The Celtic fan organisation Celts For Change 2021 has written an open letter to the CEO Dominic McKay and it’s worth taking a look at it in detail.
So I’m going to subject it to the sort of scrutiny which I usually only gave to Ibrox statements or the mainstream press.
Clearly, it is good that supporter organisations are reaching out to this guy early.
It’s important that he knows where the fans stand on the important issues.
I think these guys have given us a good overview of the concerns of the fan-base as a whole.
They have split their letter into sections, so I’ll cover it in those sections.
I think you’ll agree that they have some interesting things to say, and that McKay has a lot to think about.
Introductory Remarks
Dear Mr McKay,
We would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the Celtic Football Club and congratulate you on your new post of CEO, we sincerely hope your time with the club will be full of success both on and off the park, as we could not wish for anything more, all we supporters ever want is the very best for our club.
We at Celts for Change 2021 are not special supporters, our views are no more valid than anyone else’s, but we believe there are many thousands who feel like we do, but all our views are not reaching or being heard by the board.
Therefore, we are going to be as frank as we can be, and put all the views of the support to you, as with most clubs there are good and bad times, and looking from the outside, you would be forgiven for thinking what could be wrong with our club, but the club have lost a lot of fans over the last few years. And will continue to lose more, as they lose faith in their club and the game in general.
This is because of the inaction and failures of the club on and off the park under the tenure of the present CEO, as supporters of any sport will not continue to support a game that is rigged. The disconnect between the board and fans is reminiscent of 1994, something that we never thought would happen again.
You will have objectives set for you by the PLC, but the fans have some of their own, that have been ignored, which we will list for you under the following categories – football operations, football governance, and club persona. We will set out the failings as we see them first, and then the solutions for you.
An excellent opening.
If Dominic McKay was in the slightest doubt as to the sort of club he’s at now, this will have sorted his head out.
Celtic fans have a genuine interest in football governance, and we believe – and with good reason – that it has badly let us down. The use of the word “rigged” is important; McKay should be aware that this is a much more complicated statement than it sounds, and encompasses many different strands and timeframes.
To say the disconnect is the worst since 1994 is a serious warning to the CEO that things have to change … we know that particular period ended in a fan revolution. That’s implicit in the organisation’s name too.
Finally, right from the off they have identified McKay’s predecessor as part of the problem, and there is little doubt that Lawwell has been the cause of much of our misfortune.
I like the way these guys have started here … this isn’t just a rant or a series of demands.
These guys have identified significant problems … but they’ve also offered potential solutions.
As a result, McKay needs to take this seriously.
Football Operations Problems
There has been no balance in the quality and experience of some of our managers in the past, to highlight this look at the average revenue over 2 full seasons that these two managers had, Ronny Delia £51 million compared to Brendan Rodgers £96 million, nearly £50million of a difference per season.
We have missed out on players because of numerous bungled transfers for small amounts of money that if signed, would have made an impact at the club, e.g. John McGinn, Fletcher, Toney, etc, etc.
We have on the other hand signed players for big fees that have contributed nothing to the team e.g. Marvin Compper £1million for 80 minutes, one alarming statistic is that from the beginning of the 9 in a row, we have spent over £34 million on players who never managed a full season of 38 games.
There has been an abandonment of the sports science, diet, data, and all round professionalism on the football side of the club, with key posts coming and going with whatever manager we have at that time.
Serious, serious issues identified here and these need to be given a long, hard look at.
Fortunately, the club now seems intent on putting the correct structures in place to take us into the future. It is scandalous, though, that this hasn’t been done before now.
The segment on the quality of managers having a direct influence on the money we bring in is actually more limited than it should be, because under O’Neill we posted what were, for the time, momentous figures, and that wasn’t just a consequence of years in which we had Champions League football and years when we didn’t.
When the fans believe that the club is moving in the right direction they back it with big money.
When they don’t they spend less.
