Gutless, spineless, ambitionless. This Celtic board is treading on thin ice with the fans, where is the breaking point?
Eric Knott 
Craig Foy - SNS Group/SNS Group/Getty Images
This evening, I’m not going to talk about last night’s game, everybody else has done that.
Instead, I’m going to focus on the reasons for that horrendous result in Madrid, because the reasons behind it are much more deep rooted than the malaise that descended over the entire Celtic team.
This European sickness is now deeply embedded in our club.
And it comes from the top down.
It seems to me that the extent of the ambition at the top our club is now to just exist.
I work for a large multi-national company, it is a PLC, and every year around this time of year, I am handed a set of KPI’s.
I’m expected to deliver on the targets set in these KPI’s, or at the very least, get close to them.
My work for the year revolves around these KPI’s, so I have to have a plan to deliver.
The Celtic board does not seem to have a plan.
Why?
Because nothing seems to change at our club.
What we witnessed last night has just become standard.
Expected.
I walked into my CSC last night and said to my mate, “I’m expecting nothing from this, therefore, I won’t be disappointed.”
As usual, I was lulled into a false belief in the first 5 minutes that we might actually give it a go.
It didn’t take me long to snap out of it.
As soon as we conceded that first corner from way outside our box, I turned to my mate and said, “Wait for it now, we’ll concede from this.”
Seconds later, the ball was nestling in the back of the net from Griezmann, after a cruel deflection.
17 minutes later and Daizen Maeda was off.
Just before half time, I said to my mate, “I guarantee you they’ll sucker punch us right on the stroke of half time.”
You see? This is my Celtic European DNA.
I am conditioned to think this way.
Call me negative, but at this point, you just know.
You’ve seen this car crash so many times before, it becomes all too predictable.
It was easily predictable from the day the transfer window shut, and once again we finished the window with a load of projects.
Our board is happy for this giant of a club to just exist.
They don’t care, about us the fans, or the amount of times we’ve been humiliated in Europe on their watch.
They are ambitionless when it comes to Europe, happy to take the money, and just make up the numbers.
They have no aspirations to progress beyond the groups.
If they did, then nights like last night would become a thing of the past.
But they are soul destroyingly ever present.
In reality, the extent of this board’s ambition is to win the Scottish Premiership, which in turn provides participation in the Champions League, which in turn bags them £35 million.
After that, nothing.
I mean, why would they bother?
They’re not held accountable.
They don’t seem to have a plan, they don’t seem to set KPI’s for the club or the team.
If they do, they couldn’t be arsed telling us about it, and based on what we’ve seen, it’s the same plan that’s been written on the back of a fag packet for the last 20 years.
Reset every season.
Sell our top assets.
Replace them with projects.
Just stand still.
No forward motion.
They are gutless, they are stale, they lack creativity, and they are slowly but surely ensuring our club falls way behind the rest of European football.
While other European clubs of a similar size to ours, with similar budgets, grow and evolve.
Because they build their playing squads incrementally season after season.
They don’t reset, they don’t rely on projects and hope they strike it lucky with one or two out of ten of them.
We are going backwards as a club, while the rest of Europe just leaves us in their wake.
Before Ian Bankier left the club, the then Celtic chairman stated that we couldn’t compete in the Champions League.
I mean how defeatist is that?
Then he was replaced by Peter Lawwell, who we all thought we were shot of, but now has his imprint all over the club again.
Even down to gaining revenge on the Green Brigade for supporting Palestine.
That’s a story for another day, but rest assured, I’ll focus on it too when the time is right.
I know I’ll have all of the pro-Lawwell brigade on after this article saying, “Well, it could be worse, we could be poorly run financially, but we’re extremely well run, thanks to Peter Lawwell.”
It could be worse?
Why the hell can’t it be better??
What is stopping us from being better than a club that just exists in stasis?
The Celtic board is stopping us.
Nobody else.
Because every one of us Celtic fans, to a man and a woman, wants this club to succeed, on every front it competes on.
We don’t want to just exist and ride the gravy train of the Champions League TV money.
A win in this competition is worth £4 million, a draw is worth £1 million.
Why have we no ambition, no incentive to earn that extra revenue?
Why have we no ambition other than to buy projects and then put them out with no experience to compete at this level?
It doesn’t bloody work, last night proves that.
