Spurs have dispensed with the man once thought Europe’s hottest guru manager (don’t believe in guru managers). Villas Boas was a failure as manager but he was a mere symptom of their problems. Splurging circa £100m on vagrant misfits should be enough to disguise the fact that you don’t have a sustainable strategy. For a while. But primary responsibility lies with whoever authorised the budget in the first place.
Selling that chap with the funny hair to Madrid went some way towards offsetting the cost of this summer’s acquisitions, but Spurs wage bill for the new arrivals will dwarf the money paid to those who departed. This is the more serious problem.
They are left with players on long and expensive contracts who look like they auditioning for a West End show. Forget about Spurs recouping their ‘investment’, the chances of players attracting contract offers which match the cash the Cockerel coughs up each month is zero.
The Bale money is gone and those new contracts written in the summer will inhibit the club for years. What next: downsizing, or another visit to the roulette table, gambling with even bigger stakes next time?
Here’s what happens when you sell your star player: everyone and their grannie wants the money spent. “The [Insert club name] board need to show their ambition”. This comes from fans, the media, the manager, scouts, family members and every taxi driver in a 30 mile radius. And why wouldn’t they spend an apparent windfall, that’s what the money’s there for, after all.
It’s at this point clubs lose all self-awareness. Reinforced by the success which led to the development and profitable sale of a prime asset in the first place, the organisation’s view of its reach, not to mention competency, is obliterated. “We have spent money well in the past, look, here is the evidence, therefore we can spend this even larger amount of money well now”.
With this belief now orthodoxy, every pore in the organisation secretes an intoxicating scent attracting the club to market. Unfortunately, the rewards for spending big are heady and instant, though they seldom last as long as the hangover.
Directors are celebrated, ticket and merchandise sales get a short-term kick. The manager and coaches get to play with more expensive toys; quite literally, everyone is happy. This is narco-football, only accommodated by ever-bigger hits. For some, this narco-football offers proof that management share wider stakeholder aspirations. I contend otherwise.
The heresy to this orthodoxy reads differently:
Clubs should mistrust their successes, they are evidentially more random than most are prepared to accept.
Windfall transfer income is more likely to draw clubs away from the part of the market they are most competent in. It is an acknowledged fact that sellers and agents literally see them coming.
Don’t go searching for the instant hit, you’re more likely to miss. If necessary, take some short-term pain while using resources to enhance recruitment infrastructure.
Heresy in any area of life is seldom met with quiet contemplation. Narco-football heresy is more likely to be met with a rationalisation that the heretics don’t share orthodoxy’s core values – sustainable success of the football club – no matter how many references to “sustainable success of the football club” they make. It’s Salem-esque.
The orthodox-heretic analogy is evident where three or more are gathered in any club’s name. The first club who manage to unite everyone behind the heretic’s charter will clean up/reach nirvana/find salvation/achieve ultimate enlightenment/do lunch with Tom Cruise.
CQteN St Patrick’s Day Dinner is now FULLY BOOKED. Many thanks for everyone who responded so quickly. We are well on the way to raising the money to build a kitchen and shelter at the Kholoni Primary School in Malawi (for details check here).
Just a few posting days left to order your CQN Annual before Christmas, £5 from every sale goes to the Malawi appeal:
Sean Fallon: Celtic’s Iron Man:
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Eddie
Good observation fae the Arsenal fan.
Cheers.
neganon:
I sent thru’ Ramie’s details to your works address. You’re up early.
Neganon – just for accuracy.
Mags,
I was singin that in three-part harmony
Which isnae easy when you’ve got piles
I’m really off now
Night all
Question:
How did Jews remonstrate with Nazis?
Correct.
So why waste your time figuring out why anything irish is despised in Scotland.
This despicable slight is a problem for the Scots to fight.
Another reason we dont want that vanguard back that the bored are keen on the cashback for.
BB
And if my family were buns, I could have been? :)
I thought you’d all ignored it lol, glad I posted it now.
eddieinkirkmichael
I’m a slow reader. It took me ages. ;-)
Seriously, though, repost in the morning. I would but I don’t have the skills.
HH
The “Celtic minded” internet bampots such as Paul67 and Phil made a name for themselves by calling out hunnery on the lies out of Ibrox totally ignored by the MSM that led to their grateful temporary demise. (money talks BS walks). However, why nothing about institutional attacks on Celtic supporters? Or is that ok as long as we(as in the club) have a nice turnover?
Delaneys Dunky @ 01:16 on 18 December, 2013
“BB
And if my family were buns, I could have been? :)”
Nae chance if your the one of the Delaneys fae ferguslie.
e=mc2
Re FOS,
The sentiment of the song imo is simply that despite the past “and in the past, they must remain”, Scotland can “rise now, and be a nation again”.
I don’t think it’s anti-English in the slightest, but explicitly nationalist.
So the problem is, you are under threat of arrest if you sing it a football match where someone of English nationality in attendence finds it offensive, which they may well do.
However, if you sing it at a full capacity Murrayfield during a rugby game, not football, then it’s okay. Encouraged, actually.
How odd. Would love to see the government behind this strange piece of legislation lead us through the rocky waters of divorce from the UK. Should be a laugh.
eddieinkirkmichael
23:19 on
17 December, 2013
I wouldn`t want to try and make any comparison between Scottish laws,past present of,inevitably future.
