Celtic could learn a thing or two from Disney FC (Wrexham) when it comes to youth development…and having a forward thinking, progressive CEO
Eric Knott 
(Photo by Kya Banasko/Getty Images)
Over the last few days, I’ve started watching Welcome to Wrexham again.
I had stopped for a while but was kind of interested in watching the latest season, which charts Wrexham’s promotion to the Championship.
As a Celtic fan, there were quite a few things that stood out to me in this particular season.
My overall interest in football is what garners my interest in watching any football docuseries I can.
Simply because my curiousity leads me to want to see how other football clubs operate in comparison to Celtic.
Watching the first few seasons of Welcome to Wrexham, it was hard to make any real comparison.
Wrexham as a club was on a much smaller scale than ours.
However, one thing they have massively in common with our club is how passionate and loyal their support is.
But as they’ve achieved back to back to back promotions under the ownership of Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, their stock and popularity has grown worldwide.
Everybody wants a piece of Wrexham now.
As a result, it is a struggle to get a ticket to go to a game at the Racecourse, and season tickets will no doubt be snapped up for the upcoming campaign in the Championship.
But enough of that.
What intrigued me more about the current season I’m watching is how Reynolds and McElhenney have focused on investing in the club’s infrastructure.
But its not only that, its the people they’ve brought in to do this.
In their League One season, they brought in a new CEO.
As a team in the third tier of English football, Michael Williamson was quite an acquisition.
No jobs for the boys here.
With clubs like DC United, Inter Milan and Inter Miami already on his CV, its clear that Williamson was enticed to Wrexham by it’s Hollywood owners.
And their lofty ambitions.
With a new Kop End with 5,500 seats being one of their main projects.
Once again, small in scale in comparison to our club, but large in ambition given the size of their club nonetheless.
But that’s only part of their investment in the club’s infrastructure.
The people at Wrexham are dreaming big, because they believe that one day soon, they’ll be an EPL club.
Just four short years ago, they were playing in the fifth tier of English football.
Now, they’re one promotion away from the EPL.
But they will find out quickly that the Championship is the toughest league of them all.
You can laugh all you want at them, and call them Disney FC, but there is no doubting the ambition of their owners.
Its also clear that while Reynolds and McElhenney are wealthy, they are not wealthy enough to foot the bill of their lofty ambitions alone.
If you want to become an EPL club, then you have to invest accordingly.
But not only do you need to do that, you also need to find people who are willing to invest.
Reynold’s and McElhenney’s names make that task all the more easier.
Big names will attract wealthy people who want to not only invest, but also want to be associated with said big names.
This is a big part of why Wrexham is growing exponentially, and has done over the last four years.
But its clear this isn’t just a vanity project by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.
They have bought heavily into the community that is Wrexham.
They appreciate their customer base massively, and they don’t make themselves inaccessible to that customer base either.
In other words, they do not see them as limitless numbers who are there to be fleeced for every penny they’ve got.
Sound familiar?
As a result, they’ve built a vibrant community around Wrexham football club in the town of Wrexham.
Here’s a comparison that could be made to Celtic.
From watching Welcome to Wrexham, I believe that if Wrexham had a stadium like ours with 60,000 seats, they would fill it.
Without breaking a sweat.
They are that popular now.
But the reality is that right now, they don’t have a stadium of that size.
They have the oldest stadium in Britain – which requires a lot of work – but you cannot underestimate the ambitions of their owners.
Progressive, risk taking, forward thinking people.
Not afraid to speculate to accumulate.
The episode I watched last night stood out to me in a big way, and its what made me think about Celtic and where our club finds itself right now.
It was completely focused on Wrexham’s youth set up.
But what surprised me even more was the person who had taken it upon themselves to become the driving force behind their youth set up.
Michael Williamson, their CEO.
Joe, James and I have long lamented the condition of the under age set up at our club.
We’ve often discussed how we see no discernible path for a young player starting out in his career at Celtic.
Callum McGregor and Kieran Tierney, are in reality, the last hugely successful players to come off the youth conveyor belt.
Which has long since ground to a halt, if we’re being honest here.
Now, could you imagine Michael Nicholson being the driving force behind our youth setup, and ensuring we provide the best facilities available to them?
Stop trying to laugh.
