Are Celtic are the best run football club in Britain? Let’s put that theory to the test…do you really believe the board wouldn’t sell Kyogo, Hatate or CCV if the right offer came in?

Well, it looks like my article yesterday caused a bit of a stir. The comments on my article, both on the RC Facebook page, and the site itself, turned into a stand off between board apologists, and Celtic fans who want to see change.

This is coming in the midst of all the transfer speculation involving our top players.

Its becoming apparent that Manchester City’s interest in Kyogo Furuhashi is more than, let’s say, just a passing interest.

When Fabrizio Romano starts commenting on rumours, you know there’s more substance to them than meets the eye.

Apparently, we’ve also turned down three offers for Cameron Carter Vickers from Atalanta.

And you can add to that Leicester City’s interest in Reo Hatate.

For me, I think a lot of the interest coming from south of the border has stemmed from our successful pre-season.

Its clear that’s what has piqued City’s interest in Kyogo.

CCV aside, all interest in our players is coming from south of the border.

But there’s no doubt the EPL vultures are circling, it just depends on whether the Celtic board is going to allow them to feed on our carcass.

Yesterday’s article focused on the news that Celtic were voted Britain’s best run club.

The list of clubs in this category was compiled by a company called the Fair Game Index.

The fact that the Ibrox club ranked 13th (unlucky for them) overall, kind of sets how seriously you’d take The Fair Game Index’s results.

In yesterday’s article, I stated that if we were the best run club in Britain, then maybe we should start acting like it?

The board apologists proceeded to ram it down my throat that I was negative, and always lashing out at the board.

What more proof did I need that not only are we the best run club in Britain, but that we have the best board as well?

Needless to say, the realists amongst my readership didn’t see it that way.

They saw things exactly from my perspective.

And I make no apologies for my perspective.

I tell it like it is.

I’m not interested in sugar coating things, or making them look better than they are.

Especially when they’re not.

For some Celtic fans out there, the truth hurts.

Many of them do not want to acknowledge the truth, the real truth behind how our club is run.

They prefer to turn a blind eye, and feast on puff pieces like yesterday’s, regarding how well run our club is.

So today, I’ve decided to debunk the theory that we’re the best run club in Britain.

On the outside, there’s no doubting Celtic looks like and appears to be a well oiled machine.

But when you actually look under the hood, well, that presents an entirely different story.

Celtic, financially, is very strong.

There’s no denying this.

But in order to fully understand why we are financially strong, you do not have to look very far.

Celtic has one of the best, if not THE best, fanbases in world football.

Any club would kill to have a fanbase like we do.

Because a fanbase like that, if tapped into correctly, has limitless potential.

You don’t need a huge marketing strategy, or a team of marketing strategists, to get the maximum out of a fanbase like ours.

Are the club getting the maximum out the fanbase?

Absolutely.

Year on year, revenues continue to increase.

But are the club re-inventing the marketing wheel year on year to ensure this happens?

No, they’re not.

Securing Adidas as our kit manufacturer was huge for Celtic.

It is one of the top, if not the top, brands in world football.

Market three decent Adidas kits a year, along with a couple of “commemorative” or “concept” kits, and you’re onto a winner.

None of this is rocket science, but it guarantees, regardless of the cost to the fans, huge financial rewards for the club.

It does not take a genius marketing team to achieve this.

Then add your season ticket sales to that.

Add what seems to be a modest incremental increase every year, and then naturally, you see your annual revenues increase.

This isn’t a strategy per se, its common sense.

And it isn’t hard.

These two factors are key to the huge revenues Celtic can generate every year.

But make no mistake, it is all driven by the fanbase.

We are the lifeblood of the club.

And the board sucks every last drop out of it.

This board that has been in place now for the best part of quarter of a century.

The best run club’s in Britain do not have CEO’s in place for much longer than 3 to 5 years max.

This allows for fresh new ideas, innovation, and above all else, regular strategic changes.

We had a CEO in place for 18 years before he stepped down in 2021 after the debacle that was the Covid season.

He then re-appointed himself as Chairman when Ian Bankier stepped down in January 2023.

As CEO, his strategy rarely changed, it resulted in continuous downsizing, with no apparent strategy at all.

In the interim while he was gone, the club parted ways with his replacement, Dominic McKay, after a few short months in the role.

McKay’s fresh ideas, forward thinking, and attempts to put an actual strategy in place, seemed to be his downfall.

