King, financial recklessness and Celtic executive management

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Let’s clear something up right away.  Every summer Celtic know they may not reach the Champions League group stage.  No matter how well they plan and recruit, they can come up against a better, or luckier, opponent.  Champions League football might not happen in any given season, or the following season.

Celtic failed to reach the group stage of the Champions League five times in the last nine seasons.  We might be getting better at qualification, but no one is making that assumption.

On 30 June last year, we had £24.5m in the bank.  That figure should be higher on the same reporting date this year.  We might not reach the Champions League group stage next season, but your football club has never been better prepared for a sporting reversal.

In a newspaper interview yesterday, Dave King compared Celtic’s current position with that of now-liquidated Rangers at the time Martin O’Neill came to Celtic.  In O’Neill’s first season at Celtic, Rangers competed in the Champions League group stage before dropping to the Uefa Cup.  But, on their 30 June 2001 reporting date, they had a bank balance of only £17,000.  Not enough to buy a family hatchback.

Rangers were gambling every penny they could get their hands on without thought for the consequences of a reversal.  It was a brutal period to be a Celtic fan, because although we were also losing money during at that time, the club was under siege from all sides for not ‘showing the ambition’ of the likes of David Murray and Dave King at Rangers.

Celtic know the perils of an over-dependence on Champions League revenues.  We do not budget on having to qualify for the group stage each season, far from it.  Our commercial sponsorship deals, retail and hotel plans, as well as player recruitment and development strategy, are all designed to mitigate an over-reliance on one source of income.  A £24.5m bank balance is evidence of a club planning on long-term stability.

We know what we will do in any season they don’t qualify for the Champions League in order to give us the best chance to do so the following season.  We know what to do to respond to any credible threat from another Scottish club for the domestic title.

We have experienced professionals in the boardroom and throughout all executive roles, and an actual billionaire who has put more money into Celtic than anyone has put into any Scottish football club – apart from the money the taxpayer wrote off due to the liquidation of Rangers while Dave King was paid to monitor and direct the club.

Celtic run scenarios on how things can go wrong.  They know the limits of what King and Newco can achieve and believe the biggest threat to Celtic’s dominance is for the executive to make strategically bad moves.  Rangers era of dominance was undone by financial recklessness, but in management terms, the problem was that the mechanisms did not exist to call the board to account on their gambling.

To combat this, Celtic have made sure that everyone at the club is challenged on their plans and performance, especially the chief executive.  If there is a strategically bad move made at Celtic, which could threaten their dominance in Scotland, it will have to get through multiple layers of scrutiny and opposition.  No one wants to be the next David Murray or Dave King.

Your football club might not be gamblers on the scale of Murray and King, but they are fiercely competitive and never want to lose another Scottish title.  That is what we plan for, and that is the reality that Dave King cannot come to terms with.

£6m from a share issue – and he didn’t even commit to that amount, even if the Takeover Panel are quickly satisfied on the overdue share offer!  And all that patter yesterday about delays in opening a bank account; why now transfer the money into your solicitor’s client account, like the rest of the world?

Why so many people put faith in this man “beggars belief”, to borrow a phrase.  From his “glib and shameless liar” title to the years of evidence laid out in plain sight.  You know how this story ends.

Ben Nevis Huddle is back!

After a three year gap, the Celtic fans will be back on Ben Nevis on mass on 30 June, to raise funds for your Foundation.  This is a great chance to climb Britain’s highest in the company of dozens of other Celtic fans.

Participants are asked to raise (only) £130 for the Foundation.  It is a great opportunity, see here for more details and to sign up.

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404 Comments

  1. BOBBY MURDOCH'S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS on

    TUCOBENEDITO

     

     

    Quite possibly true. However,I’d take being a Catholic in Scotland over being Afro-Caribbean in England any day of the week.

  2. Good morning good ghuys from a dry North Glasgow

     

    Back in from a small walk before work.

     

     

     

    DD. The 64 bus to paradise those were the days, apart from when the windys got put in or out.

     

     

    Come on the Celtic, each player is playing for a cup final place, well probably not, as Brendan will probably know which team he wants to put on the park.

     

    Nevertheless let’s beat the Ayrshire Huns tonight.

     

     

    D. :)

  3. Hopefully there could be good news on Tom Rogic according to the Celtic Star..

     

    Hope so, consolidate what we have in terms of good players, get them signed up.

     

    Get rid of some deadwood

     

    Get 2 -3 quality players in

     

    Do our own business and never mind our new noisy neighbours from Darkest Mordor.

     

     

    Hail Hail, shower time

     

    Everyone have a good day

     

     

    D. :)

  4. Delaneys Dunky on

    Good morning from a dry and pleasant Clydebank. I think this could be a good day for a bit of Ayrshire hunskelping. Thanks to VFR, I am going to have my first experience of our standing section, allowing my son to use my seat. See you good guys in Coias at 6.

     

    YNWA

  5. Delaneys Dunky on

    David66

     

     

    The corporation buses were green, white and gold. The 64 fae Dalmuir tae Auchenshuggle was an experience and good fenian education for us then schoolbhoys.

     

    HH

  6. DD it certainly was.

     

    Have a good day mate

     

     

    After all, the good Lord above seen fit to allow us another day on this magnificent planet, to see the Famous Glasgow Celtic

     

     

    ??

     

     

    D. :)

  7. Goooodod Morning CQN –

     

     

    And a Very Hooooopy Birthday to my No1 Daughter Jenna

     

    Enjoy your day and see you at Oaradise later ?????

  8. Davidopoulos on

    EmeraldBee\o/ still proud to be an internet bampot

     

     

    Encouraging news but I’m left wondering why, if it would be clearly unacceptable to UEFA, did the SFA Licensing Committee pass the application on for UEFA approval?