Yes, we have invested heavily in the new training facility in Barrowfield, but it was slated to be primarily for the Womens team, followed by the youth and academy teams.
In reality, we have provided the facilities for our youth teams, but we have not provided the necessary path for development for these up and coming young players.
Effectively, this is like putting the cart before the horse.
They will still continue to rot in the Lowland League, trying to become first team players in the 5th tier of Scottish football.
Unless they are exceptionally gifted, and stand out amongst the other players grafting in this division, their pathway to success is limited.
And even if they are gifted, the fifth tier of Scottish football is not the place to showcase their skills.
In fact, skillful players would probably struggle to stand out in a league like this.
The reason I have made the comparison to Michael Williamson at Wrexham, is because he believes that the development of their youth teams and their youth players is one of the keys to success at the club.
He also believes in the financial benefits of investing heavily in youth.
Risk and reward, as I’ve said before.
Providing the environment and facilities to nurture and develop youth players means that eventually you will have first team players, for free.
As of now, heading into the Championship, Wrexham have five players in their first team squad who came from their youth academy set up.
Max Cleworth was a regular in their charge for promotion from League One last season.
Four more prospects have joined the first team squad, they are Aaron James, Harry Ashfield, Callum Edwards, and James Rainbird.
When was the last time Celtic had five academy players hovering around the first team, let alone getting game time with them?
Last night, I watched Michael Williamson explain his vision for the Wrexham Youth academy.
They had just purchased a large patch of land to build their new facilities for £2 million.
Williamson even gave a lesson on the path of academy players to first team.
At the core of this was his firm belief that the development of players at the youth academy was firstly a huge cost saving in the long run if they were able to develop first team ready players.
And secondly, he was focused on the idea that they could also make a profit from these players if they moved onto bigger clubs.
He saw the financial benefit of youth academy excellence, and how the club he is CEO of could benefit from it.
And there’s no doubting they are, with 5 academy players already in their first team set up in advance of the new season in the Championship.
It was refreshing to see a forward thinking, ambitious, and driven CEO.
Not content to sit back and enjoy the trappings of his salary, but actually driven to succeed.
In every aspect of the club he is the CEO of.
We can only dream of a CEO like that at Celtic.
Instead, we have a guy who was hand-picked by the chairman, and is afraid to make a decision of any significance without his guidance.
At Wrexham, it was like Reynolds and McElhenney just said to this guy, “Do what you do, and take our club to the EPL.”
And this guy is doing it, with bells on.
I thought to myself, imagine if we had a guy like him at Celtic?
The sky would be the limit.
Last night on the Podcast, we vented our frustrations in relation to the board in a big way.
Myself especially.
Watching people like Michael Williamson in action makes me realise just what we don’t have at Celtic.
And that is a forward thinking, progressive owner, combined with a forward thinking and progressive CEO and board of Directors.
Instead we have a bunch of grey men, in grey suits, who shit their pants at the thoughts of spending anything outside of what the club earns.
They are terrified of taking a risk on anything.
But through not taking risks, unbeknownst to themselves, they risk it all.
They are risking Champions League qualification right now.
Unless we see adequate reinforcements coming in in this transfer window, we risk missing out on the Champions League this coming season.
We risk missing out on £40 million of revenue we cannot access anywhere else.
Contrary to what people are trying to convince you of, the latest raft of signings are NOT stealing a march on the Ibrox side.
Benjamin Nygren is the only outstanding prospect out of them.
Nobody will be hitting the panic button over at Ibrox when they look at our transfer splurge of £2 million thus far.
Laugh all you want at Disney FC.
Call them a plaything for Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.
Call them what you want.
But I can guarantee you thing.
They will be in the EPL before long, maybe not next season, but it won’t be long before they are.
And when they get there?
They will most likely have all of the infrastructure in place to ensure they stay there.
Simply because their owners, their CEO, and their board have ambition.
They want to be the biggest version of themselves they can be.
Celtic is not the biggest version of itself it can be.
It never will be as long as this board is in charge.
We could be so, so much bigger than we are if we had men of vision in the boardroom.
But in their eyes, we’re as big as we’re going to get.
And that’s enough for them.
But it will never, ever, be enough for me.
You can access last night’s podcast via the above link, it got pretty heated at some points!
