One small compensation for Martin O’Neill is that Daizen Maeda will not have his usual post-international break recuperation requirement following in a fortnight. Japan take on Scotland at Hampden tomorrow before facing England at Wembley a week later. You get the feeling the player could benefit from getting away from Celtic business for a while, without the costs associated with a 36 hour journey.
It is an underappreciated fact how important Japanese football has been to Celtic over the last five years. Without Kyogo, Daizen and Reo Hatate, our trophy count would be less (perhaps significantly) and our transfer spend would be significantly higher. We went all in on Japan for a while, then, after diminishing returns, lost faith in the strategy. Recent scattergun approaches have been incoherent.
The premise that took us to Japan still stands. It is a fertile and under-scouted territory. We should be back in earnest.
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Happy Friday!
Happy Friday and big Mouldy67s foundation race night.hope to see many a good celt there.
HH
Turkeybhoy/Prestonpans
Ta for replies re Fernandez.
SomeR.o.i.csc
HH
HH Dan.
A bit like, ‘If we had a recruitment strategy in place and a proper scouting system, we could find some talent,’
Aye, good luck with that.
The shambles shambles on.
When we talk about recruitment in football we instinctively focus on footballers, but we really ought to widen our lens.
Celtic is a tremendously complex business and recruiting talent throughout the operation is critical to its success as a football club and as a business.
The sense is that we have neglected this pivotal principle in recent years.
We’ve seen the Head of Legal appointed as CEO. This served only to demonstrate that talents are not transferable. A highly respected sports lawyer and CAS arbitrator, he seems to have been appointed by default – he was there when the CEO chair was needing filled following Dom McKay’s short stint sublimating in the hot seat.
The appointment of McKay itself can only be seen as an error. Irrespective of the man’s talents as a business leader, he lasted just 10 weeks in the job, meaning the process that resulted in his appointment took longer than the length of time he stayed in post. Between his expectations of the role and our assessment of him in it, we appointed the wrong guy.
Paul Tisdale is another error – a hitherto unheralded football tradesman who somehow managed to land a senior post and stay long enough to leave even less heralded than when he arrived.
Between the two of them, they managed to convince themselves that Wilfried Nancy was a Celtic manager, while recruitment of footballers has crashed under their watch.
Peter Lawwell’s appointment as Chairman was another error. The skills and personality required of a leader in a complex business -the target-driven, competitive, often disruptive shaper – are not readily compatible with the role of a non-exec, particularly that of a chairman whose principal function is to lead consensus.
We’re in a period of huge challenges for the club, much of which has been caused by poor recruitment decisions over the past 5 years.
We need to appoint a new chairman. I gather that two of the most senior directors are also intending to leave this year, meaning we will have lost 3 from 6 non-execs in short order. I doubt Mr Desmond fancies the role (although he acts like an executive chairman), leaving just two non-execs remaining. We have some boardroom chairs to fill.
We have a temporary football manager with a temporary coaching team all needing replaced.
We are absent a head of football operations – whether that role will be continued remains to be seen.
And it’s quite clear that the current CEO is the wrong actor in the wrong role in the wrong movie. Another new hire required.
And these are just the vacancies we have some visibility of. Goodness knows what other roles need to be filled.
As Paul67 notes above regarding the recruitment of players; “Recent scattergun approaches have been incoherent.”
Regrettably that incoherence extends far beyond the recruitment of footballers.
I wish I had your defence mechanism of amnesia Paul. Unfortunately I still recall Inamura and Yamada signing up this season.
Don’t disagree. Except Ange brought in the good ones. The many fails since afford zero confidence in the recruitment team. I mean, Shin Yamada? Honestly. What are the parameters? Low fees and low wages and anything else is a bonus? There are many much better – and still affordable – players in that league that Yamada, surely.
Auction lots for race night at Celtic Park tonight.
https://mouldy67.com/2026/03/27/20260327-race-night-auction-items/
HH
TBB
“The appointment of McKay itself can only be seen as an error. Irrespective of the man’s talents as a business leader, he lasted just 10 weeks in the job, meaning the process that resulted in his appointment took longer than the length of time he stayed in post. Between his expectations of the role and our assessment of him in it, we appointed the wrong guy.”
You could substitute “Nancy “ for “McKay” and “football manager” for “ business leader” and your assessment would apply just as accurately.
With ,as you illustrate in you post, so many key positions to get right this summer it’s terrifying that we have made two identical and colossal errors in a relatively short space of time.
TLWIO
It’s not immediately clear to me who’ll make the appointments, or indeed in which order they’ll be made.
An Tearmann @ 11:04 am,
Hope all’s good big man…
On Emmanuel Fernandez…
No it wasn’t, I’m not much of a R2ngers watcher, was just doing a bit of research myself on Gednite’s post – the scratching the surface type, you know…
Went to the usual suspects like transfermarkt etc to check their transfers and squad value for this season.
