It was another weird week in Sevconia, and I will write about certain elements of it in due course, but two elements come forward from it today; first is that they’ve made their tenth signing of the transfer window, and the second is that they are taking, again, about a share issue. The share issue is the bigger story, so I’ll cover it later.
For now, let’s talk about Lafferty.
Gerrard claims he needed another striker; when Gerrard took over at Sevco he had no fewer than five of them at his disposal including the loanee Jason Cummings. Notts Forest would not have been hard to deal with on him. Gerrard made no effort to improve any player who was at the club and he let four of the strikers leave without having played them.
The same pattern extends across the whole first team squad. Gerrard is a chequebook manager at a club which doesn’t even qualify for one, but still spends money like it grows on trees. In many ways he is the perfect boss for such a dysfunctional club.
They are addicted.
It is an addiction that has already killed one Ibrox iteration.
It will certainly do serious damage to this one.
I write this often but still struggle to make it understood; a club does not need to have significant debts to enter administration. It only needs to run out of money. It only needs to discover, one day, that it has nothing left in the bank and be unable to find someone willing to either defer payment or to pay the bills. It’s really that simple, and it will happen at Ibrox no matter how much people may wish to think, or are unable to believe, otherwise.
Sevco’s new proposed share issue has a two pronged intent; first it seeks to blunt the Takeover Panel. I don’t believe it will be allowed to proceed. I think the courts will prevent it. But if they don’t then what? Well, the money will be used to satisfy UEFA FFP criteria by converting their current debt to shares. That cash will go to existing creditors, some of whom are on the board. The rest will go towards the manager’s spending.
Celtic builds infrastructure. Sevco builds debts. For all the glee over there right now over our expensive “light bulbs” – and I was making that joke myself back when it was still funny – Celtic has put money into things that endure, and in a year, after Sevco’s last week of amusement is largely forgotten, the £2 million pitch, those “light bulbs” and the other structural additions to our stadium and club will still be there, and will be more appreciated.
Our board is not popular at the moment, and I believe they’ve dropped the ball in this window.
Their failure to back the manager in strengthening the squad prior to the Champions League qualifiers have cost us, but the people who run Celtic are not stupid. They do not budget for getting to the Groups of that tournament and so those who are talking in the media about us being “cash-strapped” are either complete morons or are being deliberately misleading. We may not be where we’d like to be right now, but no-one at Parkhead is panicking because the club itself is in rude financial health, and our future looks bright.
At Sevco they are making it up as they go along, locked into the insane belief that you make money by spending it. It is a matter of time before they crash into reality. Gerrard’s spending has to be paid for; should they wind up out of Europe before the groups the crash is going to hurt them like nothing else has in a long, long time. Even to make it will only postpone a day of reckoning that edges closer with every single penny they spend.
Every gambler believes that if he keeps on going he will turn around a negative position. Sevco operates on the belief that spending money will one day make them money; a lot of football clubs have believed that down through the years.
And they’ve paid for it too.
I have no doubt – no doubt whatsoever – that Sevco is headed for an administration event.
They cannot stop it now, because it’s built into the DNA of the club.
They are obsessed with catching us whatever the cost.
Whatever the cost.
Think on that when you hear them boasting over their summer spending.
It is lunacy.