will challenge us,so far as they can.Not well this century,but you ignore these facts.
If we did allow them to survive in 2012,knowing we could beat them95% of the time,and still keep the Media interested,and let our club flourish,I would think we should be patting the guys on the back that hatched the thought.
They will always be there in some shape or form.You know this,but to have that entity under our heel makes perfect sense.
Greenpinata
Yer barred.😂
BOURNESOUPRECIPE on 15TH NOVEMBER 2023 6:23 PM
I’ll have you know that Celtic Director Brian Wilson believes “Rangers got punished with demotion in 2012….”
His words.
Our board are firm believers of the OF business model. Us being ahead is not the point. Stops the natives getting restless about the rigged competition we operate within, shedding their debt and still collecting ‘unbroken’ league cup trophies (next one in December probably against an awful Aberdeen).
HH
TURKEYBHOY on 15TH NOVEMBER 2023 6:31 PM
I don’t converse with racists. Call me old-fashioned like that.
HH
GGH,
And she is a very stunning woman.
And her father is a Celtic fanatic.Your right of course,he was a Hun,but,
as the song says”He’s alright now”
HH.
Big Wavy,
Really?.I don’t normally converse with Cretins,but I made an exception in your case.
Moderator,
I must strongly object to Big Wavy calling me a “Racist” on this blog.Atrocious slur.
Without evidence,I might add.
BSR
“Wee faux pas there, I’d assume but worth clarification, you can’t keep what isn’t there no license, no club therefore you’re keeping them in was a non starter.
Every Premier club with the exception of Kilmarnock who abstained, voted that along with their new licence, the new club began in the lower divisions.”
——————————-
My posts are long enough as I try to clarify things in advance or else I have to do 3 or 4 follow up posts to deal with the mis-readings and mis-interpretations.
The “them” that I was referring to was the Ibrox basket of assets, being bought by Big Hands, after their original club went tits up.
Ross County had been promoted but Rangers going bust left our private member SPL with only 11 members. We were under no obligation to promote 2nd placed Dundee as there was no rule specifying what to do in the event of an unrelated club going bust (Gretna had been kept afloat in 2008 long enough to be officially relegated as the 12th placed club)
The SPL could have just as fairly said- we will retain 12th placed (SPL) Dunfermline as advance 2nd placed Dundee (First Division) as there was no rule.
The SPL clubs, having made the Premiership a private members club could have elected to invite the newly reformed Sevco to be their 12th club, or indeed could have invited Real Madrid to join to make up the numbers.
The club secretaries only voted to relegate Sevco into the hands of the SFL for them to deal with because their fans had revolted and made them vote that way (I expect Killie fans were less bothered because of some very fathomable reason).
If the Clubs and chairmen had said to fans that the only way to ensure that penalties arose from their cheating, was to keep them in the SPL, then there was a chance that this would be accepted. If they had correctly told the fans that the SFA was going to do nothing about the cups, once LNS ruled, and that the SFL divisions were too in thrall to the Sevco Pound, and that the only chance was that SPL club chairmen remained angry enough for long enough, under pressure from their own fans (Killie excepted) to retain disciplinary powers over them, was ny title stripping or setting aside going to occur.
Of course they could have revisited this again in 2016 when The The Rangers made it into the SPFL top flight but that would have looked petty and vindictive by then, when they had served their punishment, being banished to Brechin and Annan and Stenny and Falkirk for all those years.
It’s a theory of mine that cannot be substantiated or disproved now but as we have seen, it certainly did not happen when the SFA and the SFL were ended with the Zombie version of this club
TURKEYBHOY on 15TH NOVEMBER 2023 6:52 PM
Without evidence,I might add.
—
More than happy to go and search your gleeful, and banana selling comment, at the Mark Walters incident.
Running to the moderator like a child too. Good grief. Embarassing.
HH
unrelated should be read as un-relegated
https://youtu.be/l82kIjqBtqw?feature=shared
5:37 in.
As always, Charlie Munger gets to the point quickly.
If only Stallion Petrov had received support like this from his teammates
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhb5uBQZ-20
SFTB
I had heard he was hung like a horse😃
Spellcheck strikes again
You are an absolute shower.
That’s yous telt.
Big Wavy,
Not answering “Racists”, did not last long.
Too easy.
was Willie Wallace the last striker we signed from the jam tarts , look how that turned out.
Is there any word on the israel national team and clubs from that place being thrown out of European competition?
They were quick enough on the draw when it came to Russia.
Big Wavy @ 6.36
I was disappointed when I read Brian Wilson’s faux pas but quickly forgave him, because he knows more about Celtic than most of the internet. The context was when he was asked for an obituary to Walter Smith he could hardly have said ‘ when Rainjurz died and a new club started in Division Four ‘. Talk about poor taste?
I’m confident he knows Rainjurz like Celtic and Aberdeen have never been relegated.
Whether the Celtic board need an old firm is conflated, with any major brand and whether or not they need competition. Our board has a mixture of individuals not all of them thankfully are businessmen. The ‘old firm’ label was dropped by Celtic and Celtic media long long before Gary Hooper scored the last ever goal against Rainjurz.