Dave King’s comments in the press this weekend would be laughable if Celtic weren’t in such a state.
That’s why he made them, or he wouldn’t have dared.
Instead, they are a minor irritant at a time when we have much more pressing problems inside our own house, like a flea bite whilst you’re laying down sandbags in a flood zone.
King is a blowhard, making threats from behind a crumbling wall.
His boasts that his club could go on to a generation of dominance are not backed up by the slightest piece of evidence. In fact, the state he’s got them in, he’ll be lucky if his legacy isn’t similar to that of David Murray; leaving behind a football club teetering on the brink of ruination.
Let’s not forget, that Craig Whyte himself unfurled a league flag in his year at Ibrox. By the time he departed it was scorched earth.
Not a stick of what used to be Rangers was left standing.
Never, ever think the league table reflects the relative strengths of these two clubs … we are stronger, by far, hamstrung only by weak leadership and a lack of strategic thinking.
Celtic itself is structurally sound, the only club in Scotland who came through the first phase of the pandemic having posted a profit. With our surplus, we are well placed to handle further disturbances if they came. The frustration amongst the fans right now is particularly acute because we see the club failing from a position of strength.
King claims to have rebuilt his club; actually debt has rebuilt his club, and that’s not a sustainable foundation for any kind of future. You ever seen 383 Maddison Avenue? It’s impressive. It used to be the home of Bear Stearns, the mammoth Wall Street firm.
But they went to the graveyard in 2008.
Not far from them were the headquarters of Lehman Brothers … they were even bigger, and they too collapsed during that summer of corporate chaos.
And that’s what King’s “Ibrox empire” amounts to … a house of cards, where removing just one brings the whole thing down … and yet he thinks that’s what he sees when he looks at Celtic. What fantastical thinking he is capable of.
With his penchant from drama and confrontation, his love of the high-wire and his ability to spin a yarn he should try fiction writing.
Frankly, most of our media wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
They lapped this pish up, perhaps not noticing where the Ibrox club actually is.
He took over when they were on the brink of breaking even. Instead of moving towards profitability they have posted increasing amounts of debt year on year. His plan to sell the fans shares is a farce when you consider that Club 1872 had a 10% shareholding already, only for him to devalue it to the worth of toilet roll.
And he wants them to spend more.
His club needs £10 million just to see the season out.
They require another £20 million in external funding for next season and their only hope for securing it, short of Group Stage Champions League football, which remains miles off, is to get “value” for one of their players in the summer window … value being a loose term when you consider how unrealistic they are.
And perhaps it has escaped the attentions of the press corps that it’s Celtic on the brink of a Quadruple Treble … that’s one for every year King’s club has spent in the SPL. That is what he bequeathed the most gullible fans in world football.
At a time like this, you can, in a sense, understand why Lawwell and Desmond feel so hard done by. Our board is under mounting pressure and they provided that ….
King is lauded as a hero for failing to stop us.
Scottish football has been an odd place before, but for anyone who didn’t live here that would be beyond comprehension.
By any metric you care to use, King’s Ibrox tenure has been an absolute disaster; he himself fled the scene on the back of a slap from the City of London regulators.
If his club somehow manages to attain some modest success this season it will come on the back of upwards of £60 million in debt-to-equity share swaps over his term, in a year where we were tripping over our own feet.
Celtic fans are furious because we have let our standards drop.
With no actual success, King’s gleeful cheerleading section proves only one thing; they didn’t have any standards to begin with.
If this is success, God knows what failure looks like to them.
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