The Brains Trust have been banging on the bars again, not only on the Record hotline but elsewhere. They are a funny lot. When we write about their club on here we do it from a position of immeasurable strength. We do it with the house secure. Our own club doesn’t need intense scrutiny. We can afford to give theirs some.
They think our club does need that scrutiny, and they are determined to give it to us. The trouble is, they are inconvenienced in that they keep running into facts. They don’t like facts. They confuse and confound them. They cause them sleepless nights.
So they ignore them. Well I am going to remind them of a few.
We’re accused, today, of “lacking ambition” but not by anyone sane. Apparently, if we pushed the boat out we would be better placed to beat the likes of Bayern and PSG. Clubs that spend fifty quid for every five we do, and can afford to do it. Not for them vainglorious boasting; Bayern’s coaching team probably costs more than Sevco’s annual budget.
How far out would we have to push said boat? By how much would we have to overspend? Ten million? Twenty? That wouldn’t buy one player from their first team squads.
I know this is difficult for the financially illiterate amongst their support to understand, but we spend only what we earn. They ask where the £30 million Champions League money from last season went; … how about infrastructure? The hotel project. The training academy. Expanding our scouting network. New contracts for our top players. £2 million on the new Parkhead pitch. Olivier Ntcham and Patrick Roberts. These things weren’t cheap.
And there’s still some left over for January.
A large chunk of this year’s £30 million should be burning a hole in Brendan’s pocket for the summer. That, too, has escaped their tiny minds.
This is enormous for them to comprehend, but simple maths for the rest of us. There is no secret slush fund here. Nobody is siphoning off cash. Everything is accounted for. Our club is not being robbed. There is no gigantic crime, and nor is the cash being squirreled away for some epic future act of destruction foreseen by a handful of their bloggers.
These people are goons. Anyone who listens to them is, likewise, a goon. Celtic, unlike their own club, publishes full and detailed accounts. Everything is in there. Hell, Peter Lawwell’s salary details have just been in the papers; he made £1 million last year. And you know what? He also brought in Brendan, Dafabet, got Magners to stay on as a back-of-the-shirt sponsor, oversaw a rise in profits and £80 million in turnover.
Somebody at Parkhead thinks he’s doing a good job, and why not? Because he is. At the same time, he’s put a foot on Stewart Regan’s throat over the idea of an SPL inquiry. Worth the money? Worth his salary? You can debate that all day and all night but I am not going to cry the blues over it. He earned the dough. Every penny.
Celtic spends what it earns. I cannot say that enough times. That we are not out there trying to sign Lewandowski is not a “lack of ambition” as some are snarking. It’s an acceptance of reality, something else their fans have a long-term problem with.
Charlie Nicholas, not one of their fans but he might as well be, says Brendan will get “bored” unless he gets money to spend. How much money does Nicholas think he should get? What are his own financial qualifications? Let’s see … in 2016 Claremont Media Promotions, his firm, went into administration and was liquidated owing £100,000.
Forgive me if I don’t trust him to balance the Celtic Park books. He does qualify as an expert on boredom, though. He’s been putting us through that particular emotion for a great many years now, with his penchant for talking mince.
These people are always lining up to take a swing when we lose a game; Europe is the only time they’ve had a chance lately, and that some of them talk as if we were expected to beat PSG and Bayern and would have had we just “pushed the boat out” tells you that their agenda has nothing to do with commentary; it’s sniping.
Sevco fans aren’t sniping. They aren’t trolling. They really are this stupid. They really are this dumb. They really don’t understand that our Champions League money is being spent on things that will make a long-term difference, and will allow us to keep getting to those Groups year on year. That will set us up nicely for a European League when it comes along.
We ever have one eye on the future.
Their own eyes would do better focussing on what’s going on inside their own walls. Like I said at the start, we laugh at them from a position of strength. They poke their noses into our business even as their own club rots from the inside.
You tell me; who are the idiots here?