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Celtic Has No Problem Waiting On Howe. They Can Wait On Renewals A While.

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Celtic has done what I thought would be the stupidest possible thing today … they’ve jumped the gun on the season ticket renewals. In a move that makes no sense whatsoever, they have sent out the emails when we’re, surely, only days away from a new boss.

So what force in heaven or earth could have prompted that?

My guess is that this was the last thing they wanted to do and that they’ve done it, in part, because yesterday the Celtic Trust issued their statement on the rejection of the share plan they put forward as part of the “added value” debate.

The club’s internal strategy is an absolute shambles and there’s surely not a single person now who can be in the slightest doubt about this. Peter Lawwell has always been seen as a safe pair of hands and this club as essentially well run, but that looks ludicrous today when you consider the absolute mess they’ve made of this re-launch.

The information was in the media’s hands before that of the fans; it was released by the press before the club could get it out, and last night the Trust undercut the faith in the board even more when they reported, again before the club had a chance to, that there would be no further “extra value” on the tickets for the last campaign.

What a disaster that was for the club, and what a disaster this whole launch has been but really, there were two choices here; put out the offer for next season or continue to be pounded for the rest of the week for the lack of a sweetener to the campaign just past. In the end, they’ve gone with what Tony Blair once described as the “masochism strategy.”

Which is basically to just get pounded for everything, all at the same time.

Perversely, it’s this more than anything else which convinces me that we’ve got Howe in the bag because anything else is just going to increase the belief that we’re shuffling from one crisis to another and we’ll be lucky to sell any season tickets at all.

We are where we are, and the renewals aren’t due to be finalised until 25 June.

Which means that, actually, there’s no need for anyone to rush and if you’re sitting there moaning about a lack of clarity even as you’re licking the envelope to get your renewal in then you’re only a fool to yourself. What’s the rush?

if I may presume to advise folk for a moment my advice is to do what the club is presently doing and wait it out … give it a week, see where we are then. But right now the club has done nothing to earn your trust or deserve the benefit of the doubt.

This is the time to make them sweat a little. God knows, we’ve done enough of it.

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