Found Emmanuel Fernandez cost them 2.5 mn and was now worth 9 mn….
Had no idea about the ballyhoo until I double checked stuff…
The SMSM having him bought for 3.5 mn and worth 40 mn:))))
So think my treble the value statement is more realistic;)
Dont~believe~the~hype
Hail Hail
What happened to the Morelos money?
Thought it was the Mark Lawwell myth again….
BR’s fault again, eh ?.
The club is broken, Paul!
You, and more importantly Desmond and his puppets need to take their head out of their backsides, and accept wholesale changes are needed.
This rebuild is worse than anything we have faced since Fergus arrived. I’d argue we had better midfielders then.
It won’t be solved in one window or with a new coaching staff. It needs a strategy change and better staff across the club.
If not, this time next year we will be discussing who the next manager will be.
The club is BROKEN.
Chairbhoy
Thanks for reply👍,yesterday scanning msm his value appeared to be ‘added on’ with each diff article i read :-)) whit are they like.;-)) when it comes to them we dont believe the type! :-)
Its shows the flannel with your variance 3 to 9m
Msms ludicrous 3 to 30?
Mad lols
Hail Hail
TBB / TLWIO
The assessment of the current state of affairs and the rebuild required is pretty accurate.
The one big consolation is that turning things around in Scotland can be relatively quick and easy – less than 10 years ago both our title rivals were in lower divisions.
Personally I dont think there is too much wrong with the current organisational structure. It may needs some tweaks, eg a DoF, but the bigger issue is some of the folks sittng in the big seats. This also puts the previous CEO’s succession planning under scrutiny.
One area, I would disagree with is complexity. All businesses are as simple or as complex as folk make them.
Celtic’s model is fairly straightforward.
We invest in management resouce, player registrations and the stadium. We then get revenue from fans, sponsors, media etc. driven by how those resources blend together.
However the blending requires a vision and the ability to execute it . Right now that is the bit that is missing, and its on the board and CEO
The Battered Bunnet on 27th March 2026 12:19 pm
A really excellent post. succinct and to the point.
just so!
I really wish there was evidence that we were in the business of rectifying it.
It’s been lazy and resting on laurels and lacking vision for the last few years.
CELTIC V ST MIRREN
WILLIAM HILL PREMIERSHIP | CELTIC PARK | SAT APR 11 | KO 3PM
– Tickets for this match are now sold out –
J League dried up at Ange Postecoglu
Kyogo
Daizen Maeda
Reo Hatate
Yosuke Ideguchi
Yuki Kobayashi
Tomoki Iwata
Hayato Inamura back in Japan
Shin Yamada back in Japan
Fernandez will return a pretty penny – huge boy, good with the ball (long passing is terrific) and at 24 years old is developing into a capable defender.
Their new left back, Rommens, looks like a shrewd signing. 22 years old and has a lot going for him.
They’ll see some decent dough for these two in due course.
We’ll need new banners for the top tier (remember who filled that, Paul) if the change doesn’t come quickly and effectively.
“The premise that took us to Japan still stands. It is a fertile and under-scouted territory.”
Genuine question.
Is it?
Don’t get me wrong, if there is talent and value there, let’s go.
But I see a couple of challenges.
1. Law of diminishing returns.
IMHO we’re 3½ for 7 in that market. 50%
Kyogo, Daizen, Reo.
Amazing value at c.£7m combined
Iwata. Quite close but no cigar
Kobiyashi, Ideguchi, Yamada. Nope
2. You need continuity.
Incumbent fellow countrymen who are settled, in good form and happy … to help new guys integrate into the squad
On one side of the fence we have settled, in good form and happy.
On the other we have Daizen and Reo.
Münster may be on the flight path from Japan to Glasgow … so Shin can give the new guys a wave when they fly over him.
An Tearmann @ 1:31 pm,
Yes – we’ve seen that movie before, once I realised maybe should have dropped him from the comment as it causes more heat than light.
But like TBB says, for me is a good signing so left him in – it was also pretty early and I had little motivation to re-write it;)
On the subject of Celtic’s incoherent, scattergun approach…
We really need to get away from myth that Celtic have or has had a coherent recruitment strategy.
There is absolutely no evidence for it.
The idea Celtic was a founder member of data revolution in football and we had a software and DB driven analytics department was a myth.
Under Lenny and Ronny, John Parks and staff used old school scouting with a “modern” bespoke “moneyball” approach to identify talent that could add value.
It sometimes worked but was very hit and misd – a lot of our “good” signings were players the managers knew.