This shows the likely consequences of a bad managerial appointment, one that leaves fans undewhelmed and less likely to buy season tickets, attend games, spend on merchandise etc.
Every one of us has lamented the club’s frankly ludicrous signing policy and the number of good players who have slipped away from us over the years, in addition to some of the dreck we’ve signed instead. A root and branch review of that area is long overdue … but most important is that the sticky fingers of the previous CEO have been prised off the controls.
Football Governance Problems
There are historical failures that have been festering away like an open sore since 2008 and 2011, all from your predecessor’s time, we have listed them below.
The secret 5-way agreement, which Celtic accepted, but for some reason UEFA have had no knowledge of.
Failure to take RES 12 forward, now RES 11.
Evidence ignored that could have had the LNS Commission that legitimized EBT titles set aside.
The Traverso letter in 2016 calling Sevco a NEW club/company ignored including taking up UEFA’s offer to investigate.
No robust challenging of the SFA, SPFL about numerous referees not applying the rules of the game when it suits them, and acceptance that they can do this without any repercussions.
The speedy, and on the hoof sanctioning of our club and players, this season over Covid breaches, that have not been applied consistently at other clubs.
A reasonable overview of some of the problems.
The mention of the Traverso letter is important, as I talked about that last night.
It blows a major hole in the SFA’s acceptance of the Survival Lie which is one of the biggest issues facing McKay and something he really does need to take on properly.
A lot of the problems with governance in our game track back to that period.
Refereeing reform is absolutely essential, and years of looking over this issue have presented us with loads of possible solutions … the club has to be willing to take them on though.
Club Persona And Identity Problems
Some of the actions and public statements from the club have been nothing short of embarrassing to the ordinary fan, and not in keeping with a large PLC.
Some examples are, hiring the last manager in a shower, not looking at any of the CV’s that were submitted for the same job; these were left in a drawer unopened.
Briefing the press against the club manager, and using a paper that mocked dead football supporters at Hillsborough, as its main PR outlet, is frankly obscene and deeply offensive to any human being.
Being seen to aid and abet the reappearance of a brand that thrives on hatred of our club, our ancestry and religious beliefs and all it stands for, as its core function.
Our club has given a casual nod of acceptance to all the crimes on the other side of the river, from tax dodging, to racism, to cheating, and the biggest crime of all, acknowledging that the liquidation in 2012 didn’t happen.
The use of Parks of Hamilton while its owner mocks our club, perhaps a small example, but it again just underlines the disconnect the club has with its fan base.
And finally but not least Dubai, well words fail us while the fan base were in lockdown trying to stay safe, someone at the club thought that it would be appropriate to jet across the globe just baffled us.
A quite brilliant overview of the way our public image has been degraded over the last couple of years.
I was particularly pleased to read the references to the newspapers we use as conduits of information to the fans … and a lot of the time those papers are actually used by the club to insult us.
The reference to briefing the media against the manager is a reference to the way the BBC was used to attack Brendan Rodgers on the night of our Champions League match at home against AEK Athens. It is my considered opinion that this was the night that broke, beyond repair, the relationship between Lawwell and Rodgers and had a major bearing on his decision to leave Celtic for Leicester some months later.
You can argue that the club hasn’t given any “casual nod of acceptance” to the sins of Ibrox, but I would argue that silence does much the same thing and that our failure to challenge it is, in fact, acceptance.
The Parks of Hamilton thing is seen by some as a small matter; actually I think even if you’re taking it purely from a symbol perspective we should have cut our ties with them the minute Park and his son joined the Ibrox board.
Overview Of The Problems
In my view, the guys have identified many of the key things that have gone wrong with the club.
I’ve read a lot of stuff on this, and written a lot on it, but the Celts For Change 2021 open letter actually lays out, in clear terms, all of this in a way that is most interesting and should have Dominic McKay’s full attention.
Other organsiations might have stopped there, but these guys go further and offer their proposed solutions to these issues as well.
