Getting a managerial appointment right is difficult. A number of things went in our favour when we landed Brendan Rodgers, not least the market for managers in England. The days when a club the size of Liverpool would recruit a manager from Swansea, as they did with Brendan in 2012, are gone.
The era when Arsenal would risk a manager from Grampus Eight, as they did with Wenger, or Manchester United would take someone from Aberdeen, as with Ferguson, even now seem bizarre.
It’s relatively easy to get a short-term boost from a managerial appointment which would take the pressure off board and even players, but football has a habit of bringing reality to the fore quickly. A defeat or two can make years of forward planning difficult to achieve.
I like the strategy of appointing a caretaker if you lose a manager midseason. This buys you time to test the market before appointing an available and familiar name. We have had a few caretakers in our time: Kenny Dalglish won the League Cup, while Frank Connor managed to retire undefeated before handing the reigns to Luigi.
Kenny took over a decent, if poorly managed, squad, while Frank steadied the ship after Liam Brady’s ill-fated tenure ended. Their task was straightforward, get the players pulling in the same direction. If you limit the caretaker’s remit to this, he should do OK.
Had we appointed a permanent replacement in the weeks after John Barnes ‘resigned’ we would have missed out on Martin O’Neill and all that followed. Taking your time can pay.
I’m also open to the idea of a director of football. There is no right or wrong policy on this subject. Changing a manager is the biggest upheaval a club will face (a normal club, anyway). Often the coaches and scouts go too, but if you have a director of football controlling recruitment strategy, for example, you recruit a coach to match the existing strategy. You also don’t need to start scouting players for different roles from scratch.
If we were sitting with a youth coach in charge of the first team right now I’d be doing my best ‘Calm down’ routine. A decision rushed, or worse, a decision made because you are terrified to visit Celtic Park in three weeks, would be the worst of all worlds. Take your medicine at Celtic Park but get it right for June.
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BB – Not read the Atown news for ages – Do Sean Graham’s still give out a free £20 bet for bet of the week in the Punter’s Guide?
If so, make sure you take that off the scoundrels as well as the £7k!! :)
Great shot mate, well done.
HH.
TALLYBHOY on 22ND FEBRUARY 2017 9:16 AM
:-)
Nice one.
Morning folks.
Can I respectfully ask that those of you with a faith spare a thought today for the father of our fellow poster ‘Call Me Gerry’ this morning as he Is laid to rest
Thanks in advance.
Building a hotel and facilities on that scale will take significant resource. Where will that come from?
It may come from profits generated by the football operation. A couple of high profile sales such as Dembele and/or Tierney.
It’s a medium term project, maybe we’ll accumulate profits from the Champions League. Maybe the decisions will be contingent on such success.
Perhaps it’ll come partly from membership and ownership schemes and debentures in the new facilities.
Perhaps it will in essence be franchised to a hotel operator. Unlikely as the statement mentions the need for investment.
It’s more likely it will come from a share issue, as Lennoxtown did, if Celtic are to own outright.
A development of that size will dwarf the costs of Lennoxtown. It doesn’t relate directly to football and the appetite for fan involvement in such a share issue is highly questionable.
The business case is clear. A rate of return on investment. A return to the club and its shareholders.
My concern is firstly the shareholding dynamic and how that will be affected. Lennoxtown shifted ownership away from the collective and onto the few. Was it a price worth paying for such a fabulous facility? That’s a an argument to be had over several pints and a few tunes. There’d be at least one lament among the tunes.
The hotel business can be lucrative, but it is also very competitive and incredibly hard work. A successful hotel will return profits. They will be a percentage of investment and will not run into the millions each year. No way.
So while I’m loving the humour, the naming, the bragging and the state aid I have my reservations.
Our commercial enterprise is football. The vision for the hotel is grand. The chances of it being a white elephant are not ludicrous, especially in the long term cycle of football and a downturn.
I’d like to see the funding plan. If it’s self funding from football profits and cash you can ram it. Success on the park breeds success off it, the return on re-investment in football will be greater than any hotel.