How can the board not see it, when every one of the rest of us can?
I’m not saying that we go out and spend stupid money on players either, but how about instead of buying 4 project players for £10 million, we buy 2 better quality players for the same price?
Of the 10 projects we brought in in the last transfer window, 2 of them started last night.
Paolo Bernardo, who did his best, but in reality, was way out of his depth, and it showed.
And Luis Palma, who has been a decent enough signing, but couldn’t contribute anything last night.
How many of these projects will turn out to be a complete waste of £2.5 to £3 million?
How much of that project money will turn out to be a complete waste?
Like another Patryk Klimala, or Vakoun Bayo, or Kouassi Eboue, or Maryan Shved?
We wasted £11.5 million alone on them.
Who was held accountable for that waste of resources?
How much money will we waste on loans like we did Oliver Burke, Jeremy Toljan, and Charly Musonda?
There is no sustainability in this kind of player trading model, because all it does is keep us in stasis.
We do not move forward, because we do not have a forward thinking board.
They are the grey men.
Gutless and bereft of ideas, and they have taken root in our boardroom.
And it seems we can never get them out of there.
As long as they are there, we will just see nights like last night over and over again.
The fans are beginning to get well and truly sick of them.
With their behaviour towards our own fanbase, they are starting to tread on thin ice.
Taking money from fans who are banned from attending games leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
Where is the breaking point in all of this?
If the board continues on this path, then it isn’t very far away.
Nights like last certainly don’t help this board’s cause.
If they ever had a cause.
Because you can’t call just existing as we are a cause.
Celtic is a sleeping giant.
Kept sedated by the grey men.
It’s time for the fans to wake this club up to it’s true potential.
Aodhán Ó Conchobhair 
Don’t hold your breath, couple of decades of this , and still most Celtic fans think it’s heresy to even mention taking action. And don’t the board just love it, creaming off their payouts, running a football team to finance a business, rather than the other way around, and knowing the whole time they can keep on doing this, and more if they choose, because they know no one will do a thing to stop them. We’ve had enough years and enough proof for them to feel completely safe in this assumption.
I could have written this article as I concur with everything you wrote & said exactly what you also predicted re results. Do we continue to support in Euro games & Yes is the answer. The Europa league is our level at present & last few years but due to non qualification due to bad Champions campaign it’s difficult. We have to believe that having a long term manager onboard should help & hopefully BR will stay as we need consistency. We’re not privy to the terms of BR contract but it doesn’t take a genius to assume he asked for more money for players to compete at a higher level. We keep the faith. HH
We’re just a plc now run to finance the board’s remuneration payout, same as M&S, B&Q , and a thousand other businesses. A club like no other aye right !
I’d love to see/hear this at the AGM, the suits sit in their ivory towers ignoring the people who care the most about this situation.
Where/when will it end? Fck knows, but the Kelly’s, Whites etc thought they were untouchable.
why do the huns never win anything but do well in europe..? they better than celtic now..?
No they’re in a competition that is more suited to both. We’re out of our depth in the Champions League, as are Sevco
The only man I have trusted at board level is fergus unfortunately. Since he left we have been subjected to the same mentality that the Kelly’s and white’s had ignoring the fans doing nothing about the sfa/sfpl .only interested in the cash and the free trips heated seats
The only way is to get Lawwell out of the club for good. As long as he is in the building Celtic FC will never ever progress on the park. Two home games with an empty stadium is can be a start. Give player recruitment back to the manager where it damned well should be. Lawwell you souless sponger.
Need a bhoycot of merchandise and season tickets next year. stop lining their pockets… it will never happen though and can predict the same outcome already next season too. What are they going to do when our coefficient drops so low we need to try and qualify again? I know exactly what they will do. Same as they’ve always done.. Absolutely nothing
I totally agree with this article. FM said we must be seen to compete. It ain’t happening 🍀
110% agree with everything you wrote, we have over 30 in our squad . Bought by who? 11 defenders? 9 midfielders & 9 forwards.
In 2003 we had 19 proven quality players and look what happened.
I don’t doubt the wage bill was high but so was moral.
The following year parasite Pete got the job and look what’s happened.
We produced a few amazing profits in the market and they sacrifice going for real success for the hope of financial gain.
A load of rubbish, we have just got a new manager give him a chance. We never have the money to win in EUROPE.
