Celtic going for a player at Leeds was beyond belief. Are these people mad?

Yesterday gave us one of those examples of why this Celtic board of directors is so widely scorned by Celtic supporters and others.

It came in the story that we did, in fact, attempt to take Joel Piroe of Leeds United on loan, a move that has caused embarrassment for two reasons, neither of which was hidden from view and both of which should have been obvious to anyone running this club. The fact they apparently were not is deeply troubling.

First, the Ibrox club are allegedly looking for a striker in this transfer window.

If he is available, if he is decent, and if he is the kind of player who can score enough goals to win this title, then it stands to reason that their relationship with Leeds would have enabled them to get him easily and long before now.

The fact they have not tells you something immediately. If they do not think Joel Piroe is good enough for their team, why would anyone believe he is good enough for ours? From a footballing perspective alone, this makes no sense whatsoever.

The second reason is even more obvious.

Even if they did not fancy him, even if he did not suit their system, the idea that they would ever allow Joel Piroe to move to Celtic on loan is so ridiculous, so far outside the bounds of reality, that it is staggering anyone at Celtic thought this was worth pursuing.

Paraag Marathe sits as chairman of Leeds United and vice-chairman of the Ibrox club. Did anyone at Celtic seriously believe he would sanction a deal that might allow Celtic to retain the league title to his own cost?

It is ludicrous. Absolutely ludicrous.

Even with a minority interest, Marathe sits on their board. How do you justify that to the Ibrox support if it goes wrong? Did anyone at Celtic genuinely believe this could happen? Because if they did, it suggests a complete disconnection from reality. Anyone who thought about this for more than two minutes would have reached the same conclusion.

So, what does this mean?

Do we have people at our club who missed both of these points? Who failed to recognise that a striker not good enough for them should not be good enough for us? Who also failed to recognise the conflict of interest, visible from a mile away without glasses?

That is not mere incompetence. That is something else entirely.

This might be the most embarrassing moment of the entire window.

It may be the most embarrassing thing this board has attempted in years.

This does not suggest short-sightedness or a momentary lapse.

It suggests the move for Joel Piroe was never serious in the first place, but an attempt to generate headlines and create the appearance of activity rather than doing genuine transfer related work.

This ties directly into what I have said before.

In the board’s worldview, real work plus the appearance of work equals actual work.

The move for Joel Piroe was a smokescreen. The club never intended it as serious business. It never could have been. No wonder people at Leeds reacted with disbelief. Nobody there could treat the suggestion as credible.

I already regard the people running this club as deeply unserious, but even by their standards this episode defies belief.

Every time a report like this emerges, every time the club acts against basic logic, it forces the same question.

What policy have they actually been pursuing? We are apparently on the brink of a signing – more on that later – but O’Neill is clearly upset and it may even be that their hand has been forced in this regard. Are they really trying to strengthen Celtic?

We have all, at some time or another, suggested that if someone set out to sabotage the club, they would follow exactly this path.

We have watched this pattern repeat itself for over a year.

Last summer, a Dutch chairman openly mocked Celtic’s approach after we lodged a £2 million bid for a player we knew he valued at three times that. I said then it was not a serious offer. How could it have been? It would never secure a phone call.

It invited laughter instead, and that is exactly what it received.

Nothing we have seen indicates this board has a coherent philosophy or a plan.

Nothing suggests the next two weeks will suddenly transform this campaign.

The Joel Piroe episode makes one conclusion unavoidable.

The board is deliberately obscuring its own early inaction, dressing up inertia as effort while doing nothing of substance.

That leads to the only question that matters. Do they even want to win this?

The act of making that approach alone advertised Celtic as a club that does not know what it is doing, a club impossible to treat with respect because it does nothing to earn that respect. This is not how a big club behaves. This is not how a club with a plan behaves.

When you project this level of weakness and incoherence, the consequences do not stop. Time wasted on the Joel Piroe fantasy was time not spent pursuing something else. Time we do not have. And every such misstep eats further into our credibility.

Nobody watching this can seriously believe these people can continue to run this club.

I feel like I am putting the same record on repeat, but there are still people in our support who believe this board are good stewards. I do not know what that belief is based on if it even think it qualifies as blind optimism at this stage.

There is a very real chance of us finishing the season in third place.

Perhaps that is what it will take to clarify matters for some.

The last week alone has been farcical.

We have lost a key striker target to Ferencvaros, a club we should comfortably outmuscle.

We have attempted to sign Joel Piroe from Leeds, when we would have been as well calling Ibrox and asking them for one of theirs.

Martin O’Neill was reduced to scouting trips to Motherwell in the hope they might have one or two players who could improve our attacking options.

And instead of doing deals we spent the early part of the week putting the manager through transfer “strategy meetings.”

Today we will probably get a deal over the line. More need to follow, and without incident.

Just over a year ago we secured Champions League qualification with a game to spare and then promptly sold our star striker. From there it was downhill, save for one magical night in Munich.

Since then, we have sold another key striker, our first-choice right-sided attacker, and gone through two managers.

I do not know how anyone defends this.

I do not know how anyone pretends this is stable, or serious, or competent.

One signing does not fix this, not when this club has spent most of this window falling over its own feet.

The people running Celtic are not fit to do the job. Going to Leeds United, whose chairman is also vice-chairman of the Ibrox board, and asking to borrow Joel Piroe so that we can hold off the Ibrox club and retain the title is insanity.

Either nobody at senior level realised that, or the entire episode was designed to con supporters into believing activity was taking place.

I do not know which is worse.

I only know that both are harmful, and whether this is stupidity or wilful neglect, it amounts to the same thing.