Ibrox Is In Trouble Because Its Directors Bought Into King’s Celtic “House Of Cards” Theory.

Celtic lives in close proximity to a club that is every bit as reckless with its cash as some of the clubs in England are with theirs. The madness of Ibrox has already destroyed one football team to play there, and there has long been the suspicion that some inside the club would spend this one towards the same fate.

For years there are people who have accused us of not doing enough to “bury them.” But I ask you; how is that in our gift? What do these people propose we do in order to do that? Spend more? We already spend more. By a considerable way.

The difference is that we will only spend what we earn. What we’re watching at Ibrox right now is the last gasp of a strategy which has been predicated on overspending.

On betting big on King’s “house of cards” theory.

King’s grand strategy was one of the stupidest ever adopted in this country. He “front loaded” spending to “catch” Celtic believing that once his club had that “first title” that ours would simply fall to pieces. Who knows where he got that bizarre idea. It flew in the face of every available piece of evidence. Celtic always evolves into something better.

What he – and they – banked on was that our quest for ten in a row had come to define the club and that once it was over that season ticket sales would collapse, merchandising income would plummet and that the players who had stayed for that tilt at glory would leave once it no longer applied. It underestimated the reasons we follow our club.

Ten in a row would have been amazing. None of us would deny it. But it was just one part of a larger goal, and thanks to Ange that goal is now in sight. That goal is nothing short of making the Survival Lie redundant by overtaking it. Once Celtic has accomplished that the quest is on to hammer Ibrox to the point where they cannot catch up to us.

Their mistake was to believe that “front loading” the transfer business to stop the ten would do the job. They won their title. But here’s the thing; neither King nor their club ever thought past that point. Three things happened which they hadn’t predicted.

The first was that COVID happened, and forced their directors to put money into the club above and beyond what King had demanded for the manager, just to keep on the lights. We had cash reserves. That’s how we survived. Their directors funded their shortfall.

The second thing is that those people expected to get their money back, not only from the COVID campaign but from the front-loading of the transfer business. See, that was always the downside from King’s plan. Eventually it would all need to be paid for. Any club which borrows heavily like that, whether from a bank or from its directors, needs to repay it.

Had we “collapsed” as they thought, we would not have been in a position to challenge them … that’s what they counted on. They counted on not having to do that much to stay ahead of us, because we were supposed to go backwards. From the moment we got our act together they were out of options. They didn’t have the money anymore to match us.

The third thing, of course, was Ange Postecoglou. But this was not pure dumb luck, although we might not have known exactly what we were getting when we approached him. We did back him however, above and beyond every other boss in our history. That we did it whilst posting profits whilst they continued posting losses is extraordinary.

Our club never gets enough credit for how it is run.

We sit amidst a sea of crazy spending down south and a club up here which spent its way to a title believing that it would collapse us. How crazy is that? Crazy enough that we refused to panic and simply kept on course. We allowed them to believe their delusional rubbish … and now they are paying the price.

Rumours continue to circulate that King wants an Ibrox return, and that with the end of his blacklisting period by the City of London that he will seek a seat back on their board. Good. They bought into his lunacy once before.

We can all hope that at some point they are convinced to do so again. This time they are out wiggle room at UEFA … so any risk he takes is going to be on an order of magnitude greater than any he’s taken before.

They know that Celtic will not collapse now. The current board at Ibrox knows that following his plan was folly. That doesn’t mean they won’t do it again. That’s the sort of club they are.