It is fitting that on a day when the first piece up on this site is about folk retreating from reality that The Daily Record offers us a sterling example of it, by continuing to push the demented story of the “Ibrox takeover” bid from an American consortium.
I have written, at length, on why this is not only a delusion but a dangerous one. Not one single journalist knows the first thing about who this woman is (she worked for Duff and Phelps; ponder that for a moment if you will) or who she represents.
The talk of “investment” in the club is not explored in the least. She has offered no plan, no detail, no list of her fellow investors or any guarantee that the club would not be saddled with the debts incurred in “purchasing it.”
Clubs all over England, including Arsenal and Manchester United, have been “taken over” in exactly this manner, with the “investors” not actually putting up any of their own money.
Some folks on the periphery of Ibrox seem to want to rush, headlong, into that scenario. Few clubs with that ownership structure have done particularly well out of it.
They cheer from the side-lines these stories that Fox might have to pay as much as £50 million to “complete” her deal … none seem to wonder how that vast sum would be recouped. It is craziness when you contemplate it from solid ground.
I never cease to be amazed by one particular element of this; I have never seen a word as abused and misrepresented as “investment” is in the discourse which surrounds that club. It’s as if it’s actual meaning has been flipped on its head.
You are not “investing” if you are pouring money down the toilet. You are not “investing” if your entire business plan is predicated on making the Peepul feel good about themselves. You are not “investing” if you’re spending tens of millions in the hope of securing a Champions League Group Stage place every couple of years just to post an occasional profit.
If this was our club, if these “investors” were hovering around our principal shareholders and trying to interest them in a buyout I would be amongst many thousands of fans campaigning loudly against any such thing and demanding that if those shares were to be sold that they be sold, instead, directly to the Celtic Trust.
Because we deal here in reality, in the way the world actually works and not how we dream it to be. We would not be indulging barmy ambitions of seeing sugar-daddy wealth turn us into a superpower with no downside to speak of. We’d want to know what these people wanted and how they intended to squeeze profit from a club playing in our league.
We would recognise an austerity regime before it arrived, and we would certainly recognise vulture capitalists bent on maximising their return.
It hasn’t even dawned on the press to ask these sorts of questions.
Instead, they drool at stories about how much money might be available to the manager.
It is insanity.
Back to insanity, there’ll be huge Native American appearing soon with a detached water fountain ready to punt it oot the windae…
‘Aye Ready’ my arsium;)))
Is this a”world exclusive,”scoop story ,or an “according to a report,” tale ? If the latter ,the Record is doing like no other national title does .Second hand news at its laziest .
The Honest Investor
There once was a man called Fergus,
that invested from across the pond.
As we chapped on death’s door dejected,
bhoy it looked like we’d gone.
The young men now won’t remember,
now that we’re many years on.
Yet we’re happy apart, thank you dear chap,
what an outcome.
They have got to try and drum up some good news, I wouldn’t try and light my fire with this rag.