If it’s a share issue you can ram it. The return on a commercial operation with that magnitude of cost is not worth the inevitable ownership dilution of me and you, it’s already nearly immaterial. Pursue the fan park with bars and canopies and gazebos.
To compete on the pitch in our lifetime we need to grow the club’s success on the park more than we need to grow peripheral commercial operations. They are not mutually exclusive, of course they’re not and indeed one feeds the other. But our revenue is primarily from playing football. Season tickets, TV money, CL money, strip sponsorship. All about the team playing football. All profits, cash should be squeezed into putting the best team on the park, progressing in Europe and changing our football environment/league we play in. The increments there are huge. The competitive advantage of a commercial hotel is marginal. It wouldn’t be my focus until we’d addressed the levelling of the playing field with Man U, Monaco, Dortmund, Juve.
Maybe they’ll happen in tandem. For now I’m not convinced this is what we need. Just an opinion for you to happily annihilate, I’ll check back in tonight to see how badly. :)
HH
ClubTropicanaCSC
Robert Tressell/Scullybhoy
Interesting comments both.
Let’s be clear, as someone else has said Celtic will not be running an hotel, nor necessarily even building one.
Hotels are run under brand names or franchises by specific hotel operators, with Celtic either being the landlord or a joint venture partner.
It is very likely that the eventual development will look nothing like the drawings produced as I would expect the initial stage to be no more than an application for planning permission “in principle” which would see permission granted for the hotel plus the museum, offices, a retail outlet or two and possibly some ancillary units such as a separate restaurant and so on.
Celtic will then look for a dedicated hotel partner (remember both Dermot Desmond and Chris Traynor already have hotel interests with The Sands and the latter’s ownership of a Radisson franchise) and they will look to sign them up to a lease and management contract worth £x/year.
On the back of that contract, they will then look for a development partner to build the actual buildings at a fixed cost. The contract with the builder and the hotel group will likely be in the name of a separate company (Celtic Park Development Ltd for example) which will be wholly owned by the PLC or at least the PLC will have a majority ownership depending in the structure of the deal.
Celtic will gain from long term rents, income generation from the Museum and increased merchandise sales via the store and hopefully ticket sales from a smartly operated commercial operation.
The balance sheet will be made much healthier and the Celtic brand and commercial footprint will be enhanced.
All of that is essential if Celtic wish to move forward commercially in the modern world. As the statement says this is only at the early stages but clearly they would not have re;eased a statement if they were still at the embryonic stage and so they will be at a stage where this has been discussed, planned and managed to the stage where they are comfortable in making it public.
Now, it may be that the charity foundation will get some form of benefit from all of this, and while I could, I won’t at this stage speculate on how that could be worked.
However, no later than yesterday my dear old mum and I talked about Celtic actually building some form of homeless shelter in the true spirit of Walfrid.
Lou Macari has just done this near stoke and has overseen the renovation of an empty building at a cost of £150,000 which houses and feeds some 30 homeless people each night, and provides help and guidance in getting them back into mainstream society.
THAT would be a truly fantastic Celtic project and worthy of the legacy of brother Walfrid.
Maybe such a thing could be crowdfunded by the fans.
Maybe someone with an entrepreneurial spark would take that on?
Makes you think.
BRTH
PS in all the hotel naming discussions yesterday I am surprised that no one opted for the name of Dermot’s Current Hotel.
The Bobby SANDS.
RIP Call me Gerry
Blantyre Kev
The operation of this sheme should not be funded from a share issue.
Celtic already own the land and will develop the plan so far. That is their capital and the asset is theirs.
They will then seek strategic commercial partners to exploit the scheme as best as possible with the minimum risk.
Many hotels in Glasgow are de facto operated by numerous companies.
Take the Holiday in express.
Building built by development company, the hotel is run by Chardon D’or and restaurant facilities are provided by Chardon D’or and Di Maggios all of whom pay rental to the owner.
Same goes for the development at Hamilton Palace Grounds etc.
This is a development which features an hotel, it is not a hotel project for Celtic per se.
Agree totally that the main business plan to increase revenue is to improve player quality and regularly participate in the champion’s league.
That should be business plan one and two.
Excellent post from BlantyreKev.
