IT’S NOT PERSONAL, IT’S JUST (BAD) BUSINESS: CELTIC TRANSFER POLICY REACHES INFLECTION POINT
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 10 hours ago
- 2 min read
For many Celtic fans, this is the day that the chickens finally came home to roost, that years of a belligerent, arrogant and greedy Celtic transfer policy finally came back to bite our custodians on the backside.
I made my own thoughts known last night, with one of the angriest rants I’ve had in a while.
However, it’s not just me and you who are unhappy with the way this Celtic transfer window has gone. It’s now impacting the Celtic Board in their most, perhaps their only truly, vulnerable point: The business sector.
Celtic Transfer Incompetence Now Impacting the Business as a Whole
Celtic’s share price nosedived by 10% at one point yesterday on the news that the Kasper Dolberg deal had collapsed. It tumbled further still as it began to look like we’d also lost out on Sebastian Tounekti.
Now, stock prices fluctuate, that is part of the whole Ponzi scheme that is financial trading.
However, it shows one thing. Something that will have little if any impact on any of us, but will, most likely, send a shudder through the Celtic boardroom.
Poor transfer dealings, represent poor business practices. Celtic have now, over a number of years showed a sustained pattern of poor business.
To once again recycle that greatly over-used quote from The Godfather, to us, the fans, it is and always shall be personal. To the board “it’s just business”.
However, yesterday’s utter shambles and its subsequent impact on the share price shows that the Celtic Board aren’t even getting the business side of it right anymore.
We have reached a crucial point now where what could previously be passed off as naïve or incompetent football-related activities has now crossed over into corporate negligence.
In almost any other sector, at least one senior board member would have to fall on their sword for such acts.
I think we all know that such an occurrence is very unlikely at Celtic. However, once the proverbial “Pandora’s Box” of questionable corporate governance has been opened, it’s very difficult to close it again without making changes, even at a superficial level.
There’s been numerous background gossip about how Dermot Desmond, despite only owning around a third of Celtic’s total shares appears to have all the authority and veto powers of a majority shareholder.
However, even if he does have some kind of working agreement with some of these clandestine investment firms that hold minor, yet consequential, shares in Celtic, these organizations still have to answer to the people who bankroll them.
If I were plotting to try and force genuine change at Celtic Park, this is where I would begin. Who exactly controls these silent partners who have no individual representation on the Celtic Board yet always seem to be in lockstep with our largest shareholder?
This is no longer personal. Now, it really is, just business.