Neil Lennon’s interview with the official site was the second resounding State of the Club address from Celtic within a week. The manager said:
”Clearly, in terms of where Rangers do play, that is now a matter for others to decide upon, it is something we have no control or influence over.
“We must now move on, and move on with a collective unity between the supporters and the club and the team.
“We need to stand strong, shoulder to shoulder and all work together to continue to move the club in the right direction.
“We want as many fans as possible to come back to the club and take their seat at Celtic Park and invest in the club as much as possible.
“We are now looking forward and not back, we have a vibrant young team, I want to progress this team as far as I can but we cannot do this without the fans’ support.
“There will be no slacking off or complacency, we have a lot to look forward to and that´s what we are preparing for, but I need to be very clear, we need our fans with us every step of the way.
“We cannot let outside negative influences dictate the mood at Celtic, we are very optimistic and we are very much looking forward to the season but we need our fans right with us”.
“It´s imperative we make inroads in Europe again this year and it would be nice to get through the qualifiers and into the Champions League group stages, but I´m under no illusion how difficult that´s going to be
“Everyone wants to play at the big table and that´s our whole focus. We go into this as champions and that is a fantastic feeling, so hopefully that will give the players an extra spring in their step.
“If we qualify then you never know where it will take us.”
I hear season ticket sales are up on the corresponding period last season but the message from Neil is clear, with the driver for high-value corporate ticket sales missing, Celtic are more dependent on ordinary supporters buying tickets than ever before.
This is your tax-and-supplier-paying-champions-today-and-next-season-Celtic. You wouldn’t rather it any other way so get along and enjoy it.
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Talk this morning of the SPL agreeing to a 16 team league within 3 years if the SFL clubs vote Sevco into division one. How far are they prepared to go to secure the gerrymander?
If I was an SFL club in any way thinking about voting for the execs’ position I would wring the maximum concessions out of them. Their desperation means that their negotiating position is ridiculously weak.
I hear clubs in the SFL talking about an amendment to the motions for Friday. Several seem to want a straightforward vote to put them into the third division – seems like the best course of action for clubs in my view.
Dontbrattbakkinanger
Many thanks my friend , hail hail
Los Dufferos, reporting from the scene of the crime…
Steve Fitzpatrick @fitzpas
Latest Duff&Phelps creditor report IYGAF: http://www.rangers.co.uk/staticFiles/a2/b6/0,,5~177826,00.pdf
Wee Koki Mizuno
CYPRUS – JAGGY THISTLE, 7 KLYTEMNISTRAS ST, PAPHOS (Tel: 357 99176 229)
CYPRUS – SALAMIS, MACKENZIE BEACH, LARNACA http://www.salamisrestaurant.com ( Shows the games)
CYPRUS – THE STEP INN, LIMASSOL
CYPRUS – CLUB 71 IRISH BAR, AMBELAKION 22, LIMASSOL (Road to Pagoda Chinese Restaurant) (Not necessarily a Celtic bar, but shows Live games)
CYPRUS – FINNEGANS IRISH BAR, PROTARAS RD, PROTARAS
CYPRUS – THE BHOY’S BAR, TEFKROU, ANTHIA 20, AYIA NAPA (Tel: 00357 23 72272)
CYPRUS – LUKE KELLY`S, 28 AYIAS MAVRIS STR, 5342 AYIA NAPA (Tel: 2372 1437) (Cyprus Affiliaion CSC)
CYPRUS – RAT & PARROT, AYIA NAPA
CYPRUS – NAUTILUS INN, PERNERA AREA, PARALIMNI
celticbars.com
Wee Koki, did the Hoki Koki
That’s what it’s all about CSC
How do you get the must have 4 derby games a season for Sky in a 16 team league
If this is three a row – i’m away to get a life?
THE BHOY’S BAR… how did I forget that :)
Phew
I’m off to Paphos second half of August. I’ll be ragin’ if we don’t have the League sown up by the time I get back.
Sack the beard.
I predict that this season will be The Paddy McCourt season of all seasons.
CHAMPION’S LEAGUE HERE WE COME!
GIRFUY Doncaster!
DBBIA
Sack the Beard?
lionroars67,
Good question!
16 teams playing each other twice would only give 30 games. There would have to be some sort of split to give additional games.
Bournesouprecipe
Many thanks, hail hail
DBBIA
Didn’t have you down for a Paphis raver
Life in the old dog yet
Re hillbillies ..scrofulous…appearance or morally contaminated or both :-))
lionroars67 on 11 July, 2012 at 10:05 said:
How do you get the must have 4 derby games a season for Sky in a 16 team league
…………………..
Hearts v hibs – 2 games
Celtic v Thistle – 2 games
Dundee v Utd – 2 games
Motherwell v Accies – 2 games
Dunfermline v Rovers – 2 games
Theres 10 for a start :-)
We let our footballers do the talking.
Lionroars /GordonJ
I’m sure they sort something out :-))
Being serious, if they’re thinking about a 16 team league, I’d prefer they went and made it 18 instead giving us a league with 34 games and have 3 up 3 down.