I don’t have the time or inclination to get into the nitty gritty of a debate on the merits of the proposed Development. All I will say is that Desmond is one shrewd buck, I’m not saying he hasn’t backed losers in his career but by & large when it comes to making money he has few equals.
This proposed Development will have been gone through with a fine tooth comb, nothing that even the brightest CQN’er will come up with hasn’t already been put into the equation.
I do fear that the much talked about “40 million” Dembele bonanza, could well provide the seed Capital for this venture, if it ever comes to pass.
British household spend on restaurants cafes and hotels went above £45 per week for the first time since 2011 according to figures released by the office for national statistics for the year ending March 2016.
This included spending on alcoholic drinks being consumed in pubs.
Lots going on in the hotel sector with Dubai money in Yotel expanding, Chinese money- Kew Green, Eriska lots of expansion afoot aboot ahoot
Art of War on 21st February 2017 10:58 pm
May well be the proposed LED screen they are putting up.
KTF
On the subject of us owning the property and leasing it out,one of the world’s top hotel groups-InterContinental Hotels-sold their entire property portfolio a few years back on lease-back deal. Hilton owners either did the same,or looked long and hard at it.
Many large supermarket branches,for instance,operate the same way.
So if we tie-in with ICH,we could well end up with The Celtic eff the Crowne Plaza,as it is one of their brands,along with Holiday Inn,etc.
It wouldn’t be core income,it is designed,imo,to enhance the site and the balance sheet. There aren’t very many other options available to us which allow for that.
Caesars palace!? Has tae be.
Hail Hail.
Margaret McGill on 22nd February 2017 3:28 am
Wholeheartedly agree. I truly wish it happens, but like MWD I am skeptical.
KTF
Morning weefrhave a great day
Weefra :)))))))))
Blantyre Kev
BRTH
I read the book about McDonald’s called The Golden Arch years ago.
I was always interested in how McDonald’s came into being ever since I tried their quarter pounder and cheese at their Haymarket outlet in London’s West End on the evening before Scotland took England and Wembley apart in 1977.
I just found out this morning a movie was released last year see
https://youtu.be/AX2uz2XYkbo
and it covers some of the concerns raised here and in the book. In particular how a Hamburger business turned into a Real Estate one.
It would seem Celtic own the real estate and this is about raising it’s value in the East End of Glasgow, hopefully to the benefit of all.
WEEFRATHETIM
Get yer alarm clock sorted,ffs. You’ll never stay up till midnight reading our pash if you keep getting up early.
Hope the high winds haven’t done too much damage out your way,they were bad down here last night. Forecast for severe gales here lunchtime tomorrow,I love driving along the M4 in them.
Not…
Great post from Blantyrekev at 0930, thought-provoking stuff.
Here’s how The Herald sums it up today, from a different perspective:
Quote
“Celtic aims to be a world-class football club in everything it does. We are pleased to have made significant investment in recent years to develop the stadium and public realm area for the benefit of our supporters.”
What this means for the east end of Glasgow club is that they are as far away from the rest of their rivals as the board from 1992 were in relation to reality. Great for Celtic, not so great for everyone else.
A penny for the thoughts of David Murray when he heard about this. Actually, make it a pound because that’s the price Craig Whyte had to pay for getting the keys to Ibrox.
How is anyone expected to challenge an already rich club that can built in a posh hotel in the car park?
Unquote
I would think that any hotel complex would operate in he same way as those on the land around Glasgow Airport, that the airport company owns. The hotel group fund the development and building and manage the hotel as they would any other. The airport, as the land owner get a fixed rate minimum annual rent plus additional income based on the success of the hotel. The airport has guaranteed income but its in their interest to work with the hotel group to maximize profits as they will get a share.
Celtic would be the airport, guaranteed income, potential for additional income.
Maybe Chris Trainer’s company will run the hotel, the iRadission Celtic Park
“I’m also open to the idea of a director of football. There is no right or wrong policy on this subject. Changing a manager is the biggest upheaval a club will face (a normal club, anyway). Often the coaches and scouts go too, but if you have a director of football controlling recruitment strategy, for example, you recruit a coach to match the existing strategy. You also don’t need to start scouting players for different roles from scratch.”
