It is not a good look when your retail partner is fined after admitting colluding to fix the price of football merchandise. JD Retail, Celtic’s partner, were fined £1.485m when they colluded with kit manufacturer Elite Sports and Newco Rangers to fix the price of merchandise sold to Newco fans. I have received assurances that nothing like this has ever happened at Celtic.
The Competition and Markets Authority, who discounted the fines levied on all three organisations as each pled guilty, found that Newco “became concerned” that fans were able to buy “Rangers” kit cheaper there than at the Elite Sports operated Gers Online and physical shops in Glasgow and Belfast. It does not appear any other clubs’ kit was involved in similar collusion.
JD said, “No directors or senior management of JD were involved in the offending conduct”, otherwise I am sure heads would roll. Elite and Newco have yet to make similar statements. It is hard to imagine any other UK club breaking the law in this manner, but this matter reiterates the need for ethical standards in business at the very top of an organisation.
Football clubs have a right to run retail operations that generate positive income inflows, which helps put a competitive team on the field.
When that drive for a competitive edge leads to law breaking, everyone in the game has something to worry about. You cannot subvert the law of the land to win trophies in Scottish football, how many times, over how many years, do we need to say this?
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If Porteous joined us I swear he would amass more reds than Morelos,I think?
PHILCOOL
Yes he seems a hothead – So was Broony until he learned to master it here at Celtic.
Still think there’s a player there for the finessing.
It is only the Grauniad but …
BD getting bigged up as a star of the 2005 Class in the EPL.
Hopefully this will be the last “Glee Club” refugee for quite a while.
The last 3 to 4 years have been incredible with the number of good players leaving aged 16/17.
Stands out like a sore thumb regarding what had gone before.
To lose one was unfortunate — to lose half a dozen plus suggests structural failure and worse.
Lots of comments / evidence recently that the crew running the youths are a rum lot.
Hopefully the much needed clear out changes things for the better.
Got the hump this morning so happy to be challenged on my grumpy post.
This current two week international break does my head in on 2 fronts
1. In less than seven weeks time clubs must release players for the world cup. Games start a week later.
Why couldn’t this international break (2 weeks) have been cancelled and players released 1 week earlier to allow participating countries to prepare?
Keeps SOME continuity in the club fixture calendar (which is going to be paused in full soon).
Frees up an extra week overall.
2. This Euro competition – I don’t even know the name of it.
What’s the point?
We have conventional Euro qualifiers already.
The players play too many games already !!!
Harrumph
Mad Mitch
Who is BD? What us the ‘Glee Club’ you refer to?
Jimbo
J67 @ 11.14
Get with the programme …
BD — you must have heard of him.
Couple of games last season at 16 — did a runner to L/pool.
Big talent — scored against Napoli youth in the Weans CL this season already.
Glee Club — Our youth set up involving St N’s as the magnet school.
High School Musical vibe rather than full on player development.
MM
I now know to whom you are referring. I was not sure if the ‘2005 class’ was people who made their debut then or were born then. It is actually a fair point about the number of promising youngsters we lose at 16 or 17 but I am not sure if changing the coaching/admin personnel will do much to stem the flow- youngsters are offered huge wages to move and there are agents encouraging them to move too.
Jimbo
MADMITCH
So even when someone politely asks you who BD is, you can’t even give a clear answer. All you do is ridicule the poster and tell him to “get with the programme”.
Not good.
J67
Apologies for the sharp response.
Birth year groups seems to be the way youth football is organised.
2004’s / 2005’s 2006’s …
Big change from my day …
Then the big day / date was 1st Aug for the football.
1st Sept for the egg chasing.
My thoughts are that the youth set up at St N’s is not the best.
Many stories doing the rounds that there is a lack of focus / engagement and the coaches are ego trippers — happy to have the badge but not that good at their job.
The way they handled KD was a case study in not how to do it — youth results not great but we have a 13 year old playing for our U18’s.
So we must be doing something right …
They treated him like a circus act.
Money will play its part in youth football.
However good coaching and a well trodden path to the first team will work wonders.
AP has totally changed things around regarding the B team.
Much needed and the gaps that he identified were very illuminating.
Hopefully he makes the same changes to the youths as well.
TMcL @ Scolding Central
How about saying something substantial?
Break the habit of a lifetime and say / do something constructive.
Our youth set up — discuss !?!
dearie me, it starts again.
BoE in full RNLI mode — having to launch a lifeboat.
KK is hopeless / clueless in equal measure and LT is even worse.
The BoE’s original plan to sell some of its stock of Gilts was asking for trouble given the state of the economy that BoJo left us with — KK and his longest financial suicide note in history was just Gary from Accounts not being able to read the room or reality.
new article posted.
Stx2 @ 12.00
Any comments or feedback on the ferry report?
They seem to be talking about nothing else down in the Port.
Surprised at your silence.
My friends in Celtic ( past and present)
We never stop.
And rightly so. However this buzz phrase must also refer to the whole football operation. Yesterday I again mentioned summer football. Think of the positives, not least that we would not be competing directly with the world’s richest league. Arguably we would also be more prepared for European football.
As for our academy. We are losing far too many young players to richer leagues. There is a plan B , emulate Brentford, learn and apply.
This is what Brentford said :-
‘The development of young players must make sense from a business perspective. The review has highlighted that, in a football environment where the biggest Premier League clubs seek to sign the best young players before they can graduate through an Academy system, the challenge of developing value through that system is extremely difficult.”
That is the very scenario that we face, and face it we must.
This is what Brentford did ;-
Put simply, the B Team model was seen as the best way of producing first-team players for Brentford. Leaning on their extensive data systems, they focused on targeting young players released by Premier League academies as well as acquiring talent from perceived undervalued markets overseas. When needed, the better players would be given opportunities in the first team.
Our games are selling out, we are competently navigating the Ange journey but there is a lot more to do. Paul 67 mentioned the youth dimension in Australia.
I liked the fact that Dominic Mckay was to bring new initiative into the club.
Dominic has departed, but we still need imaginative initiative.
HH to all.
MM @ 11 59
Much as I dislike the tone you often employ – and the initials thing really does grate at times- I never took offence at your original reply. However, I do think we should all try to be less confrontational around these parts myself included.
We do seem to have issues in the youth set up- Rodgers was unimpressed I think it is fair to say- I am sure Ange has his own thoughts but for me this is where the trailed ‘Director of Football’ – working with Nicholson and under the direction of Ange- could be useful. At the moment whilst all our ideas of academies etc seem on the theoretical right lines the execution is not.
Jimbo