Ronny brought in players from Norway; Stefan Johansen, Kris Ajer and missed out on Martin Ødegaard as the big boys were already in there…
Ange brought value in from Oz and Japan…
Wilfried Nancy was looking at the NASL.
We had a reasonable scouting set up.
VvD spotted by a scout in the Netherlands.
Matt O’Riley a scout in England.
But needed to be much more structured, more decerning as we had no coherent strategy and certainly not one that will give the managers and coaches the players they require.
Bringing in dozens of circa 22 y.o. wingers with potential, to hopefully sell some for a profit – is not a good football recruitment strategy, it’s a poor business strategy.
Hail Hail
CCB – I know what you mean but it’s complex from the perspective of the different types of operations and revenue streams. Most businesses have one or two revenue streams, generally related or adjacent. We have venue and box office, media, sponsorship & commercial, merchandising, catering and digital. The PR aspect itself is fraught, let alone customer engagement.
Then we have the small matter of a football first team that supports all of the above, with a singular requirement to excel. Plus wider and deeper football operations that encompass everything from data analysis and sports science to recruitment and talent development.
And we operate in a series of markets (football and media) that represent constraints on trade and which require that we cooperate with outfits that we otherwise compete with.
It’s so vertical as to be multi-storey.
Re Japan
I still see it as a source of talent, but we need to learn from our successes and failures.
The successes were guys that Ange knew from managing or opposing.
The failures were guys we scouted after he left Celtic ( Shin) or he relied on recommenations ( Kobiyashi).
We can then go a stage further and say midfield / forwards tended to work, but defenders flopped.
If we look at Japan’s squad for tomorrow it is full of guys playing for big teams in smaller leagues ( Ajax / Feyenoord) or small teams in big leagues ( Freiburg).
Put all that together and it tells its own story.
If we want another Bobo dont go to Japan,
If we want another Daizen or Kyogo, its ripe but we need the right scouts.
BSR earlier – cheers.
I completely forgot about Inamura.
Make it 3½ from 8
Ange is responsible for our Japanese successes.
The Mvuka pursuers are obvs not fitba sages.
Japan is it for players, Yamada and Inamura from this season’s intake proves it isn’t , both nowhere near the standard required to play for Celtic, by the looks of things nothing is going on inside Celtic Park with a view to next season, when it’s quiet like during transfer windows it means we are doing nothing, this feels the same, the rebuild is huge and up to 9 players coming back from loans who aren’t good enough or of a similar standard to what we already have with 1 exception Palma is more of a threat than Tounekti who has zero heart for working hard. I’m not saying Palma should be kept but he’s a better option than Tounekti who will not pull his weight.
TBB @ 12.19
Good read, succinctly put for the most part.
One area where I have lingering doubts is regarding Dom McKay – I’m not so sure you can dismiss his appointment as an error, at least not in an evidence-based way. At the time I thought he sounded and acted like a CEO, from Day 1 – compare/contrast with the present incumbent. He was on board fast with Ange, signings were made (ok James McCarthy certainly didn’t work out) and the sounds around the club were all business like and positive. He was very fan-friendly (what the current echelon feel about that kind of thing we can only wonder) and he introduced Fan Media in to a new, positive role. Positive vibes all around the Club and support.
Then, wham. Gone! Never an explanation and certainly never an explanation as to why he signed a NDA. He had come with impressive credentials after turning the SRU around and since leaving us has become the CEO of the whole SECC complex in Glasgow. So, a successful guy before coming to us, a successful guy after leaving us. But, could not last three months with us?
No, I would like to know more (not likely to happen now I know) before labelling his tenure as a failure. My own pet theory (and it is only that) is that he was showing signs of being independent in his job and maybe standing up to the Despot.
Ave Ave
EmeraldBee \o/ A Double Niner!! on 27th March 2026 3:05 pm
Your last paragraph is exactly what I think too!
Bankier said he wasn’t a team player , make of that what you will, he was a breath of fresh air and I liked the look of what he was doing as CEO, alas we were not allowed to see this to fruition, think someones nose got put out of place and that horrible human trait of envy when someone who has failed sees someone succeeding in ways they never could..
The Celtic Board
Dessybhoy @ 3:31 pm,
“It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society”. – Jiddu Krishnamurti
Hail Hail
BSR @ 3:35 pm,
:)))))))
Hail Hail
TBB
Your posts are keeping me on this site ( I got succunered with Paul67 with the BR assassination)
You should consider your own blog
I agree our predicament is wide spread and most of it brushed under the carpet by our editor
We are in a delicate state
67ECW
Ian Bankier’s unremarkable Celtic legacy – Kevin McKenna
The Celtic Way
https://www.celticway.co.uk › opinion › 20592344.ian-…
1 Aug 2022 — The position of Celtic chairman should command a significant degree of prestige in Scotland’s national life. Whoever fills it ought to be a …Read more