Celtic and the New Reality
An interesting and insightful contribution to Celtic Shorts today from Joe Bloggs City of The Celtic Wiki who stands back from the current Celtic woes to look at the bigger picture and where Celtic should go from here…
Celtic and the New Reality by Joe Bloggs City from The Celtic Wiki…
As much as we all love supporting Celtic there’s a point where reality must hit and it’s tough love for us. This past year in particular has seen a difficult set of challenges which have culminated in protests. However we’re now becoming so immune to the issues at hand that apathy is bedding in and the protests is background noise. Feels like as if we are retracing the early 1990s, albeit this is NOT even close to the disaster of that era.
A new uncomfortable reality
What I’m trying to say is that we are likely now settling into a new uncomfortable reality. There’s been many over the years but the current level is one that sees us so far behind the major leagues that even light speed travel won’t be enough to bring us close enough.
Back in the 1990s to the end of the 2010s we had aspirations to at least keep on their coattails (and often did), but the big guns now have everything so tied up in the Champions League keeping the rest of us fighting for scraps. That inevitably means they just buy up everything and leave the rest of us to be just training grounds for their youth players on loans to sell back to us if they’re not good enough for themselves. It’s made the structure dull, restrictive and almost predictable.
Premier League is a product that is global and successful
In fairness, it would be churlish not to give the EPL etc their due as they’ve made a product that is global and successful, but it’s come at the expense of diverse competition and restriction for clubs to compete.
The recent scandals and incomprehensible debt levels accumulated by certain clubs proves that the foundations are not firm for some of these clubs but it will just reinforce their efforts to carry on to ring fence whatever financial avenues they can to safeguard their status. Barcelona have a debt estimated at EUR2.5-3.5, whilst Manchester United and Chelsea have over GBP1bn of debt each.
Where do Celtic sit?
For Celtic, where do we sit? The old cliché of a big fish in a goldfish bowl is true but what are we doing about it? There is an advantage in that we are at least near guaranteed European competition every season (although the Rangers have proven otherwise this season). We also have a large stadium that helps bring in massive revenue and a great place to congregate to celebrate the culture of our support. It’s a great platform on which to build from.
Behind the scenes we are atrophying badly
However, behind the scenes we are atrophying badly. The board aren’t all at fault but have undeniably played their part. Firstly, the hard fought success in the 2000s had been taken too much for granted and since those days the club’s management has taken further progress too easily.
Secondly, we are paying the price for various poor appointments such as Ian Bankier who was sorely out of his depth. Peter Lawwell also welded too much power which ended up to the detriment of the club as his touch deteriorated.
Thirdly there has been too little new blood into the boardroom and beyond; sports markets have been rapidly evolving to be almost unrecognisable from a generation ago. Without some knowledge or experience of the new environment Celtic has been left behind in marketing, statistical analysis, player preparation and coaching.
What has been done to address the issues?
None of the above is new but what has been done to address the issues? We still seem to rely on our coaching staff being based on some retirement scheme for former players. They therefore bring in nothing new which leads to the youth players demoralised and bailing out at the first opportunity much to the detriment of their own careers as all bar Ben Doak have found out to their own cost.
Any doubters should acknowledge that there’s plenty of clubs across Europe in similar small or mid-sized leagues who have managed the transition better than Celtic. Bodo Glimt is a perfect example, but so has LASK this season. On the other hand, this situation doesn’t always last and plenty of smaller clubs who punch above their weight end up sinking back down in time (like for example Rosenborg).
Hard decision-making needed at Celtic
How to address the situation for Celtic will need hard decision-making, but the mindset will need to change across the club. This article is too small to go through it all. On the other hand, it is a case that like all the other smaller clubs we will end up in the same cycle where we manage for a period to punch above our weight before falling back down again into a trough, and simply UEFA et al don’t care a jot.
Celtic and the rest are now only there to make up the numbers until the KO stages for the big guns as far as they are concerned. I really do look back at the Champions League in the 1990s-2000s as a golden period for the game, far better than the closed shop as it is now. Granted the big clubs still dominated, but clubs from the smaller leagues made their mark too.
The board will need to take inspiration from Fergus McCann
The board will need to take inspiration from Fergus McCann who fought off the doubters, my only problem is that I don’t seen anyone on the board with his acumen. If anything, too many seem to remind me of the old Biscuit Tin board. On the other hand, even Fergus would have found the whole spectre to challenge too much.
Some might point to draft systems but that only works in a closed shop system and football is too vast for that to work here. Even in American Football with all its redistribution stories, the truth is that there are plenty of deadwood “franchises” which is why they opt to move whenever possible.
The newer generation of fans
The newer generation of fans have a different mindset to the older ones, but has the Celtic board adjusted for this? They won’t have any transition easy to make. With the embedding of the Ultra culture amongst sections of the support, it’s a whole new ball game. Everything seems to be now end up in confrontations although the Ultra groups do deserve some flak too.
The above is really just a ramble I guess, but the point is that the current reality no matter which manager we bring in has an impenetrable ceiling for every club from the smaller leagues, and we’ve just got to somehow live within our means.
