Celtic – A Club Like No Other
We have this slogan put to us by the club during all advertising campaigns. It’s taken from Barcelona’s slogan on “More Than A Club”.
Well here is the question, ARE WE REALLY A CLUB LIKE NO OTHER?
Let’s look at your stereotypical football club.
They have 11 players on the park – Check
They have a manager in the dugout – Check
They have a club shop pouring out overpriced merchandise – Check
A ticket office trying to use emotional blackmail to make you spend a lot of your hard earned money on tickets to watch the football, regardless of the product being provided – Check
I could go on, but I think today of all days, I will get very little resistance from our supporters when it comes to having a go at the direction our club is going.
In my lifetime (I’m in my early 30s) I cannot think of a time when the board treated fans so poorly. Fergus McCann came in and was given a lot of abuse by supporters given that he refused to spend money hand over fist. However, at least Fergus was up front about it. And I don’t remember the merchandising and ticket sales being rammed down our throats at that time. WE knew what was on offer, and if you wanted it, you bought it. A fair price was asked for a fair product. If you went into the Celtic Shop at Glasgow Cross, the price asked for a Celtic jersey was the same price being asked for in Sports Division or Sports Connection. Nowadays a high street store owned by an investor in our rivals can sell you a Celtic Jersey on their website for around 10 to 15 quid less than the official club store!!
In Asda if I want a tin of beans, I pay the price depending on the quality I want. Today Celtic are serving us up Smart Price football, at Heinz prices.
Look at our signing policy. We are mainly all fully behind the “Moneyball” strategy of buy cheap and sell for higher price. As long as it works. However I have recently started to wonder a little more about it. Can anyone tell me who the last player we signed from a Scottish club was? I have it as Anthony Stokes from Hibs 4 years ago!!!
Here’s a suggestion as to why that might be……how many jerseys are we going to sell in Scotland or Ireland as a result of signing? None. However sign Nakamura, Du Wei, Cha, Juarez, Wanyama, Rogic, Kayal, Zheng Zhi, Mizuno….etc then you sell jerseys in those countries. £$£$£$£
Now I don’t necessarily subscribe to the thought that signing Dundee Utd players will automatically put us in a much better position to compete in Europe. For example, as I have said before look at the results in the youth leagues in recent years. Celtic have an immense record. Therefore the likes of Henderson, Atajic, Watt, Findlay, O’Connell and co are clearly stronger than Russell, Mackay-Stevens, Armstrong and the rest. And you only have to look at signings like David Fernandez, Willo Flood and in reverse Niall McGinn to see that just because you do well in the Scottish top flight that it means you can do it at Celtic.
However, I look at Stevie May. £800,000 he joined Sheffield Wednesday for earlier this month. Now, given that last night our options up front were Leigh Griffiths or Stokes, surely that money and the wages he would’ve commanded would have been worth a punt? Same applies recently to Johnny Russell. For the amount it would have cost, considering what a punt on a Balde or Pukki has turned out to be, it makes sense as a football decision to buy someone who is proven to score in your domestic league?
But, as I said above, these players don’t sell jerseys around the world!
Using the fact that cash is king in our boardroom, I raised it a couple of weeks ago on here. I’m now convinced that our leaders want us to let Ran**rs catch back up with us because competition sells tickets. We have all said it, McCoist and whoever was in charge each week at Ibrox, have wasted an opportunity to blood youngsters and instead threw money that they haven’t had at the problem. Well we have been doing the opposite. We are NOT spending money that we DO have, to make ourselves stronger. And now we are in this position.
At full time last night I was supposed to wait for a friend to get a lift home. When I got to the front door and saw how poisonous the atmosphere was, I decided against waiting. I saw and heard fans of our club screaming at the doors of our home for board members to step down.
WHAT HAVE WE BECOME?
We have become a club that only wants to make money! A club that hopes to drag its way through all the dull and boring football games in domestic football picking up whatever money we can. A club which has a support upset at the way its run. A club that happily fleeces its fans loyalty.
A CLUB LIKE EVERY OTHER!!!