This seemed to frighten the rest of the board, who were mired in the old CEO’s way of doing things.

An unwillingness to adapt by the board, or a loss of faith in the chances of anything changing, resulted in the early departure of Dominic McKay.

The club performed a HUGE search and recruitment drive for the ideal candidate to replace McKay, but alas, that search failed miserably.

This left the board with no choice but to promote from within.

Michael Nicholson, then Director of Legal and Football Affairs, was promoted to the role of CEO.

Not long after, Mark Lawwell, the ex-CEO’s son, was appointed head of scouting and player recruitment.

Which was then swiftly followed with the announcement his father would be returning to the club.

In the role of “non-executive” Chairman.

Now if you feel Britain’s best run club does not engage in cronyism or nepotism, feel free to counter my argument that it does.

The current board, which has been in place for almost quarter of a century, does not seem to have any apparent strategy.

It does not seem to operate the traditional KPI system that any big corporate entity does.

If it does, very few people are privy to it, and those who might be, are strictly those who benefit from it.

In other words, the shareholders.

Now, unfortunately for us fans, Celtic is a PLC, and as a result, the board are not answerable to us in any way, shape or form.

They are only answerable to the shareholders.

Which in effect means, they can do what they like, without any repercussions.

The extent of their duty to us is to ensure that they don’t push things to a level where they piss us off, and we start to walk away.

They continually test these levels to the limit.

In fact, they are doing this right now, by the way they are acting in this transfer window.

But they know it would take an awful lot for us to walk away from the club due to our love for it.

They prey on this love, and take advantage of it all the time.

The current transfer window is testing the resolve of all of us right now.

Its causing us a lot of unnecessary anxiety.

So let’s look at the player recruitment strategy at the club, or lack thereof.

The best run club in Britain operates on a very simple player trading model.

Buy ’em cheap, sell ’em for megabucks.

There is not strategy in evidence outside of this strategy.

We do not have a head of recruitment.

We do not have an extensive player scouting network.

This comprises a head scout, and six other scouts.

As of now, Brendan Rodgers works with his head of scouting, Jay Lefevre.

Below is their scouting team:

Michael Nicholson and Chris McKay have been tasked with securing deals for the players the scouting team have identified.

To date, they have managed to secure the signings of two players who were on our books already, Adam Idah, and Paulo Bernardo.

Outside of that, Brendan Rodgers made a phone call to Kaspar Schmeichel, and convinced him Celtic was the club for him.

Five months previously, Joe Hart had announced his retirement.

I’m not sure who identified Viljami Sinisalo as an understudy to Schmeichel, but I sincerely doubt it took much convincing to get him to move to a club of Celtic’s stature.

To date, this is the extent of the best run club in Britain’s recruitment in this transfer window.

Just when our squad is beginning to look strong again, our board has begun the process of disassembling it.

Since this window opened, the following players have departed the club:

Oh Hyeon-Gyu, Sead Haksabanovic, Benjamin Siegrist, Joe Hart, Bosun Lawal, Rocco Vata, Daniel Kelly, and Hyeok-kyu-Kwan.

It looks like Matt O’Riley’s departure to Brighton is imminent, thus weakening further an already threadbare squad.

As stated earlier, there is rising interest in Kyogo, Reo Hatate, and CCV.

If the right offers came in, especially a huge one from City for Kyogo, can you see them being turned down?

More to the point, could you see these players being adequately replaced if they did depart?

In nine days?

Would we be subjected to the usual sob stories on how hard it is to deal in the transfer market?

We tried really hard, but we just couldn’t get the required deals over the line?

Michael Nicholson is paid around £750k a year.

You get paid that kind of money to be able to deal with things that are perceived as hard.

That’s the whole point of earning a salary of that size.

To say that your job is hard is just not acceptable on that kind of salary.

Yet its accepted and it isn’t questioned at Celtic.

Cronyism, by definition is the appointment of friends and associates to positions of authority, without proper regard to their qualifications.

Could you honestly say that isn’t something that happens at Celtic?

And when you are friends and associates, in a group that is only answerable to shareholders, who’s going to hold you to account when things don’t go according to plan?

Especially when there’s no real plan at all?

All of the shareholders are happy, and as stated before, the board is only accountable to them.

So, when the likes of Brighton and Hove Albion come in with a Scottish transfer record breaking offer for Matt O’Riley, who’s going to be sad when he goes, and who’s going to be happy?

