Within the last hour I’ve had two breathless emails asking me what I’ve heard. In one of them, the Howe deal has collapsed. That one is widespread. In the other, Howe and his entire backroom team have been sighted in Glasgow and a presser is imminent.
That these stories seem, on the surface, to blatantly contradictory is obvious.
Perhaps they came to Glasgow for a meeting and the deal collapsed and a sheepish Peter Lawwell is going to get in front of the press and announce that in spite of season ticket forms already going out that the club is back to square one?
Or maybe we should all calm down a little, eah? We get a never ending parade of these rumours, and every clickbait site is cashing in as a result of this taking so long. God knows what some of these people are going to write every day when this is all over.
In the blogosphere you hear it all. But I know that when the news comes it will come from sources who are unimpeachable, and not from the rumour mill. The one thing that this dreadful three months has settled, once and for all I think, is how little the “in the knows” actually know. Our club does talk to a handful of journalists, but that’s about it.
Some clickbait sites are saying – based on a tweet from a journalist – that the club is now “demanding” an answer from Howe.
Give them credence if you will, but I am choosing to believe – choosing to believe – that this story is nonsense, because it sounds so patently ludicrous that I think we can discount it. If we don’t already have an answer, even if not a signature, then our board are an incompetent shower of charlatans who have squandered three months.
We’re almost there now. By close of business Monday night, we should be on the brink of the big unveiling. If we’re not, then we have real problems inside Celtic Park and that will clearly have a momentous impact on season ticket sales.
And of course, if after that we then fail to close the deal … well, the shockwaves from that are going to be felt further afield than just Celtic Park.