The people running our club really do treat us like absolute mugs, don’t they? Today, Celtic has published its interim accounts with a lengthy statement from The Leech, in his role as chairman. It is exactly as you would expect. Loaded down with numbers and with self-justifications and excuses for failure. Some of it is so brazen it makes your jaw drop.
One particularly amusing segment reads thus; “The Board recognises the inherent inefficiencies of holding excess cash, and, in conjunction with other cash commitments, the importance of investing in strengthening the team to deliver football success.”
In short, we’re pretty ashamed to have all this money sitting in the bank. Don’t worry, we don’t intend to hang onto it all. Which makes me wonder why in God’s name they ever accumulated it in the first damned place. This guy … you have to give him credit. Suddenly the cash surplus is a negative, and the club never intended it get so high?
There’s plenty of jam tomorrow in there. Stadium upgrades are touted.
More disco lights would be my response to that, because disco lights are just what we need after all. Forget that unless the product on the park is up to snuff nobody is going to care that the kiosks are no longer serving juice out of plastic bottles or that the wi-fi is marginally better.
There’s no explanation for why the summer transfer window was such a calamitous shit-show; all we get on that front is “look how much money we spent.”
That none of it strengthened the team is glossed over as if that wasn’t important.
That none of it served the needs of the manager apparently doesn’t matter a damn. Just be grateful we spent it, that seems to be the message, along with the usual subliminal hint that he’s offended because we’re not.
His January transfer window segment is priceless.
“The Board shares the frustrations of the supporters regarding the less than anticipated activity in the recent transfer window,” he writes, and for a second, I thought he was mounting some sort of case against the manager. But he had his excuse to hand.
“The Board’s commitment is to strengthen and improve the playing squad in every transfer window and although resources were available, we were unable to further add to the squad due to the unavailability of identified targets. This was disappointing to us all, and never the intention. The January transfer window is notoriously difficult as clubs are very reluctant to let their best players go at such a crucial time of the season just as we are. Indeed, we resisted strong interest in our players from other clubs.”
So yeah, exactly the tiresome rubbish I expected from this joker.
“We didn’t sell anyone and we tried our best.”
There is no indication that he realises failure means what it says on the tin, that there was an obvious problem in that we left so many areas of the team untouched until the “difficult” January window in the first place or that as per usual we left it to the very end of the month, when teams were absolutely not going to sell us players … these people have pulled this same stroke so many times now that I can’t be bothered with it any longer.
I’m not interested in hearing this claptrap that the board shares our ambitions. They absolutely don’t, and this has been demonstrated to us over and over again.
That entire statement is an insult to our collective intelligence, and it comes at a time when the anger against he and the rest of the charlatans who sit in that stand and continually take the piss has never been higher.
And none of it changes a damned thing.
You’ll notice that I haven’t bothered to quote the actual figures, right? Because I couldn’t care less and nobody else I know could care less. The only results that matter are the ones on the park, and they are dire, and we’re second in the league.
As I’ve written extensively, I consider the Leech himself to be a divisive figure who shouldn’t be in the vicinity of Celtic Park in an executive role. He brings nothing to the table whatsoever any longer. There’s not an iota of forward thinking in that statement, for all the talk of spending money on infrastructure.
If the women’s team is underfunded who cares what kind of dressing room they have? If the B team is playing on muddy fields against public park players, you can do what you like to Lennoxtown and Barrowfield and we’ll continue going backwards. So what that the first team squad is getting some shiny new facilities and Lawwell Jnr is getting some shiny new toys to play with?
Scattergun transfer policies and the accumulating of “project players” whilst the starting eleven progressively weakens means that none of it is worth a damn.
His son running recruitment is a grotesquerie which no serious organisation would ever have allowed and the failures of the summer and January belong to them both and if the manager swings at the end of the season their heads must be on spikes next to his, or this club and this fan-base are on a collision course of epic proportions.
USELESS, ARROGANT BASTARD…..
? get the horror,his boy and the rest of that board out!
Scandalous statement from the leech never expected anything else it’s the same garbage all the time paidwell is a born liar who preys on our gullible fan base. He can’t be allowed to get away with it any longer we must scream from the rooftops his removal and that of his wee bhoy .
At least with this pathetic statement, he is aware what the fans think of him and the board which is a great thing.
“The unavailability of intended targets.” Does that signify Celtic intended to sign Mbappe, Haaland and Kane but got knocked back like a drunk looking for a lumber at the last dance? Stop treating us like mugs and clap your hands as the next tranche of Champions League millions heads across to your pals in Govan.
Sooper dooper accounts figures mean one thing …big fat juicy bonuses for the entire board ! In other words if the trend of underperforming continues and nothing is won on the pitch ,the suits will receive their giant sized premiums …for overseeing failure !