And if Man City come in with another huge offer for Kyogo, who’s going to be happy, and who’s going to be sad?

Of course, we the fans, are going to be gutted.

Frustrated beyond belief that our top players are being sold out from under us.

But the board, and the shareholders will be over the moon, delighted.

And there’s not a thing we can do about it.

Do you think that the board could care less about our feelings in all of this?

They don’t care because they don’t have to care, and they do not have to answer to us.

That’s the harsh reality here.

They are set in their ways, and if you believe that’s going to change any time soon, think again.

If this board wanted to change, the transfer model would change.

We would change from being solely a selling club.

A Director of football would be installed, a simple requisite for a well run club.

A head of recruitment, who is not a family member, would be installed.

An extensive, worldwide scouting network would be formed.

We would stop buying players valued at £3 million, and start regularly buying players valued at a minimum of £6 million.

Did you know that statistically a player purchased for £3 million has a 16% chance of going on to be a successful footballer, and incrementally increasing his value in the process?

Whereas with a player valued at £6 million, he has an 89% chance of going on to be a major success?

Investing in a player valued at £3 million might get you a £25 million transfer for down the line if he falls into the 16 percentile.

But investing in a player who costs £6 million and developing him further, just like Brendan Rodgers, an elite manager can, could give you a player valued between £30 million and £40 million, if he falls into the huge 89 percentile?

Wouldn’t you think that the best run club in Britain would focus in on these kinds of statistics?

Especially when the club has the finances to make these kinds of investments?

Wouldn’t you think they’d have people employed to focus on these statistics?

Instead, we have someone on £750k a year, who could conceivably tell us that its just too hard to get players like that?

An extremely well run club would communicate openly with it’s fans, informing them of it’s plans and strategies.

Instead, we have a CEO who won’t meet with fans or fan media because he knows he will get an absolute pasting if he did.

And even if he did, there is no discernible plan or strategy that he could speak of, so that’s why he doesn’t.

£750k a year just isn’t worth that kind of hassle.

So instead, he feels silence is the best option.

And when he does make an appearance, on the one occasion that he has to, the yearly AGM, he thinks its a good idea to break the ice by cracking a crass joke about our main rivals?

Am I starting to hit home yet?

Does this look like the best run club in Britain to you?

A club mired in cronyism, and nepotism, with a board that couldn’t care less about its fanbase, simply because it doesn’t have to answer to them.

In fact, its becoming clearer and clearer it doesn’t care about it’s footballing operation either.

And as a result, losing complete sight of what the club exists for.

Football.

We are a football club.

We have even resorted now to asset stripping our youth team.

Evidenced by the fact we are continuously selling all of our youth prospects.

Daniel Kelly, Bosun Lawal, and Rocco Vata, all gone to Championship clubs in England.

Simply because we’re not willing to pay them what they feel they’re worth?

Meanwhile, the millions continue to roll in.

But what does that matter?

The shareholders are happy and that’s all that counts, isn’t it?

If you’ve got to this point in my article, believe me, I understand your frustration now.

Being told we’re the best run club in Britain might now seem like an insult to your intelligence.

So finally, you ask, what the hell can we, the fans, do about it?

I hate to be the harbinger of doom, but there’s nothing you can do.

Mass walkouts, boycotting of season tickets and merchandise?

It won’t happen.

If you give up your season ticket, somebody else on the seven year waiting list will take it.

If you stop buying jerseys, there are plenty of others out there who’ll happily pay stupid money when you won’t.

The kind of fans who are not invested in the club to the extent you are.

Who don’t understand the machinations of the club, and don’t want to either.

The board knows this, that’s why its a waste of time.

The only people who can force change are the shareholders.

And why would they want to?

The board are giving them exactly what they want.

And you’re paying for it.

Its a vicious, frustrating circle, and I wish I could give you a solution.

But I can’t, because like you, I’m powerless.

And believe me, that is soul destroying.

Especially when I love Celtic as much as I do.

All I can do is keep you informed.

In the hopes that some day the masses will wake up.

Until then, I live in hope that somebody will step into our boardroom and change the way we do things.

Dom McKay tried, and failed.

Is there someone out there, with the fortitude, the will, and the staying power to enact change at Celtic?

I really wish there was.

But guess what?

We’re the best run club in Britain.

That’s got to count for something, doesn’t it?

You know the answer.

I’ve just proved to you its a fallacy.

It counts for nothing.