Today more bad news for the rest of the Scottish clubs, in the form of Aberdeen’s admission that their insurance provider is getting set to screw them by excluding “business interruption” clauses for their policy when it comes up for renewal in April.
What a mess this all is, and with no end in sight. Boris Johnson has the bug now, which only goes to show that this thing is everywhere and its steady creep cannot be contained by hope and prayers alone. We’re all going to have to dig in deep to beat this.
Those who were optimistic that the initial three-week lockdown was going to be endured and then life would return to something approaching normal have been largely dissuaded of that idea already … this could last for months.
Clubs are reeling already. Hearts is in dire trouble. Sevco is definitely in bother, the kind that clubs don’t always survive.
I can’t see what’s keeping them afloat at the moment, and in the next couple of weeks the cracks are going to start to show.
Aberdeen’s problem is of a whole different kind, and one that should worry every supporter, of every club, in the whole of the game. That their insurers are looking after their own interests instead of the club’s isn’t a surprise; at a time like this they all run for the hills.
But it’s a source of deep concern all the same because it makes you wonder about Celtic.
Now, we’re usually up to snuff on stuff like this, we’re usually ahead of the curve.
I think it’s almost inconceivable that we don’t have business interruption insurance and that it won’t cover us for an eventuality like this however ghastly. I would also be amazed if the insurance policies didn’t have years to run … it’s smart standard operation procedure for well-run companies.
But Celtic never communicates this stuff to us, and I think a lot of us would be less concerned if they did just this one time.
Because the club is trying to get us to buy season tickets, it is trying to sell us on the idea that there will be football next season at some stage … and it would be good if we could have the security of knowing what kind of state the club will be in.
The board never goes into big detail with these things, and I don’t expect them to start now, but a statement about our status and the insurance coverage we have in place would give folks some piece of mind as we contemplate spending a lot of money.
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