Is Somebody At Celtic Putting Their Own Interests In Front Of The Club?

Last night, the story broke which I am determined will not define the rest of my day or my week. It broke late, when most people had already mentally switched off for the evening.

It contains not one word that can independently verified. It could smoke and mirrors, or it could be something real and substantial. It is the second such story in a matter of months.

The story is that Giorgios Giakoumakis has turned down Celtic’s latest contract offer and is “set for a move in January.”

The same rumours stalk Juranovic.

Either the media is making up stories or they are getting good information. It is widely accepted that Juranovic’s replacement has already been sourced and is on the brink of signing.

Does that mean that the contract story about him is true?

It suggests that it might be. Strongly.

Does this mean that the Giakoumakis story is also true?

I am leery of saying that just because there seems to be substance in one story that there is automatically substance in the other.

Yet it is difficult to ignore that both of them have come out nearly on top of one another and that both essentially say the exact same thing, about two different players.

There are a number of factors to consider here, and we need to consider them one at a time.

But to me, by far the most important one is that both of these stories have highly sensitive information at their heart.

If contract talks have broken down then only a handful of people can be aware of that fact, and that the news of two different sets of negotiations have made it into the press is clearly not down to agents stirring the soup and has to be a disclosure made closer to home.

It cannot be dismissed as a coincidence either.

Players come and go. Successful players on salaries which they could better elsewhere come and then go, sometimes faster than you can say “loyalty clause”. Celtic will not pay EPL salaries simply because we can’t. That doesn’t mean that those inside the club should treat any player who the manager values with disrespect.

That two separate negotiations have broken down isn’t a good look, and any more of it and I can see the manager being a decidedly unhappy guy.

Far more damaging though than the prospect of any individual player leaving – Celtic will replace anybody given the right parameters – is the possibility that someone is leaking stories which have the potential to damage us.

Someone inside our club thinks that their own interests and their own relationship with the hacks, or perhaps just their own complaints and grievances, are more important than the interests and wellbeing of the club itself.

That person, if such a person exists, would be a snake. Would be a fraud. Would be a disruptor and destabiliser.

That person would need hunted down and ripped out of their role, whatever role that was, whatever function they perform inside our club. Because things at Celtic have not been this calm or peaceful or smoothly ticking along for a long time and that individual should not be allowed to disrupt our momentum for even one minute longer.

That person, if such a person exists, is damaging Celtic for their own ends.

Of course, it might be that all of this is what I said at the start; smoke and mirrors.

The truth will be known inside Parkhead one way or the other.

If these stories are true, then the place has a leak, and that leak needs to be identified and fired.

If the stories aren’t true then The Daily Record is making up lies, and I trust that the paper and its “reporters” will never see the inside of the stadium again unless they are paying dues, because someone has an agenda here and that agenda is to destabilise us and anyone who does that should pay a high price for doing so.

All of us will be watching to see what happens next.