They should just use our strategy. The manager signs all the good players and the bad buys are the fault of the CEO!
Bournesouperecipe
Thanks for that link to the article on the demolitin of the National Savings Bank at Cowglen.
I was there from 1966 to 1980 and it was a community very much as described in the article.
The lunch break playing football on the grass pitches at South Pollok behind the early temporary buildings was always something to look forward to but many friendships and relationships were formed there.
Some enemies too but as I ended up working in Barbados for 2 years post 1980 as a result of unfriendly activity then early retirement at 54I think I got the last laugh.
Sad to see it go though with what looks like no more than a whimper.
I thought that the Celtic Foundation was the mechanism for the club’s community and charity work, including support for shelters, education and other means of assisting those in need of assistance.
If that is the case, why is there constant bleating on here about Celtic “betraying the spirit of Walfrid” and other nonsensical, gimmicky phrases?
If I’m mistaken in my belief, then what is the Foundation all about?
LEFTCLICKTIC
Thank you my friend and you also have a great day. HH
Gary 67
Is our latest lady recruit to the Board not from Glasgow Airport with relevant experience?
BMCUW
In all honesty, I don’t even know if the alarm works on my clock, not been used in 4+ years. High winds last night but expecting to be snowed in tomorrow when DORIS hits. Lol. HH
Gary 67,
A link to how the airport idea work in practice.
The hotel at Chelsea FC is operated by the Millennium and Copthorne (International) Group). They also operate a hotel in George Square.
The Millennium Group was initially formed from what used to be called Copthorne Hotels. Aer Lingus sold Copthorne for £219m in 1995 to a company called CDL. ( The Copthorne Group were originally formed by British Caledonian).
CDL floated in 1996 and became Millennium and Copthorne. They are operated out of Asia.
There’s always an Irish connection : )
Chelsea is very different to the East End but it’s interesting to look at how the partnership works.
DD is no stranger to the Airport and Hotel business (London City Airport and the Sandy Lane Hotel).
https://www.millenniumhotels.com/en/about-us/our-brand-story/
See a RFC supporter on twitter commenting on Celtic FC building a museum and saying our fking club should be in one.. Lol.
Twists n Turns
the story is so intricate and detailed that you begin to wonder how it could be made up?”
———-
Yeah – a bit like Jack and the Beanstalk!!!
Squire Danaher
Sorry to hear about Call me Gerry.God bless his memory And prayers offered Iin support.May he rest in peace
HH
Twists and Turns at 9.07
The guy was actually quite funny but was deadly serious in his view. You know that way where the story is so intricate and detailed that you begin to wonder how it could be made up?”
Brilliant..
THOMTHETHIM FOR OSCAR OK on 22ND FEBRUARY 2017 10:41 AM
‘I thought that the Celtic Foundation was the mechanism for the club’s community and charity work, including support for shelters, education and other means of assisting those in need of assistance.’
##
How much of the Foundation’s income is donate by the plc, and how much is raised by the public?
Quick Question
IS Edinburger Derby on tv tonight ? cant see it listed
on Football on UK TV or whatever its called.
Take it its not as it clashes with CL football.
What World class administrator plays replays on a night CL
is on a so deprives Scottish football of ??? £250,000 SKY money
No doubt some Richard sitting in Park Gardens earning 250,000
a year.
Thoughts with CALL ME GERRY, me he rest in peace. HH
Auldheid
Re savings bank
They are naking short work of it.the main building on the barrhead rd being demolished and the building of homes (bout 30) opposite were nsb pitches used to be on boydstone rd.
I came by it yesterday.it looks surreal.
Hope your good :-)
HH
Bout 30 at moment.more to cime per the article.I think bout 450
Wee fra
Good to see you on I thought youd be busy lambing at this time:-)
HH
Good morning bhoys from a sunny central scotland I think Celtic with a hotel and other facilities must be planning for a biggar picture than just the SPL and that is good to see. H.H.
CALL ME GERRY
May your father rest in peace and our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family this morning Gerry.
SP