The story which is in today’s media about how Celtic “supremo” Dermot Desmond has gone cold on the idea of The Atlantic League in order to focus on getting us to England instead is a complete non-story which is only in the papers to cover for an actual one.
This is Celtic doling out a little of its own succulent lamb; bear in mind what Alex Thomson of Channel 4 famously said of that era, that the free dinners and cosy chats weren’t just limited to Ibrox but that it was “on the menu on both sides of the city.”
And it still is, of course.
Today is a sterling example of that, as Desmond’s strategic leak to The Times set up our club’s focus on the long term goal of a UK wide league as the big story of the day, when in fact it’s a complete non-issue.
The assertion that we’ve told the “organisers” of the Atlantic League to forget us is garbage for a number of reasons, the primary one being that no such proposals exist in concrete form in the first place.
The only credible discussions being had right now about changing the structure of European domestic leagues are taking place between individual associations in Belgium and Holland and don’t involve us at all. They are still a long way from getting UEFA approval.
And this is to say nothing for the fact that the “move to England” is as much a pipedream as it has ever been, with us not one millimetre closer to that “goal” – which a lot of us are opposed to on principle anyway – than we were when it was first mooted.
So why now?
Why is this story being promoted today, of all days?
Is it something to do with the coming AGM?
Well of course it is.
This how the board intends to get a cheap and easy day of headlines, no matter what else we ought to be talking about.
Today they’ve confirmed that they managed to sanitise the AGM to the point where it’s an irrelevant meeting; the Resolution 12 guys have submitted their latest piece – as Resolution 11 this time – and the board has already “recommended” that it be voted down … which means that it has been, as even if every other person with shares cast a vote in favour of it the handful of old white guys who make up our “majority shareholding” would be able to reject it anyway.
Celtic knows how to play the media like a fiddle, and the club clearly hopes that more nonsense about the club being headed for the EPL – which we aren’t, of course – will be a nice distraction.
Resolution 11 what they don’t want fans focussed on, and there’s a good reason.
Resolution 11 is one of the most important ever put in front of the Celtic directors and shareholders, and they want you talking and thinking about something else, anything else really … because of what Resolution 11 is, what it for and what it would do if our board accepted it.
I’ll be talking about it later, and you’ll understand why they don’t want you asking why they refuse to support it.
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