Alan Brazil’s momentous ignorance on how Celtic is run should mortify his bosses.

Two finance pieces to close out the day, and I’m going to start by picking up on something Eric over at Read Celtic wrote earlier, about the idea—floated on TalkSport—that Dermot Desmond might, in order to prevent the Ibrox club getting one over on us with their £20 million “investment” write his own cheque for the same sum and hand it to Brendan Rodgers with instructions to spend it on players.

This nonsense originated with Alan Brazil on TalkSport and was echoed by other commentators on that platform.

Before we get to the point, it’s obvious that this is rubbish from the simple act of referring to their £20 million share issue as money for the first team. This has been denied by the club and debunked so many times anyone still using the line should be forced to wear a clown suit for having done so.

Eric focused, quite rightly, on the fact that Desmond has never written a cheque like that before, and that’s the point I want to build on—but from a slightly different angle. Because what this really exposes is the colossal ignorance some in the mainstream media still have when it comes to Celtic. These people don’t seem to know the first thing about the subject they’re supposedly paid to cover.

First, let me say this: Eric is right to condemn the idea, and in the strongest terms. It is preposterous. It is idiotic. And he’s also right to point out that Dermot Desmond has never, at any point in his time at Celtic, written a cheque to bankroll the manager. Nor does anyone expect him to.

And that’s what I want to explore.

It is painfully ignorant to talk about Desmond as if he’s the owner of Celtic, as if he is the reason the club is where it is today. Dermot Desmond is the largest individual shareholder. He appears to be the dominant force on the board. But Desmond neither controls Celtic nor owns it. If he did control Celtic, it wouldn’t sometimes seem like the amateurish operation that frustrates so many of us. Because Dermot Desmond doesn’t run his actual businesses that way.

There are two elements to this.

The first is the implication that without Desmond’s largesse, Celtic couldn’t simply hand Rodgers a £20 million transfer budget anyway.

That’s false. Celtic can give Brendan Rodgers a £20 million transfer budget, over and above anything raised from sales. If we post another £100 million-plus revenue year—and we’re on course to do so—then that kind of outlay is very much within our means. We don’t need Desmond to write the cheque.

Which brings me to the second point: Celtic is funded, almost entirely, by us. Take away the money we raise in the transfer market, and what remains is a club that exists—thrives—because of the cash we supporters put in.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a season ticket holder, an occasional attendee, if you’ve got a Celtic TV subscription or you just buy the shirts. Every one of us contributes to the financial might of this club.

And that’s why I’m proud of Celtic.

On match days, when I look around that stadium, I take immense satisfaction in knowing that we are not the plaything of a sugar daddy, oligarch or petrostate. We may have a board that sometimes acts like it has a divine right—but it doesn’t.

Those people don’t put money in. We do. And I like it that way. I prefer it that way. I’m proud that we built this club. I’m proud that we paid for that stadium. That we pay for that team. There isn’t some mysterious figure in the shadows writing cheques to fund the dream—we fund it. We own it. And we deserve every bit of success that we get, because we pay for it.

The idea that Desmond would just write a £20 million cheque to the manager goes against everything this club stands for. It’s astounding to me that people paid to cover football don’t understand this very basic, very simple reality. I honestly don’t know what they see when they look at Celtic, but it clearly isn’t the same club I see. And it makes me angry. Because it’s offensive. Celtic is ours. It’s funded by us. And the fact these clowns don’t grasp that is infuriating.

This is why, when we look at the dire state of the club across the city, there’s so much disbelief and confusion about how they’ve wound up in such a mess—posting losses year on year. And I genuinely don’t understand why their fans aren’t mortified by the talk that surrounds their club, about how they always need more money. How they always need outside investors to come in and bail them out.

Celtic’s never needed that.

We’re successful and rich—at the same time. We don’t rely on directors’ loans, or phoney American investment. But the media is so used to this utterly alien model that they no longer recognise how crazy it all sounds to people who support a club that isn’t run like that. And they must look across at us and assume the same thing.

So, yeah—I wish these pundits would stop talking such absolute rubbish. And yes, TalkSport is notorious for it. But they’re not alone. Because later on today I’m going to have to circle back to cover our old friend Keith Jackson and his latest article, which is even more ridiculous.

These people are an embarrassment. And the way they talk about Celtic is an embarrassment. There’s so much they should understand, and so little that they actually do.