When that article first appeared ,I thought that three months imprisonment for whatever hun ditty he had sung was a ludicrously over the top sentence.
Legal overkill begets defiance.
Mags,
your question about “the West”… it’s clearly Connacht with reference to the O’Connor?
You thinkin deeper and the diaspora? Clare was well known as a “bad” county, by those that wrote the story, but Mayo and Galway would be a sort of Vietnam to your average happy go-lucky black n tan or auxie.
BB
Aye, there Foxbar and Linwood. Am the other side of the Clyde. :))
I reckon I’ve just been mugged
Now, oiche mthaith
macjay1 for Neil Lennon
01:24 on
Point taken mate, sorry I misread your earlier post. It goes to show though what some fans could be facing for merely singing a song, beggars belief.
Anyway guys have to catch some shut eye.
Doctor Whatfor
01:21 on
Will repost article in the morning.
margaret mcgill 01.21
However, why nothing about institutional attacks on Celtic supporters? Or is that ok as long as we(as in the club) have a nice turnover?
I fear the nail has been hit on the head here.
eddieinkirkmichael:
Thanks for that post earlier, it took me to this…
Greenpeace a lesson for the Green Brigade
courtesy of
This guys blog
Big cup winners yes in oz on hols.
Benny I have just got over the jet lag some of my posts may have been impacted but it’s mostly iPad checker which does daft things which I can’t be arsed correcting it. However my questions were obvious as is your lack of reply.
Kitalba I have no access to my works email address. Can you send to gaxy@ntlworld.com please?
Delanys I was born in drum chapel moved to paisley around 15 years ago and clearly I love being a buddy!
Weeminger I was thinking about your question some more. It would be absurd for the police to say to celtic that a law is going I be broken under the OB act. How could they anticipate they would take offence apart from the fact they find our existence offensive.
“God save the queen” is racist.
If by race one means culture and not DNA
eddieinkirkmichael
01:27 on
18 December, 2013
macjay1 for Neil Lennon
01:24 on
Point taken mate, sorry I misread your earlier post. It goes to show though what some fans could be facing for merely singing a song, beggars belief
Exactly what I feel.
Margaret McGill
I’ve asked you before and you’ve yet to reply, how does Celtic make more cash if a side from Ibrox are in our league with a chance of getting half or all of the CL cash due to Scotland’s CL representative(s)?
Any cash derived from matches v them is dwarfed by our current CL income.
A couple of years ago..Galatasaray fans wanted their club to complain to UEFA that when Inter Milan came to town they had crosses on their strips. The bigoted claim from the turks was that Inter Milan were flouting their Christianity to a bunch of muslims. If one were to extrapolate and make an analogy to current day Scotland and Celtic supporters its as if the Turkish govt agreed with the Galatasaray fans.
ger57
01:41 on 18 December, 2013
Reply: Couldnt care less. I would rather watch Celtic playing in a cow field than fund those cheating racist arrogant ignorant murdering scumbags. Whats your next question?
Doctor Whatfor
01:28 on 18 December, 2013
ok. thanks.
Neg2
We moved in direct opposite directions, though I moved to Partick as a baby. Born a Buddy still. :)
I agree with you re playing them again. So, if the board only care about cash, why would they want thems in our league?
ger57
01:55 on 18 December, 2013
Because as Celtic’s excursions into the CL league has proven this year
i.e. Karandy 3-2 by the skin of our teeth followed by abject humiliation
played 6 won 1 lost 15 scored 3 conceded 14 then CL money is no guarantee to bored pension plans, but hunnery is. Did I miss something?
NegAnon:
Done.
Football without fans….
Why dont all Celtic minded erudite “Journalists” (excluding the gerontion alcholics that frequent CQN) write a book on the institutional attack on Celtic supporters retrospectively from 2013 beginning with the guilt of the club itself???? I can help :)
Margaret Mcgill
I think you did. No disrespect to the other clubs in Scottish football, but we are all but assured CL qualifiers for the next few years and we will be seeded to reach the group stages. If the tribute act get into our league, we are only 3 or 4 honest mistakes away from losing that bounty.
We have a far greater chance of beating the Karagandys of this world than we do of beating the hun in a MIB infested Scotland.
My point is that if the board is desparate to be playing the hun, it’s not for financial reasons.
ger57
02:14 on 18 December, 2013
No I didnt. In 2016/2017 the huns will win the SPL and we are back to the new firm.
unless of course they go broke again then its 3rd time lucky :)
Mags,
If it’s too taboo a subject [PLC guilt] for CQN, there’s no chance of the rags touching it.
Thanks kitalba
FFM – I’m the only conspiracy theorist in the village)
02:18 on 18 December, 2013
Exactly !
O internet bampot, internet bampot! wherefore art thou internet bampot?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Cap and pray.
Margaret McGill
You are more confident of thems winning the Scottish league than most, if not all, of the huns that I know, and I live in Ayrshire. Methinks you are either drunk or you are reading too much MSM propoganda. Even Dave King says they need at least £50m to catch up with us and that’s assuming no intervening insolvency event.
ger57
02:34 on 18 December, 2013
Margaret McGill
Drunk. No dont be facetious. they’ll be back. Scotland wants it.