Celtic finally have a rival who means business: An Exclusive from Keith Jackass

Celtic finally have a rival who means business: An Exclusive from Keith Jackass

It must be easy to sit there smirking from the east end of Glasgow, watching the latest sideshow from across the city like it’s some sort of Netflix docuseries pitched somewhere between Sunderland Til I Die and The Wolf of Wall Street—except with fewer victories and a more ambitious merch table.

But don’t laugh too hard, Celtic fans. Don’t chortle into your breakfast roll.

Because big changes have happened at Swindlers FC and I can assure you, these people are coming to knock on your door and knock you off your perch.

They are calling it Drumpf FC. It’s something big. Huge, even.

Off the radar, you might say.

Like the man himself, Donald J. Drumpf—the steak-selling, watch-flogging, part-time motivational speaker and now, saviour of The Swindlers, the club he’s bought and rebranded with all the subtlety of a gold-plated bulldozer.

Drumpf hasn’t just bought a football club. He’s bought the future.

He’s bought dreams. He’s bought global reach, and if you don’t believe that, just ask new vice chairman Brett Kavanagh, a former legal legend who never takes no for an answer, who told assembled reporters—with just the right hint of intensity—that “this is a project with global potential. We’re not just talking about Scotland. We’re talking about the world.”

Drumpf’s men—Kavanagh and CEO Stephen Miller—spoke with the kind of wide-eyed zeal usually reserved for tech start-up launch events or cult inductions.

“This club has a unique platform,” said Miller, staring into the middle distance like he was seeing the ghost of Bill Shankly riding a unicorn. “Drumpf FC could, and should, be the biggest club in the world. We’ve bought a crown jewel of Europe here, and we can take them further than they’ve ever been.”

That is a direct challenge to Celtic, whose directors must have been watching the recent Swindlers FC EGM with a mixture of fascination and fear.

Because here, finally, are the men with the know-how and the muscle to take this backwater team with their dilapidated stadium and shambolic finances to the top.

It’s all there when you look at the one page business plan they handed out for journalists at the Park Road cafe this morning where they conducted their media interviews.

The audacity. The vision.

They’ve spoken of building a 200,000-seater stadium.

“If we built it, they would come,” Miller said, with eyes that gleamed like those of an ICE agent turfing a family out of their house and into the back of a jail wagon.

“Twice the size of the Maracanã. Five times the average Ibrox attendance. Bigger by a factor of three than even that ground across the city. A stadium so vast it would cast a shadow over most of Govan and all of Scottish football. But especially them.”

They’ve talked about tapping into a “global fanbase” of tens of millions.

All of them just waiting for the latest Drumpf-branded football merchandise, everything from his trademarked Drumpf Makes Great Again (DMGA) slogan to the new club badge, which is Drumpf himself with a silhouetted American flag behind him.

And then there’s the transfer warchest.

£20 million has been raised and all of it will be spent on the manager’s new team-building plans … and it’s just the start.

“We’re backing the manager,” Miller said, even though no-one seems entirely sure who that is anymore.

“We’re not afraid to spend. Drumpf backs winners. And we’re going to build a winning culture. But first we’re going to re-seed the grass, repair the broken seats in the stands, fix the roof, pay our fines and back taxes and find someone who can unblock the toilets. He’ll get almost every penny after that.”

The Americans were quick to discuss their plans for raising additional funds going forward.

“Well, we have Drumpft steaks and Drumpf watches already; there’s no reason we can’t launch Drumpf soccer balls, and Drumpf branded astroturf and things like that. We see TV as being a big driver; a fly on the wall documentary, Welcome To Swindlers, is already in production … but you’ll need a Drumpf TV and a Drumpf dongle to watch it, of course. But then, you’ll need them for the games anyway so you know it all makes sense for you to buy them as soon as you can.”

It will be trophies rather than words that these Americans are ultimately judged on here in South Side of Glasgow, but everyone who crammed into the cafe this morning was left with the impression that their local club are now in the hands of impressive people with boundless ambitions, fake tans and egos bigger than Peter Lawwell.

Beneath the bravado, the soundbites, and the industrial quantities of cologne, there’s something Celtic should be paying attention to. Because while they were glued to the screens during the Drumpf FC EGM, sniggering into their coffees, what they were really watching was the moment their rivals finally got serious.

So Celtic fans can laugh all they like.

But it might be worth keeping one eye on the horizon.

Because Drumpf FC are not just the latest circus is in town.

The tent’s up, the lions are roaring, and the fleet of luxury clown cars are ready to roll … but these people are not messing about.

They’re coming, and Celtic should be concerned.