Football Operations Solutions
We supporters see Celtic as a football club not a balance sheet, and all we want is the club to hire the best available at that time in all departments.
Going forward your first remit should be a Director of Football, who will have full control over what happens on the football side, they should have vision and always be prepared for change, and open to innovation in the modern football world.
Secondly remit will be for the DOF to recruit a first team manager who has the quality and experience of O’Neill, Strachan and Rodgers, no more projects to save money are acceptable for a club the size of ours.
Equally important is the support network, this is inclusive of youth system, scouting, analytics, medical facilities, fitness and diet.
This has to be a separate internal department, therefore it will not be affected by managers coming and going. That will mean it will be able to maintain a constant professional standard, and in the first instance a option could be a partnership with some of the Scottish University departments that specialise in these fields to help build up the knowledge base.
The Director of Football model is critical to this, and I say that because the club has apparently considered different models, like bringing in a Technical Director, who’s remit would only be running the staff.
A Director of Football is like the overlord of the football operation, working on contracts, on organising the departments underneath him to assure that each one knows its place in the structure.
Most importantly, a Director of Football gets all these departments running together, making sure that each is aware of what the others are doing so that the flow is seamless and complimentary instead of having a bunch of people working at cross purposes as appears to have been the case for a long time now.
Managers should not be blind-sided by signings. Managers targets should not be ignored. The scouting department should work in coherence with the needs of the first team squad … it’s job is not to unearth players the CEO thinks can generate a profit. The whole system should be trained towards the team on the pitch.
Of course, the manager should be of the right stock; proven at the highest level, experienced in dealing with big egos and able to command respect in a dressing room. He should tick all the boxes of the modern boss; he should be an innovator, a tactician, a man manager. We have moved on from the period where any individual could dominate a dressing room by sheer force of will.
The point about the entire support structure being seperate from the management team is a good one.
Part of what went wrong here was that Rodgers gutted that entire support network and took the bulk of it with him when he left. That cannot be allowed to happen again … we must build these departments for us, not for the benefit of any one man. They should be a permanent feature of the Celtic operation.
Great point about the university partnerships; there are numerous professional bodies out there who we could be leaning on for help in getting an operation like this to its peak level until we can do it all in-house. The universities should certainly be seen as a fertile ground for recruiting people though … that’s just good sense.
Football Governance Solutions
The club has to pursue all of the failings listed above, and make public statements about the secret agreement, rule breaking, tax evasion, tainted titles and new club status.
This will encourage a greater take up of season tickets than would otherwise be the case if the club remain silent.
The club, to keep its undertaking to shareholders under Resolution 11 at last AGM, to engage with the relevant authorities and pursue and be seen to be doing so.
If this is not done it will haunt your tenure as CEO, and the sport will continue to be rigged, and what appeal will that have for anyone who has played the game, or wants to pay to watch the game.
VAR and FFP must be introduced, and its implementation monitored.
Please don’t forget the hero’s of the club that have fought the SFA,SPFL, during our history, Bob Kelly the right to fly the flag of Eire in 1952, Fergus McCann proving cheating by Jim Farry the SFA CEO over the registration of Jorge Cadete in 1996, and don’t forget the lying referee’s with Dougie-gate in 2010.
The most critical element of this is the first part; that the club has to break its long silence on the major issues which have arisen since 2012, most notably on the failure to strip titles, the Five Way Agreement and the status of “Rangers.”
Nothing will do more to blow out the stink of the last ten years than a definitive statement that the club refutes every aspect of the Survival Lie. It would restore truth to its rightful place at the heart of all the discourse on our game.
The new CEO cannot underestimate the importance of this.
Our whole game is toxified by the notion that “Rangers” survived the liquidation in 2012. It has normalised dishonesty as a part of the national football conversation in Scotland and I cannot think of anything worse. Even if no other club follows us, it should be on the record that our policy is to consider them a new organisation.