Paphos even
My spelling is bad enough without this iPad interference
PFAyr- more of a lie by the pool with a big pile of books kind of raver, wonderin’ what kind of Magnum is called for.
Morning all from a bright North Ayrshire. Blue skies for the first time in living memory. It is good to be a Celtic supporter at such a time.
Greenjedi
That would make for a competitive league
Ole Doncaster and Regan have been burning the midnight oil at both ends trying to fit in Sevco for the past seven weeks.
Anyone able to copy and paste the Herald article referred to on twitter please. Not able to access it here.
Árd Macha
Here’s a surprise!
PEAT DEFENDS REGAN OVER RANGERS
http://www.sportinglife.com/football/news/article/165/7888260/peat-defends-regan-over-rangers
Gordon_J backing Neil Lennon on 11 July, 2012 at 10:11 said:
lionroars67,
Good question!
16 teams playing each other twice would only give 30 games. There would have to be some sort of split to give additional games.
To much obfuscation in the media, IMO this isn’t a done deal yet it appears some SFL teams require hit with a very blunt instrument (Iain King Sun) Two full days to go as well
the story, and it is a cracker indeed, about the SNP and Tories getting together to preserve that lot demonstrates how silly all this has become.
SPL2 has always been the plan, but nobody can explain to me how a second SPL is good for Scottish football when one version of that folly has beeen shown to drive our game backwards.
It`s all about saving the Orcs and preserving the blazer brigade, the fans can go and take a running……
I may be not feeling the vibe half way around the World but what I can see so far
Rangers are gone , liquid , dust.
Sevco have nothing they can use the car park for
SPL clubs voted overwhelmingly for sporting integrity
SFL clubs are going to do the same. If I am wrong here I will join the constant complainers
Scottish Football Officials are woefully out of touch with Scottish football fans, possibly corrupt and certainly have coats on shoogly pegs
Scottish redtops are pathetic as ever -no change and never will be
So why is it that all the greetin face waily waily minnies I hear are not fans from other clubs ? The sack the board brigade is getting boring. Questioning Lenny’s every vowel tedious. I am sure you know what you are doing in your day jobs but what makes you think you can run a football team . I am not doubting your love for Celtic, you wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t a big part of your day. But its boring , where is Declan or Serenity when you need them. : )
See I put a smiley face on. Now if you have to ask if you are the waily waily , you might be : )
Hail Hail
Reports that Neil is interested in Korean midfielder Kim…. are we going to be playing 0 10 0 formation next year or are we shipping out some players?
….PFayr on 11 July, 2012 at 10:15 said:
Greenjedi
That would make for a competitive league
………………
And just now we have areally competative league ;-)
3 down would make nearly every game count when tied in with teams going for the european spots.
See
At dawn, the telephone rings. “Hello, Senor Rod? This is Ernesto, the caretaker at your country house.”
“Ah yes, Ernesto. What can I do for you? Is there a problem?”
“Um, I am just calling to advise you, Senor Rod, that your parrot, he is dead”.
“My parrot? Dead? The one that won the International competition?”
“Si, Senor, that’s the one.”
“Damn! That’s a pity! I spent a small fortune on that bird. What did he die from?”
“From eating the rotten meat, Senor Rod.”
“Rotten meat? Who the hell fed him rotten meat?”
“Nobody, Senor. He ate the meat of the dead horse.”
“Dead horse? What dead horse?”
“The thoroughbred, Senor Rod.”
“My prize thoroughbred is dead?”
“Yes, Senor Rod, he died from all that work pulling the water cart.”
“Are you insane? What water cart?”
“The one we used to put out the fire, Senor.”
“Good Lord! What fire are you talking about, man?”
“The one at your house, Senor! A candle fell and the curtains caught on fire.”
“What the hell? Are you saying that my mansion is destroyed because of a candle?!”
“Yes, Senor Rod.”
“But there’s electricity at the house! What was the candle for?”
“For the funeral, Senor Rod.”
“WHAT BLOODY FUNERAL??!!”
“Your wife’s, Senor Rod”. She showed up very late one night and I thought she was a thief, so I hit her with your new Ping G15 204g titanium head golf club with the TFC 149D graphite shaft.”
SILENCE……….. LONG SILENCE………VERY LONG SILENCE.
“Ernesto, if you broke that driver, you’re in deep poo.”
haha Should have kept that one for the CQN golf day joke fest Kit
Perfecto
Ard Macha
This one?
THE possible consequences for the Scottish Premier League’s broadcasting arrangement should a Rangers newco be made to start life in the Irn-Bru Third Division were last week made public by Stenhousemuir.
Ajax celebrate victory in the Eredivisie, where rights are sold direct by the league to subscribers for £50 per season, a model which could increase revenue for Scottish clubs even without the added draw of Rangers. Picture: Getty
It made for dire reading.
According to Stewart Regan, chief executive of the Scottish Football Assocation, and Neil Doncaster, his SPL counterpart, the existing deal, worth circa £15m per season, would disappear to be replaced with one worth just £3m. The fall off is staggering.