     

     

    Is it because they are absolute sh!tebags that wanted UEFA to be the big bad wolf?

     

     

    It is the SFA’s responsibility to make the call.

     

     

    Chapter 1, Article 5 of the UEFA Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations (https://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/Tech/uefaorg/General/02/26/77/91/2267791_DOWNLOAD.pdf)

  9. 50 shades of green on

    Its matchday folks….

     

     

    Looking forward to seeing a few different faces in the team in our remaining league games..

     

     

     

    Seen the chat about ugly zombie players last night,,,,, but has anyone ever seen a player with a more petulant look than thon zombie striker…….??

  10. Dallas Dallas where the heck is Dallas on

    Happy stop the ten twentieth anniversary today.

     

     

    There’s only one Wim Jansen

     

    He’s got the bhoys all dancin

     

    He’s got the magic touch

     

    Because he’s Dutch,

     

    Walking in a Celtic wonderland

  11. Davidopoulos on

    Btw, today’s Davidopoulos UEFA Licensing rant was brought to you by the letter “S”.

     

     

    For “sh!tebags”…

  12. Davidopoulos on

    EmeraldBee\o/ still proud to be an internet bampot

     

     

    :D

     

     

    Sorry for using your post as an excuse for a rant – I appear to have woken up grumpy despite it being a lovely day down here.

  13. Davidopoulos on

    Anyway, on a lighter note, 20 years ago today Celtic “stopped the 10”. I was only 12 at the time so didn’t fully grasp what it meant to all the crying adults around me. I understand now just how important winning that title was to the recent history of our club.

  14. Possible/likely 2 free spares for tonight. Will be at corner till 15 mins from KO. Will confirm at lunchtime.

  15. Word of The Day (The Rainjurz ur coming….)

     

     

    Battology. [buh-tol-uh-jee]

     

     

    noun

     

    1. wearisome repetition of words in speaking or writing.

     

     

    Derived Forms

     

    noun battologist,

     

    adjective

     

    battological

     

     

    Word Origin and History for battology

     

    n.

     

    “needless repetition in speaking or writing,” c.1600, from Greek battologia”a speaking stammeringly,” from battos “stammerer,” of imitative origin, + -logia (see -logy ).

     

     

     

    KTF

  16. Weebawbabbity sorry just got your message from yesterday, my daughter and her hubby are the outdoor types and were out walking and exploring until late yesterday. they are in 7010 if you want to contact them and pass on some of your local knowledge, I’m sure they would appreciate it, names are Marsaili and Willie. Hail Hail Hebcelt

  17. Delaneys Dunkey

     

     

    G, Fredo has the ticket for you so make sure you get it from him!

     

     

     

    KTF

  18. BOBBY MURDOCH'S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS on

    HAPPY HOOOOOOOOPY BIRTHDAY to

     

     

    JENNA!!!!!

  19. “This is how it felt to be Celtic

     

    Twenty years ago

     

    Wim and Murdo here for 1 in a row”

     

    ??

  20. Davidopoulos on

    starry plough

     

     

    Absolute sh***bags (i’ve upped my self-censoring game). They would have sent it to UEFA hoping that they won’t notice.

     

     

    The rules state that the SFA is the Licensor and that they are responsible for determining whether a licence can be granted. However, this all sounds vaguely familiar from the 2011 licence saga – SFA tried to pass the buck on to UEFA saying that they just collected the information and passed it on, but the SFA were then, and are now, the Licensor. It’s their responsibility to ensure that any licence application complies with the UEFA regulations.

     

     

    Funnily enough, there are a couple of people on the SFA Licensing Committee now that were on it in 2011 as well…

  21. Davidopoulos on

    Of course the info from Phil Mac could be duff and it could well have been the SFA who knocked back the application before passing it to UEFA….

     

     

    I know, I know…

  22. DAVIDOPOULOS

     

     

    It was always going to come to the crunch this season, it seems fairly obvious to a layman like me that they don’t qualify but this is Scotland where the normal rules don’t seem to apply.

     

     

    Sevco have a logjam of issues to resolve and Gibby’s answer seems always to be the same, get the supporters to weigh it on. The shares issue seems to be another Dick Turpin solution, the guy is a complete bandit, some of them are waking up to this but the rest have got their fingers in the ears sighing about being up to their ears.

     

     

    Even their supporters groups are stealing from each other:))

     

     

    As John Lydon famously once said and I paraphrase

     

     

    Rangers fans, they steal each others pyjamas before they go to bed!!

     

     

    HH

  23. Hunderbirds are Gone on

    The rejection of a European licence could be very bad news for Sevco. They need a European run and the money it brings, if they hope to offer a challenge to Celtic in the coming season.

     

     

    To illustrate, last year’s Europa League run netted them in excess of £1.99 :)))

     

     

    Smell the ? CSC

     

    ?⚽️

  24. Hunderbirds are Gone on

    Ach. I had a nice green glove emoji, but on posting it changed to clapping, bah.

     

    ?⚽️

  25. BMCUWP

     

     

    Just wanted to say how nice it is to have you back & out of the clutches of doctors & nurses & such..

     

     

    During your enforced stay in hospital I posted this choon for you…but you were still wifi-less then.

     

     

    Here it is for you again.

     

     

    Keep well my friend and let this guy from Saltcoats & some friends help you on your way.

     

     

    He moved to Oz when he was 15 & became the voice & brains behind Men at Work

     

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCZKAxDoUwE

     

     

    HH

  26. So if Hibs win their next two games the huns will finish 4th. So Gerrards first game could be away to Cowdenbeath in the prestigious group stages of the Scottish League Cup. Over to you Hibs, please don’t Hibs it!…?