And yes, the club simply has to fulfil its obligations to the Requisitioners and the other shareholders over the issue of the license granted to Rangers in 2011. That matter has to be followed through to its conclusion.
Refereeing reform is implicit in the statement about a rigged game … but it should be spelled out that refereeing needs to be seperated from the umbrella of the SFA and run as its own body – a national referees service – which the leagues are free to use (or not) as they see fit.
On top of that, simple measures like having them declare allegiances is vital … if we need to bring in foriegn refs for certain games then so bet it. We’ve done it before and the sky didn’t fall down and the earth didn’t part beneath our feet.
VAR is a given. FFP is the most important change in governance that our game can make.
The guys don’t mention Fit and Proper Persons tests or an exploration of club ownership regulations … but Dominic McKay will know that they have to be part of the conversation just based on what’s happening in England.
Club Persona And Identity Solutions
Being a Celtic supporter means that you are likely to face resentment, discrimination, bigotry and racism in your everyday life, this in turn inspires strong and passionate commitment to this club; some even bleed green and white.
It also means that you join an estimated 9 million fellow fans worldwide, so we know that we never walk alone, and are part of something bigger; we have a communal identity and a common cause. Every time Celtic wins a game our suffering is eased a little and we can look on the bright side of life at that moment in time.
The club needs to understand that it is the only powerful champion of that community, and a focal point of their everyday life.
The public statements from the club therefore have to reflect that, and stand up for them and the club itself, and call out any wrong doing, misconduct, and discrimination against it, because a lot of our community has no other outlet to do this in certain countries.
The review and cancellation, of all contracts with companies, who mock and despise our club and its fan base.
Our chairman Ian Bankier position is now totally toxic with the support and will remain so until he is gone, the other members of the board, some being there for a great numbers of years, are as complicit in the failings by their silence, and not holding each other to account.
There must be a reconnection with the fan base all season long and not just during season ticket renewal time.
The fans have invested £750 million since the club became a PLC and have post Fergus McCann’s era, had a growing lack of connection with the club, this has to be reversed and can be done so by doing the following,
Actively start updating current shareholder records to find nonvoting shareholders.
In addition, season ticket holders can be offered the chance to add say £50 to their annual renewal each year this will be combined and converted into shares and given to the Celtic Trust, this in time will lead to a reconnection with the club, which was always part of Fergus McCann’s original vision.
The only area where I think the guys could have said a lot more than they did.
Here, they’ve focussed on issues which are largely symbolic and reminded Dominic McKay of the rule the club plays in our lives.
Don’t get me wrong, this is hugely important in and of itself … it may even be that the symbolism is more important than anything else that the CEO can pay attention to in terms of reconnecting with the fans.
The first key thing not on here should be to re-establish communication between the club and the supporters, in a meaningful way that engages us and makes us feel part of the place again. If you want to talk about symbolism, those fences that went up are a great metaphor for how many us feel the club treats the fan-base as a whole.
In identifying the media as one of the problems I was surprised the guys didn’t offer any solutions, but here’s one; instead of a handful of outlets being used by the club to communicate indirectly with the fans, how about the club opens its doors to fan media or uses it own in-house media arms to greater effect?
Please note, it is important for fan media to keep its distance from the club in some way … we can’t become creatures of the club, or depend on its favour. We need to be allowed to be critical and maintain our critical eye … so I’m not suggesting that the red carpet be rolled out for us or that the club makes us the next benificeries of “succulent lamb”.
But the spectacle of the club communicating through news organisations like The Daily Mail and The Sun is horrific. Whatever can be done to change that must be done as a matter of urgency.
The cancellation of contracts is a good idea for those organisations which constantly attack us. Whatever benefits we get out a business relationship with The Daily Record and others like it cannot be worth the amount of dirt we eat from them on a daily basis and the badly skewed coverage we get in comparison with another club.
There are people in the media doing an honest job.
