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Celtic’s Barrowfield Plans Are A Consequence Of Our Tendency To Think Short Term.

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The news that Celtic has been given permission to proceed with its plan to redevelop the Barrowfield training ground is welcome, it’s overdue and it will bring great benefits to the club.

But that we are doing it, finally, is another symptom of the short-termism and lack of strategic vision at Celtic Park, and the dire need for real reforms at the top of our house.

The Barrowfield redevelopment is necessary because our club took a short-term approach the last time it upgraded Lennoxtown.

It is ridiculous that our primary training facility does not have an indoor full-size pitch, for example; for the sake of saving money the club decided it needed only install a three quarter size one up there.

Now we’re installing it at Barrowfield instead.

That, of course, has now cost us more than it would have just do it right in the first place and it’s worse because doing it this way now incurs long-term costs.

Because, of course, instead of paying for one major facility we’re now running two.

This Celtic board, run from Dublin by a guy who thinks of us once in a blue moon, can tell itself all it likes that it is forward thinking and progressive, but time and again we end up doing stuff like this, and it has real world consequences.

It comes from the same sort of thinking that dropped us into the chaos of the summer; leaving things undone for so long that the problems mount up and then all have to be dealt with at once.

I am glad that we’ve finally upgraded our facilities, although I cannot think of many clubs out there which now have two dedicated training grounds when it would have made more sense to simply have one world class location for everything.

We really need to do things better than this though, and start to act like an organisation with an over-arching strategy instead of one which makes it up as it goes along.

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  • CHRIS says:

    The joke of an indoor facility is a Lawwell legacy

  • Jim says:

    Apparently we have a diverse and extremely talented Board, and Celtic will continue to be run on a Meritocratic basis by the best Executives available at the time.
    I’m paraphrasing Desmondo.
    It shows. Doesn’t it ?
    Trip to Dubai anyone? We have every faith in Neil Lennon, anyone?
    I think really, it’s only those in the bubble that believe their own hype.

  • Paul says:

    It’s a joke. Same with the hotel/museum. We spend all this money on gaining planning permission, get architects to produce drawings etc and then after spending this money. We DO NOTHING
    Desmond is a joke figure who is now plotting for one of his three sons to take over as the CEO

  • The Great God Pan says:

    In my humble opinion we are certainly a big club, but with a small-time, amateurish and narrow-minded board. We need rid of the board as well as the billionaire playboy who should be nowhere near our club. There are many who believe they are conflicted because of their desire to maintain the O…F…..M model. I am sure that Fergus did not want a situation where the club ended up in the hands of a billionaire.

    Look what Fergus did in 5 years, yet this bunch grope their way from one season to the next and never allow the club to be properly prepared for the next stage. We are not at the level we should be at because they are holding us back.

  • theinsideman1 says:

    Money is all they care for.!!!

  • Peter cassidy says:

    Could not understand why barrowfield was not developed into a top training centre before the Lennoxtown Centre very strange but then again how liewell Desmond have run celtic over the last years and wasted our money whats a few million here or there we have stood still for years thru these two $unts our turnover has not really moved forward only uptake when we sell our best players so overall very poor by the so called great ceo I would bet my old granny could have done better job than liewell and a lot cheaper £250 thous to £3.5 plus pension pot nice earner plus share discount yes a real celtic man my @rse.

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