Just as well – for the Board – that we’re not at home on Sunday.
“…The January transfer window is notoriously difficult as clubs
are very reluctant to let their best players go at such a crucial time
of the season just as we are…”
Don’t need to be a grossly overpaid Chairman [or CEO] to know that fact.
BUT, that is what the SUMMER transfer window was for…!
If you don’t already think that PL was a diddy before,
than that poorly written effort confirms it – and tone deaf, as per.
🙁
I have always despised this arrogant bar steward but even by his standards this is trolling of the highest kind. Lawwell get Tae f**k and take your useless sprog with you.
“Fail to prepare, prepare to fail” that should be the Celtic motto under the current board. If Desmond has or had serious plans for our club he’s done a great job of hiding them, perhaps we should we call him “the illusionist” because he’s certainly pulled the wool over our eyes and we’ve sat there and took it. I’m a subscriber to a lot of the Celtic blogs and there’s a lot of talk on them about letting the board know our discontent but that’s all it is is talk. I don’t see anybody putting across any solutions to the problems regarding nepotism or cronyism to use two of your favourite terms James. Surely all of our CSC’s should be balloted to ask if they’re discontent with the state of the club, this club is too parochial in its outlook, we’re content with just doing enough to stay ahead of the huns instead of really making an effort to make a challenge in European competition which is what we want as a support. We’ve wasted hundreds of millions of pounds to stay just ahead of a basket case financially doped club, that would be gross negligence in any other business or company in the world. Now I’m not the smartest business mind in the world but surely amongst our supporters we have minds that could come up with a proper challenge to the incompetence of this board, something to make them see our club is not a plaything or something to be towed along in a state of flux just to be the number one club in Scotland, if that’s the size of our ambition we should all stop putting our money in now because we’ll never amount to anything. I know that winning domestically is our bread and butter but we’ve got to try in Europe as well, the argument that the big five league’s price us out of doing anything but I don’t believe that, when you cross that white line is eleven versus eleven and if you buy the best players in your price bracket then you can have a right good go. There’s teams with less or similar budgets than ours doing so much better than us. Look at the group FC Copenhagen got out of this year! That’s only one example and if they can do it them so can we but not under a board who’ve got absolutely zero ambition. As I’ve said already smarter people than me could work out a strategy and challenge this spineless board and it’s long overdue as the volume of unhappy supporters on these threads have proved for years.
Nothing but a shambles. As for project players or development players. Those are the guys who play in the B team. They should be the projects we are aiming to develop whilst spending our money on the first team. But then again, you need to pay good coaches to develop the B team. And again, why would we spend money. Even though it just embarassingly sits there in the bank
As you say James we all knew it would be this “we tried” – “It’s not easy” – “Clubs won’t sell” mantra (Na actually, let’s just call it what it actually is)…
PATHOLOGICAL- LYING – PISH – POT – JERKER !
What slimy bastards they truly are each and every one of them…
I’d call them wankers but that’s a beautiful thing when you don’t have a girlfriend and are going through a singleton period in life – But these rats on two legs are anything but a thing of beauty in life –
Bisgrove and Bennet will show them and therefore tragically us what it’s like and how to spend earned cash flow !
So what is the saying again? Is it, “every player has a value”? So, if they had offered Aberdeen, say, the asking price for Miovski, do you think they would have turned it down?
Even if they had paid double the asking price, they would have ensured 3 points a couple of days later, rather than him scoring against them and losing the two points, and, very possibly, the life-changing (especially for THEM) pot of gold.
All the good work Ange done the players the cleaners the bar staff cooks chefs
Everyone atCeltic but the star of the show the SUPPORTERS who work hard to buy the tickets that are overpriced what a bonus that would be
Man’s inhumanity to man
and Pure and utter GREED
BANK ACCOUNT
Look at our bulging bank account, thanks to you faithfully blind idiots, that can’t see the woods for the trees when it comes to this club, Desmond plaything.
DELUDED WOKE POLITICALLY CORRECTNESS
Look at our lovely “Politically Correct” playing fields, that cost £20million of cash that should have been invested into the first team to help with the league and Europe, but instead, was redirected (to keep the feminist soybhoys happy) to help prop up the women’s game (that nobody watches), not even women as they preferred the men’s game.
YOUTH ACADEMY
Look at our non-existent youth-adcamey that hasn’t produced a decent player in over a decade but has systematically destroyed the fragile careers of many a young aspiring football player that came through the doors of Celtic Park, only to roll out again with unrepairable hamstrings and hips injuries that we can’t fix because we refused to properly invest in out recover clinic.
