CELTIC FANS: SACK THE BOARD! RANGERS: OK THEN...
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 7 minutes ago
- 3 min read
I’m going to open this latest post with something I very rarely, if ever, say:
“Rangers fans, today (and I stress only for today), I envy you.”
The fledgling Ibrox club actually did something admirable, even respectable, this afternoon.
In an act of necessary sacrifice, they took the bold decision to remove two members of their executive team, just a couple of days after the Ibrox club posted 14.8 million in loses in their latest accounts.
While Celtic shareholders chanted “Sack the Board!” causing the Celtic Board to run away and cry in a corner, Rangers owners actually did what needed to be done. They cut out the dead wood.
Rangers Show Celtic Fans How to Tackle Nepotism and Failure: Sack the Board!
While Celtic shareholders were force-fed a poorly crafted, totally unacceptable diatribe by the son of a minority shareholder, Rangers owners were planning the removal of their own purveyor of nepotism, Sporting Director Kevin Thelwell and his immediate boss, Chief Executive Patrick “Paddy Bhoy” Stewart.
Yes, bizarrely enough there are still companies out there who believe in punishing failure and nepotism rather than rewarding it.
Thelwell paid the price for, among many other failures, making his son head of Rangers scouting, despite him being totally unqualified for the job.
Meanwhile, not only does Celtic’s biggest individual shareholder (not our owner) decide to send his son (who holds no office at the PLC and had no right to be at that top table on Friday), he also gives his son the authority to make an outrageous and utterly slanderous rant against the fans, and shareholders of Celtic.
It’s sad to see Rangers showing Celtic how to manage a failing boardroom properly, but more so, it’s totally unacceptable that they did so, by showing only the basic, minimum levels of corporate competence.
Simple accountability. That’s all it is. You mess up in your job, you get sacked. Why can Rangers do this, and Celtic can’t?
The answer is simple. Rangers’ new owner Andrew Cavenagh is not motivated by emotion, ego, or his own self-importance. He is motivated by money, pure and simple. Underperforming executives and unhappy customers are bad for business.
He is, in many ways, the antithesis of Dermot Desmond. Desmond’s diatribe against our former manager, followed up on Friday by his nepobaby son’s baseless attack on the Celtic support, would never be tolerated by someone like Cavenagh.
Not because he cares about fans feelings, not because he wants to be loved or admired. It’s just good financial sense to keep your fans onside and keep your customers happy.
Rangers fans were, rightly, angry at the way their team started this season. Russell Martin was an early casualty of this.
The team loses a few games; the manger is gone.
The club posts massive losses, two members of the executive team are jettisoned on the next working day.
Meanwhile, Celtic’s CEO hasn’t said a word all season that wasn’t pre-recorded or scripted. Our chairman spends more time in Portugal than he does at Celtic Park, and our largest individual shareholder (not our owner) decides for the 19th year in a row that he can’t even be bothered to turn up for our most important AGM in decades.
Dare I say it, if someone like Cavenagh, for all his numerous flaws, was overseeing our club, at the very least, the three men mentioned above would have paid the price for Friday’s utter PR disaster, with their jobs.
I hate to say this, but Celtic badly need someone like Andrew Cavenagh in our boardroom right now.