While Rangers are a key player as far as the television companies are concerned, they are not the be all and end all of Scottish football. In the 2010/11 season the average viewing figure on Sky was 247,000 per game. Even if all broadcast matches including Rangers are discounted, there would still have been on average a viewership of 180,000 per game. Rangers contributed 27% of the viewing figures, so why should a subsequent TV agreeement without them decrease by 500%?
It doesn’t take a genius to work out that this is a terrible deal. The SPL is the 11th most-attended league in Europe, ahead of Switzerland, Austria and Norway, all of whom can command higher television revenue. Even without Rangers, the SPL would still have had higher attendances than the three aforementioned leagues. The Greek league, which has attendances half of our own, has a television deal worth three times as much, while the Norwegians pull in similar numbers.
Are attendances the key indicator here? Can they translate into viewing figures when the Barclays Premier League is on our doorstep and on our screens? Let’s look at some leagues in a similar situation, namely the Austrian, Swiss and Norwegian leagues.
The former has a deal with Sky Austria worth £13.5m a season, an arrangement similar to our own. However, while the SPL goes out to 645,000 subscribers in Scotland alone, the Austrian league is broadcast to just 240,000 local subscribers, three times fewer. Like Scotland, Austria is in the shadow of its neighbour and Sky also has the rights to all games in Germany’s Bundesliga.
Over the border in Switzerland, they have just signed a deal worth £20m, with a further £4m coming from domestic channels. Swisscom, the cable company with the rights, has 608,000 subscribers and is the biggest cable operator in Switzerland, giving it similar reach to that of the SPL yet generating 33% more revenue.
In Norway, they have an even better deal, with a contract signed with TV2 Norway worth a reported £44m a year revenue despite viewing figures which are lower than Sky’s figures for the SPL. According to a report from TNS-Gallup, the most viewed domestic Norwegian match in 2011 was Lillestrom versus Brann, which attracted 196,000 viewers. As a comparison, a fixture between St Mirren and Hibernian attracted 392,000 viewers on February 20 last year, while the SPL’s average viewership on Sky is just shy of 250,000 per match. Even if we discounted all matches with Rangers, the viewership would still be around 180,000 per match.
So, Scotland gets less money than the Norweigans, the Swiss and the same as the Austrians, but on all counts boasts higher viewerships and match attendances. So why is the deal so poor in comparison? There is a suggestion that it is to do with the popularity of the English league, but Norway attracts Premier League viewerships five times those generated by their domestic matches; a similar ratio to Scotland, given that the average English game attracts 1m viewers.
Likewise, Austrian and Swiss football is overshadowed by the Bundesliga, which attracts more viewers than domestic matches – yet they still have deals either similar to or better than the SPL.
Another issue is the perceived lack of competition for SPL rights. Since the collapse of Setanta, Sky have had a monopoly and have, therefore, dictated the figures. Indeed, a Nordiccom report into the current Norwegian deal highlighted the situtation in the UK, saying “if former rivals decide to join forces instead of continuing to compete, this may have dramatic consequences for the competition, and hence also for prices. The fewer broadcasters that originally were present, the closer a reduction can move the market towards a monopsony [one single buyer]. This, in turn, will transfer market power from the sellers to the buyers”.
So the above lack of competition maybe explains the current deal being less than those of other European countries, but still cannot explain Doncaster’s £3m figure. To put that prediction into perspective again, it would rank Scottish football on par with Hungary, who sell their rights domestically for £2.8m. That league gets 2900 fans per game on average.
Is that all Sky are really offering for a league which would generate viewing figures of 180,000 a game more than Norway, even without Rangers? The Barclays Premier League generates average figures of around 1m for Sky, yet receives £1bn a year in revenue. Even with their monopoly, £3m is a derisory figure. But, assuming the figures are accurate, what alternatives do we have?
There is ESPN, but they appear to be building their interests in alliance with Sky. There is BT vision, who just invested £750m to show 38 Barclays Premier League games a season. With their model, which allows users to watch via mobile devices and the internet as well as conventional TV, this may be the way forward. There is also the long-mooted SPL TV option, modelled on the successful Eredivisie TV platform in the Netherlands.
At £6 per month, or £50 for the season, the platform allows you to watch all the Eredivisie matches live, wherever you are in the world. Just to put this in perspective, if a similar deal was set up in Scotland, 37,500 subscribers would be required worldwide to match Doncaster’s figure of £3m. If the numbers without Rangers remained at 180,000 a match, just short of £15m would be generated for the Scottish game, which looks surprisingly similar to what Sky are currently paying.
Is the current deal underpriced? Possibly, but with the lack of competition and the unwillingness of the SPL to take a step into the unknown, it is at least understandable. Could the proposed £3m figure by Doncaster be undervalued? Absolutely, and for that comment alone there should be a vote of no confidence heading in his direction.
Steven Burns runs the A Saint In Asia blog. You can read him at saintinasia.wordpress.com
yorkbhoy on 11 July, 2012 at 10:20 said:
0 10 0 is the new 3 5 2
If it’s good enough for Spain, it’s good enough for me.