The warnings about gambling in the transfer window keep raining down on the Celtic board – will they heed a single one of them? Don’t bet on it

The warnings are raining down now.

One after another.

Like chips stacking up on a roulette table.

And the Celtic board are sitting there, eyes shut, fingers in their ears, ready to spin the wheel again.

All in on red.

Or rather, all in on £3 million, with permission to go to £3.5 million if the absent golfer in Barbados sends the email back in time.

The latest voice to join the chorus is Johan Mjallby.

A man who actually played for this club, who actually knows what it’s about, telling the people running it the most obvious thing in the world.

Get Martin O’Neill his players, or watch history repeat itself.

Here’s what Big Johan told the Sunday Post, courtesy of Mark Pirie in the Daily Record:

There are tens and tens of millions of pounds riding on that game and Celtic don’t want to miss out again.

Don’t want to miss out again.

Again.

That little word is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting there, isn’t it?

Because we’ve been here before.

We were here last August.

We sat through two goalless legs against Kairat Almaty of the Kazakh Premier League, light up front, short in midfield, a squad held together with sticky tape and good intentions.

Brendan Rodgers asked.

Brendan Rodgers got Kairat Almaty, from Kazakhstan, in his Champions League away day calendar.

A £40 million gamble.

Lost before a ball was kicked in anger.

Forty million pounds. Spent before a ball is even kicked.

Let that figure sink in.

£40 million.

That’s what the 2024/25 Champions League campaign brought into this club.

That’s Bayern Munich at Celtic Park.

And correctly, that’s the stage Mjallby correctly says we have to be on.

And we’d be back on it this summer, with the right preparation.

Do you think this board is capable of that??

Do you, honestly??

Here we are, 57 days from the qualifier on the 18th of August, and not a single meaningful signing done.

It’s the biggest single bet this club makes every single year.

And every single year, the same two croupiers are sat at the table.

Silent Mike and Chris McKay.

Master negotiators.

World class operators for a world class football club.

Aren’t we just blessed?

Remember those two from my article this morning?

The one where I told you that lowballing season was officially open?

The one where Zinedin Smajlovic’s club at Sandefjord ‘turfed out’ our £3.5 million bid before the ink was even dry?

Of course you do.

It was only a few hours ago.

And here’s the thing about gamblers who never, ever learn.

They can’t listen to the warnings.

Listening would mean admitting they’ve been wrong.

For years.

That’s never happening.

Two magic numbers, and a board that thinks the house never wins.

We’ve covered the two magic numbers before.

£3 million to buy a player.

£25 million to sell a top asset.

That’s the entire strategy.

That’s the whole roulette system scrawled on the back of a beermat in the Barbados sunshine.

Lowball everyone, refuse to meet a single asking price, and then act stunned when the bids get ‘turfed out’ one after another.

Strangely enough, this never seems to work.

But they keep doing it.

Because admitting the system is broken would mean someone in that boardroom actually taking responsibility.

And we all know that’s never happening.

Meanwhile, the warnings keep coming.

Mjallby this week.

Rodgers last summer, openly, after the Kairat humiliation, before he was quietly ushered out the door, and then loudly stabbed in the back.

The Fans Collective only last week, begging for professionalism, ambition and urgency.

Every one of them telling the board the same thing in the same plain language.

Get.

The.

Business.

Done.

And every one of them ignored.

Because that’s what this board does.

It ignores everybody.

So will they heed any of it?

Make no mistake.

You already know the answer to that one.

Of course they won’t.

They didn’t heed it when Jakob Breum laughed in our faces last summer.

They didn’t heed it when the Go Ahead Eagles chairman told the world the Ibrox side were more professional to deal with than we were.

That one still stings, doesn’t it?

They didn’t heed Rodgers, and he was the f*****g manager.

So forgive me if I don’t expect them to suddenly start heeding an ex-player like Johann Mjalby.

The warnings will keep raining down all summer.

Does anybody seriously think that changes anything??

Not a single thing.

And the board will keep doing exactly what they always do.

They’ll ‘keep tabs on’, they’ll ‘monitor the situation’, they’ll ‘prepare to make an offer’.

And then, somewhere around the final day of the window, they’ll go all in on a 38-year-old free agent and a loan deal with an option to buy.

Snake eyes.

Every single time.

Here’s the cold truth of it.

The house always wins.

At Celtic, the board is the house.

The board is the punter.

The board is the croupier.

And it’s us, the supporters, who end up losing the chips.

Forty million of them, most likely, come the end of August.

Mark my words.

Set zero expectations, and you won’t be disappointed.

Anything after that is a bonus…

It was ever thus.

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