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Another Transfer Deadline Passes, As Lawwell Tries To “Save Scottish Clubs Involvement In The Champions League”

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Who’s doing the bidding of who in this latest round of nonsense stories about changes to the format of the Champions League?

Is it Doncaster doing the bidding of Lawwell or Lawwell doing the bidding of Doncaster?

It’s one or the other.

Today The Daily Record is running this utter guff once again, just 12 hours after the latest registration window closes, and without Celtic adding a player to the squad.

Perhaps that’s just a coincidence, that a newspaper that usually slates Lawwell every chance it gets is today reporting how he and Doncaster are “fighting to save Scottish football’s place” in the tournament, but you know something?

I don’t think it is a coincidence.

“Peter Lawwell and Neil Doncaster have eight weeks to save Scottish teams involvement in the Champions League,” the headline screams.

Actually, Lawwell has just six days to do something to help Celtic’s involvement.

And that’s the real story. That’s what matters to our fans.

That’s why we’re reading this crap today.

The story says that it’s about “a secret blueprint” drawn up by German teams. It’s such a secret that The Daily Record, who’ve been the last to know about every major story right here in their own country, somehow have access to the information.

Forgive me if I find that extremely difficult to believe.

I also find it hard to believe that, in the event such stories are true, anyone’s going to listen to the “lobbying” of a league CEO so discredited in his own country that people snigger at the mention of his name or the CEO of a club who last week lost a tie in Gibraltar. This is what Lawwell’s “strategy” has reduced to us … a place where few would take us, or him, seriously anymore.

Let’s wait and see who else picks this story up.

Because it is little more than a smokescreen.

I’ve written on this subject more than a few times, as regular readers will be aware. I’ve never believed, for one second, that UEFA was going to make the Champions League “invite only.” It’s a nonsense. The European governing body has, again and again and again, talked up the meritocracy.

They have no interest at all in making their premier tournament a “closed shop.”

That the Record is still pushing this absolute fantasy is revealing; that Lawwell and Doncaster are being cast as the big saviours is the real giveaway.

First, what’s Doncaster doing involved in this? This would be an SFA matter, and one more suited to Regan.

Is it because Doncaster owes his survival – his baffling, ridiculous, contemptable survival – to Lawwell and therefore is more pliable when it comes to going to the media with this kind of tripe? Would Regan have leant his name, and that of the SFA, to a story with more holes in it than Swiss Cheese?

This really is a nonsense.

I mean, are we to assume that this is what our chief executive has been doing instead of getting his arse in gear and signing us some players?

Are we – is Brendan Rodgers – to be grateful to him instead, for actually making it possible for us to compete in the tournament in the first place, even if we never actually qualify these days?

It stinks. It reeks.

It’s the kind of thing King and his board would try and pull, to cover their own lack of forward progress.

Should we be dropping to our knees in joy for the hard work these men are doing to “save us” from this fate?

No, not even if we believed that this was a real problem and not a manufactured controversy conveniently timed.

Lawwell’s been able to get one first team signing in the door. One. If he was focussed on doing his own damned job, with our club, we might be in a better place to actually contest the next round of the competition. For the record, I absolutely blame him for the sorry state of our back line.

It’s not like he hasn’t been told what the manager wants. If we lose because we had to throw Ambrose or some young kid into central defence, I’ll know exactly who I hold responsible, and it won’t be the manager whose public pleas are becoming increasingly agitated.

Today Blackburn Rovers manager Owen Coyle has actually flatly said there’s been no offer from Celtic for Shane Duffy. No offer. I don’t know how any of you feel about that, but to me that suggests strongly that those above Brendan Rodgers are resisting his ideas and his plans, and I’ll tell you, the guy won’t hang around if that’s true.

Instead we have Peter Lawwell playing the hero, and a newspaper feeding us that story like the finest succulent lamb.

Scottish football is in no danger of losing its place in the Champions League.

The “Champions Route” is built into that competition now and it is there to stay. UEFA will never allow their top tournament to become an “invitation only” one; where would it end? Doing the same with national leagues? The European Championships? Hell, why not have the “big countries” lobbying to make the World Cup itself an invites only tournament? You see the point?

This story is nothing but a fat lie. When you conclude that – and you only have to read previous UEFA statements on this; any restructuring would be done on the basis of merit – you then have to ask why it’s being resurrected right now. What’s the purpose?

And to me that’s simple enough.

“Don’t worry, Celtic fans, that your board failed to back the boss with the signings he needed to get to the Promised Land. Just be grateful to your chief executive that you were able to compete in the tournament at all.”

How stupid do these people think we are?

Another deadline has been missed. One “wild card” signing is all we get. If we get a major injury before Wednesday or we miss out on the signing anyway (and clubs know we’re up against it now, how easy do you think they’ll make it for us?) and we’re bang in trouble.

Does anyone at Celtic Park (the management team notwithstanding) even care anymore?

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