There are others who are shamelessly partisan and biased and can’t stand us and they shouldn’t be allowed in the environs of Celtic Park. It is one thing to be critical and to point out our mistakes … but there are people who wage constant war on Celtic and our fans get very angry when those people are treated as if they are actual journalists.
I’m afraid I have to agree with the point about Ian Bankier.
Ian Bankier has never, at any time, comported himself in a manner befitting a chairman of this club. On too many occasions he has been guilty of gratuitously insulting the fans, such as when he alleged that the criticism of Ian Livingston was antisemitic, a charge which fueled our enemies and contained not one shred of truth.
In my considered opinion, he should have apologised for that remark and offered his resignation.
Livingston himself is a case in point; a man such as that, a Tory peer, should never have been on the board of a club founded to feed the poor of the East End of Glasgow. The occasion of his austerity vote in the House of Lords was a moment of deep shame and disgrace for us and fans should not have had to face such odium for being angry over it.
Our club has to understand that for many of us, Celtic is not just a sporting institution but a cultural and political entity with a variety of ethical responsibilities. To be associated with vulture capitalism, profiteering and austerity politics is the antithesis of what we are about, and this has to be recognised by the new CEO.
It has become more or less customary now for large corporations to have a social charter which they adhere to rigorously. They watch their public image very carefully, and take seriously their role as social leaders. Celtic talks a good game in this regard but needs to do a Hell of a lot more. As CEO he will be our public face a lot of the time … I am sure he will personally project a positive image, but it would be totally undone if the club was acting contrary to that behind the scenes.
In Conclusion
If you can achieve all of this you will remove all the barriers, that are reducing the fan base, and you can maximise the clubs potential with 100% support from all fan groups.
With all this achieved, it will also give all the fans a vision to buy into and believe in.
The revenue will increase, the share price will increase, which will lead on to some of the projects that have been shelved during the downsizing to be realised, a 80,000 seated Celtic Park, the Hotel, the indoor training centre at Barrowfield, and the shopping centre.
This will in turn sustain and define the club for our Children and Grandchildren and many generations to come thereafter.
If you are unable or are not allowed to fix all of the above, it means that the game in Scotland will remain rigged, and there will be no way to achieve maximum support from us and many other supporter groups going forward, and this would be a heartbreaking waste of our clubs future potential.
Best wishes
Celts for Change 2021
To expect Dominic McKay to solve all of this is a big ask, but I would stipulate that he has to at least try and to let us know what it is that he’s doing on each of these issues so that we can measure his progress and recommend areas where he has to improve.
There are numerous ways that he can, very quickly, change the perception of the club as being too closed off from the fans. There are numerous ways that he can start the process of tackling the much needed reforms of the game.
A good opening in that regard would be to do a round of interviews with mainstream and fan media outlets alike and spell out just where Celtic thinks changes in the general governance of Scottish football are needed … pin our colours to the mast. Announce what we believe has to change, and take it from there instead of playing such a passive role.
Of course, before any of this happens we need to know the details of who will be in charge of the football department and the management team … and those are, obviously, his most critical tasks at this moment in time.
But once those issues are resolved Dominic McKay will have the time and space to think about what he wants to achieve in the grand scheme of things.
The post as CEO of Celtic makes him, automatically, one of the most powerful and influential individuals in all of the game. It’s what he chooses to do with that power and influence that could ultimately determine the game’s future in the long term.
Celtic has never used that position to the exclusive benefit of itself, and I would not want us to. But we’ve rarely used it in pursuit of the greater good either … and that’s where McKay’s leadership can change things. If he can make the game itself cleaner, more open, more transparent and better run we will see all the knock-on benefits of that at Celtic Park.
The guys from Celts For Change 2021 have written an outstanding open letter and this can be the blueprint for McKay’s tenure at the club. Or he can ignore it and we’ll be right back here a couple of years down the road and no better off for it.