DISCO-LIGHTS
Look at our Disco-Lights, that nobody asked for nor wanted, that resemble a lights display from a end of year primary school child’s play.
HEATED DRIVE-WAYS AND LUXURIOUS HOUSES
While you the fans have/are struggling through the living crisis, deciding if money has to be spent on heating or food, thanks again for being the suckers that yous are and forking out on paying for overpriced and inflated season book tickets and club merchandise to fund out heated drive-ways and luxurious lifestyles, all while we deliberately flush your European dreams down the toilet to save NewCo.
THE 10IAR
Look how we (the board) reacted when you (the Celtic fans) backed us during a pandemic, we flushed £35 million down the toilet & blew the 10iar, we erected barricades and ignored yous, we used the blue nose tainted elements of the British media to insult & labelled Celtic fans with untrue, deceitful slurs of ‘entitled’, ‘mob’, ‘scum’ & dirt, yet.
MONEY HOARDING OPERATION AND NEWCO
Look how we the board have been operating for nearly 20 years as we
1: constantly interfered with the recruitment process
2: continuously undermined managers to pursue our own agenda (saving NewCo)
3: wasted millions on project players & journeymen
4: Held BACK on money needed for European qualifiers
5: We’ve regressed Celtic to a joke & laughing stock of European football to the point we’ve become the whipping boys for Europe’s smaller clubs
6: with our mismanagement, we’ve only qualified for the champions league twice in the last eight years
7: under our mismanagement we’ve lost out on £280 million of much needed champion’s league
revenue
8: under our mismanagement we flushed £35 million down the toilet, blew the 10iar & called it progress
9: under our mismanagement, NewCo have been resurrected to save the ‘Old-firm’ brand & the long-term financial future of the SPFL
A vote of no confidence petition required to remove Lawwell. Get 40,000 signatures and drop it on Desmonds doorstep.
Enough is enough.
Think bob says it all .
Thanks.
Yes indeed – A pure fab analysis from Bob there !
Superb analysis, as always Bob.
Totally agree on all points, as my input does not appear to be uploaded.
Bob for First Minster. That is brilliant mate. Well done.
If he was your parent wouldn’t you seek advice from his doctor. He appears to be mentally ill, shouldn’t he be sectioned for everyone’s sake ?
I hate all that “we’re fans too, we share your pain” bollocks. Because that’s what it is. It’s an absolute embarrassment. The fact we stand to gift our hated enemies £60M in guaranteed revenue for next year’s accounts is something that should be punishable by the severest measures possible. But because there is no level of accountabilty in evidence at board level, I am not sure what those measures would be other other than a 0.5% reduction in the Christmas bonus.
Here is a clear indication of them and us. Us being passionate about our Club but to them its merley a business. It wouldn’t matter two f#$ks to them if we were bottom of the Scottish second tier as long as the figures were good. This is the Kellys and the Whytes all over again. The board is only interested in money, our money
Desmond yes man is doing what Desmond” wants lawell is part of the problem but Desmond is the biggest. We all want the club to run properly and kept solvent but spl can’t make us solvent only Europe and the supporters plus sponsors can so we need better players for Europe .In the cl and Europa we continue to be so poor in both cups this has gone for to long big defeats have made us a joke in Europe lawell thinks winning the spl and keeping the rangers our rivals is as much we can expect as being a success very depressing only the paying fans can change things there pound” counts so fans want change stop accepting jam tomorrow.
I think the quote ‘ Stupidity combined with arrogance and a huge ego will get you a long way,’ fits well with PL. His dismissive, disrespectful and disdain laden statement confirms what he thinks of our fanbase. The outrageously, massive biscuit tin will never be opened to progress our club, whilst he is in place ! Sell by date has long expired and freshness urgently required !
Trying to paper over the cracks.
Only question I want answered has he now seen the 5 way agreement and has he read it, if not why not.
Pedro the Hun thinks he’s bulletproof and that we are complete morons or else he’d be keeping his big flappy mouth shut and keeping himself well hidden in the shadows.
£23m on players would be impressive if it was spent on 3-4 of Jota or CCV standard, instead of being pissed up against the wall on how many was it again 15 or something close.
Pedro the Hun and son must be the first 2 to go – the 5th column within.
HH
I totally agree that Lawwell and our board need to be held accountable. Does our major shareholder get a free ride here. During the January transfer shit show, while the real fans are getting the urine extracted from them it was nice to know that Dermot Desmond couldn’t give a shit and was having a round of golf in some pro-am with Rory. Since he’s too busy to even attend an A.G.M. for the last couple of years, if he doesn’t have time for Celtic anymore can he appoint someone who does. Not Peter Lawwell or his offspring.