If this chap is so good, let him put his name down to sit on the Celtic board.
Does he only love the club if it is winning!!
John
Hail Hail
A load of rubbish, we have just got a new manager give him a chance. We never have the money to win in EUROPE.
If this chap is so good, let him put his name down to sit on the Celtic board.
Does he only love the club if it is winning!!
John
Hail Hail Rubbish to your remark!!
no free speak unless you agree wi!!!e
What was wrong with my first comment you didn’t publish?
Stopped watching at half time, as this match has been on repeat for the last 20 years. So have the “we are learning” comments from the players. I am sick of the Board treating the fans like shite on their shoes.
Nothing will change until fans stop paying up.
A shareholder with 34% making all the decisions and key appointments with no financial input. Chairman now owns almost 1% of shares from bonuses, taken out in excess of 16 million since 2004, corporate governance guidance ignored and non Exec directors in place for decades.
Current incumbents worse than the Kelly’s, Grants and McGinn’s.
Too many fans happy with Lawwell and Sons just enough strategy as long as we beat Sevco.
The irony remains that all Celtic Plc employees continue to receive bonus year after year on financial kpi performance and not football results.
The power is in our hands as a collective, however, as the tories divide and rule so do the Board. Empty seats will fix the problem.
I have been saying this for years. Finally gave up my season ticket. Now I find it so painful to watch that I might stop following them on tv.
Brilliant article Eric, I’ve said for years you need to speculate to accumulate, if you buy slightly more expensive players you’ll go further in the tournament, which in turn brings in more money to then be able to buy even better players again etcetera, etcetera. The only way to guarantee success is to keep getting incrementally better each year and I know that not all signings work out but we’ll never know if we don’t take the chance. Since Seville this club has only got to the knockout stages of the Champions League twice, that’s twice in twenty years and that’s not anywhere near good enough. We keep telling the world we’re a big club and we are in stature but as a European outfit we’re shopping in Lidl while the clubs from the big five leagues are shopping in Harrods. When you’ve got a board like ours who are thinking parochially instead of internationally then we’re going nowhere fast, these grey men are happy to take their dividends out of the club every year without a shred of ambition and I’m sick to the back teeth of good managers like Ange and Brendan having to work wonders with their hands tied behind their backs and nothing will change till the supporters force through change, too many of our supporters are happy to see us do better than Ibrox and that’s our bread and butter but if we’re going to enter into any tournament we should be trying to win it or there’s no point turning up and that’s what this board don’t or won’t understand.
Get Desmond out
Fantastic article and as a 65 year old Celtic supporter from Derry who has supported our great club from a young bhoy I wholeheartedly agree with every sencte
Bang on the money Eric,actually thought I had posted that under the influence.
Agree 100% with every single statement.
But I have another major problem with this board to which you did not refer.
They readily accept all the bias,bigotry and cheating resonating from the SPFL without comment.
We literally allow our matches to be “refereed” by not suspect,but actual people who have heavy allegiances to our only rivals.
Nick Walsh:
Teaches the rangers youth team.
Steven McLean:
Brother played with Rangers
John Beaton:
Drinking in his Rangers pub directly after disgracefully refereeing a celtic/rangers match.
Andrew Dallas:
Son of a high office spfl official thrown out of office for bigotry.
David Dickinson:
Facebook profile of him and his hero Ally McCoist and now his PROVEN on live TV,latest idol Clement.
And the list goes on.
OUR BOARD SAY ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
But if Collum(who is under the direct rule of Dallas Snr)gives a throw in the wrong way,the rangers board boot the door in first thing Monday morning instructing the powers that he shall not go near their games again.
Everybody knows that happened.
As long as it goes along unchallenged then it will only get worse.
You are correct Eric,Lawell has got very rich at our expence and as a consequence the team and supporters suffer.
Time to make him and his lackey Nicholson go.
100% correct K2.
Yes absolutely embarrassing yet again against Atletico.We have seen this movie so often you know the result before kickoff.Unfortunately cannot see any change anytime soon.Lawellis certainly a malign influence on the club and and apparently his son scouts the players seems like nepotism to me.I feel I could pick better players myself to be honest.Celtic FC certainly have an amazing loyal fan base but exploit the passion of the fans to line the pockets of a Tory Board.