I can not believe you are comparing Wrexham to Celtic in all things.
Surely you know the development problems that al Scottish clubs have i.e. Clubs from the big five countries simply offer wages we can’t. Is only one of the problems
You can not wait to disparage our club and execs. Why is that? Really. Why
YOU obviously think you know the business better. Believe me you do not
In all things? I am comparing their ambition when it comes to youth development, not much else. And the fact they have an ambitious CEO. A club of our stature should be doing better in this area, simple as, and we’re not. It has nothing to do with wages. Wrexham don’t pay big wages to the players in their academy. They put them on a scholarship and ensure they finish their education as well as developing them as footballers. Its got nothing to do with wages, or a team in the big five countries. They’ve just been promoted from the third tier of English football. They’re not in the EPL, and they’re not paying anyone EPL wages, so I fail to see your point?
Happy clapper alert,Eric………Damn it,too late !!!
Surely an investment of around 3 million a season on youth development would pay long term.
We are in a position cash wise where we could easily pay this investment.
We waste more each transfer window on project signings along with wages, agent fees ect.
This would also help the young kids in many areas of Scotland believe in a brighter future.
The board need to wake up to what Celtic is all about and start investing in the future.
I am talking about wages offered to those graduating from the development team eg
Ben Doak, Rocco Vata, Ben Summers and so on. You are so quick to rubbish the club you claim to support.
Well done to Wrexham for what they are doing. There is no need to use them to rubbish Celtic the club you claim to support.
I’m not rubbishing the club I support Weebarra, I’m rubbishing the people in our hierarchy who refuse to move with the times. Your point makes no sense, Ben Doak, Rocco Vata and Ben Summers left the club because they saw no pathway to the first team. They weren’t necessarily offered huge wages by the teams they went to in England, but they were better than the paltry sums they were offered by Celtic. Daniel Cummings and his family were insulted by what he was offered by Celtic. Don’t tell me with what we have sitting in the bank we couldn’t reward these guys properly for working so hard to get to the first team? In fact, its a proven fact that we’re paying millions to HMRC that we could be using to invest in youth. If a kid comes to Celtic and works hard to break through, do you then think its fair that he is offered a derisory wage in return for what he’s done? Why wouldn’t these players then choose to go down south, even if the wages aren’t massive? Its still better than what Celtic is insulting them with.
Well I guess that is it then. Cummings was insulted by what the club offered.
In deed.
This is how it goes with the anti Board mob. We should just give the wage he wants if it will keep him at Celtic and if the other club wanted 1 more million for the player why not give it.
We did give Norwich what they wanted for Idah but the same folks are irate now because they think they now paid too much. A club is not run that way by just giving what the other guy wants.
As for a Pathway ( relatively new term ) for players moving on from the developmental part of the game I would suggest that is a problem for most clubs in Scotland but Celtic do try to work with the younger guys to keep them on track through loans etc. Not Celtics fault there is no decent leagues to continue player development. Maybe you could enlighten us as to what a decent pathway would look like.
Cheers Eric
Not playing in the Lowland league and instead allowing the young players to go out on loan to clubs in the Scottish Championship or League one, where they can develop in a professional environment and not an amateur one. And if you love the board WeeBarra, you’re entitled to that opinion. I don’t, they’ve stagnated and run out of ideas to take the club forward. Most clubs change their CEOs and chairmen every 5 years or so. We’ve been dealing with the same hierarchy since the turn of the century. Its stale and old now, and its time for change.
What ambition has the board shown the last 20 odd years?? How many titles did we win then sell our best players from under the managers feet. We paid the price we did for idah because we fucked about too long and allowed Norwich to hold us to ransom. The manager should get a budget and it should be up to him to deliver success through signings.
How many trophies have Celtic won in the last 20 odd years Antony ? is that successful or not.
Whether we like it or not Celtic is a selling club. We do sell some of our better players it is all part of the plan. Why would you let a player run out his contract and then leave for free. Now that would be a culpable Board would it not.
Re: Idah since Celtic do not tell anyone their business or transfer plans how would you know they feked about and then had to pay more for him.
Were Celtic talking with other clubs or Agents about alternatives to Idah ?
all of which would be time consuming and leading to a delay in signing the big man? We do not know but fek it lay it on the board anyway.