Later on today I am going to do a piece on Dave King. For now, let me give you some information that I found over on the ever-excellent Scottish Football Monitor site.
It relates to Phil’s piece of Saturday, about the possibility that directors at Ibrox are set to resign.
This is clearly not surprising information, because it’s been a constant at Ibrox since Sevco was born.
A football club needs stability to run. Sevco has never had stability.
Their team changes every single year; this is the fifth major squad rebuilding in a six year period and when Gerrard fails to get things right they will need another one next season. The turnover of players is incredible and the turnover of managers is insane, but the chaos comes from the very top at Ibrox and that is clear when you look at how many directors have come and gone.
The company/club separation which exists at Ibrox covers a multitude of sins, and one of the things it does is obscures the full chaos over there.
RIFC has seen 31 directors appointed in a six-year period. Of that number, 25 have gone. TRFC has had 22 directors. Of that number, 19 of them have left. That’s carnage on a scale Shakespeare would have balked at.
That whole club is engulfed in this stuff. It’s as if bloodletting is now just something that they do over there.
There is no stability whatsoever, and how can there be with all that going on? King is responsible for much of it of course, both on his watch and in initiating the coup that brought down the previous board, for which he’s hailed as a hero.
But what he’s accomplished is to move the dysfunctionality to a whole new plain. Don’t forget that he has personally dispatched four incumbents of the manager’s office already.
Celtic, in contrast, do not do instability.
We know that it’s bad for business.
There has been no wholesale destruction of a Celtic squad in years.
Our boardroom is a picture of calm.
Dermot Desmond has been on it for 23 years, Thomas Allison for 17 years, Peter Lawwell for 15 years, Brian Wilson for 13 years, Ian Bankier has been there for 7 years, Christopher McKay has been there for 2 years and Sharon Brown for a 1 year and a half.
That’s a measure of the difference in corporate cultures at the clubs. Sevco fans who call for constant chopping and changing are unaware of the damage it does. Football clubs are like any other companies. They require a steady hand, and smooth sailing to be at their best.
Sevco is permanently in choppy water of their own making.
And there is no end in sight to any of it.