FINANCES, FAILURES, FRUSTRATIONS: THE CELTIC CEO FAN MEETING: THE SECOND HALF
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 3 minutes ago
- 4 min read
This is the second part of a two-part article focusing on the contents of last Friday’s meeting between Celtic CEO Michael Nicholson and a small group of Celtic fans representing the wider support.
In part one we delved into the issues concerning fan engagement, transfers and transparency.
For this second part, I want to zoom in on the financial aspects, and look at how the Celtic Board’s current stance isn’t just holding the club back, but if the points raised by Celtic CEO Michael Nicholson on Friday are indeed accurate, then the board’s current stance is actively harming the club’s future profitability.
Celtic CEO Blames External Influences Not Financial Ineptitude for Summer Signing Errors
Unfortunately, when we get into discussing finances, it’s clear that the Celtic Board tried the same tactics in Friday’s meeting as they later deployed in Saturday night’s extremely poorly received statement.
From the evidence I have seen, it seems that talking down to those in the room was once again the order of the day, with nonsensical jargon, corporate double-talk and a generally condescending attitude prevalent throughout almost all of the remarks made by club representatives in Friday’s meeting.
Football agents were the next ones to get the blame. According to the CEO: “Typical strategy is that once price is known, some agents circulate offers around saying: You like player X, Celtic offer Y million pounds, if you offer Y+ millions, he’s yours- it’s a challenging market”.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this the case for literally every team in Europe?
Clubs want the best price they can get for their players, Celtic benefited from this directly in the summer. Remember, the mooted offer from Como for Nicholas Kuhn was around 10-12 million pounds until “rumors” of interest from Germany bumped that up to 16 million.
So, Celtic benefited directly from the very transfer strategy they are now criticizing agents representing other clubs for deploying.
Next up there’s the impact of non-qualification for the Champions League, or seeming lack of any impact, according to Celtic.
At the meeting on Friday the club claimed: “Failure to qualify had no effect on planned expenditure.”
So, do they seriously expect us to believe that, had we scraped past Kairat last month, that none of that 30-40 million would have been invested in the squad?
Again, as I said earlier today, that sounds like a blatant lie. But if that’s true, its total financial mismanagement.
Let’s look next at the long overdue rebuild of the South Stand, a stand that, in all honesty, hasn’t been fit for purpose since the early 90s.
On Friday, Nicholson said: “Rebuilding the South Stand is not financially viable while we remain within the SPFL, it’s cost prohibitive.”
This is nonsense. There’s no nice way to say it. With the increased ticket sales, and added prestige that would come from upgrading the south stand and bringing the stadium up to UEFA 5 star standards, any upgrade, even if it did cost the 100 million pounds that they claim it would, comfortably pays for itself within a decade.
Personally, I’m highly skeptical about that 100 million figure anyway. I’ve seen far better stadiums built here in Japan for less than that.
The meeting said that the ongoing inquiry into excessive use of force by police at last season’s Glasgow Derby will be concluded and results issued to fan groups for review ASAP.
No date specified, or details given on how this will happen, of course.
They also addressed the issue of the fans’ survey, the results of which were collected more than a year ago, but remain unpublished.
Apparently, there is a “format issue” with the data contained therein. Yeah, you heard that right, the file containing the responses of 50,000 fans wasn’t formatted correctly. No explanation as to how this happened was given. Instead, once again we get the mealy-mouthed response of “it’ll be available soon”. It just doesn’t hold up.
The last issue to be addressed at the meeting contains some of the issues that, I personally think are the most frustrating. I’m speaking of course about Celtic’s multi-media operation.
Celtic’s representatives boasted about the fact they “face the same challenges as other major clubs, but with only 30 staff. EPL teams employ 100+”
So, you want a pat on the back for grossly understaffing one of your most important departments?
The board said earlier on in this same meeting that the South Stand rebuild and the much-vaunted hotel and museum installations at Celtic Park are non-starters due to finance. Yet, the club refuses to invest in creating a proper multi-media online presence that will allow the brand to grow beyond its Scottish confines.
I’m sitting here in Japan right now, writing a blog that, hopefully, will be read by Celtic fans all across the world. We live in an evermore interconnected, digital world. This blog is proof of that.
Celtic remain firmly locked in an analogue state. Unwilling to modernize this, arguably the most crucial aspect of their growth strategy for the future. Every time I see a Wolves, Chelsea or (insert other small, mediocre English team here) jersey in Japan, I feel a deep frustration, because I know the person wearing that shirt has no emotional connection to it. That club simply caught that person’s eye before we did. That’s down to poor marketing, a total lack of an international marketing presence, and most of all self-deluded arrogance.
The club don’t invest in these things because they know they don’t have to. They are content for revenue streams to stay exactly where they are. They believe they have a captive audience, no matter what. So why bother wasting any time or money to bring in any more?
Once again, that’s corporate mismanagement, it goes beyond just not getting the right players in, or the fact that Celtic TV is a barebones service unfit for purpose.
The one thing we can take away from Friday’s meeting, taken in tandem with Saturday’s night statement, is that the rot in Celtic Park just now has invested every aspect of the running of the football club and its parallel businesses.
The entire thing needs ripped out and rebuilt.
Work to make that happen begins now.