Celtic better watch out, billionaire incoming at Ibrox

This morning, the Daily Record has told us that Andrew Cavenagh’s company is up for sale in a deal worth £4.5BILLION.

Apparently, ParetoHealth, the American health insurance outfit he co-founded, is being shopped around with JP Morgan helping out on the banking side.

If the sale goes through, the Ibrox chairman could end up a billionaire.

Now, you know what that means.

The Ibrox fans will lose the run of themselves.

I can see it already.

Follow Follow will be in meltdown by lunchtime, and every one of them will be witter, witter, wittering on about how they’ve got a billionaire at their club too now.

Remember what happened the last time they had a billionaire with wealth off the radar?

I’m not going to spell it out, because I don’t have to.

Anybody with a memory longer than a goldfish’s knows exactly how that story played out.

The money was always just around the corner, and the money was always going to change everything.

And then it didn’t.

Of course, we’re already being regaled with how a sale will benefit the Ibrox side, and how all that lovely cash is going to come flooding through the front door – just you wait.

But will it really?

A man selling a company and a man writing cheques to a football club are two very different things.

Maybe he’ll pour it all in.

Then again, maybe he’ll decide that there are a lot of other ways to spend a few billion dollars, and none of them involve Scottish football.

I’m not claiming to know which way it goes, and neither does anybody who is currently writing about it.

The Record dug out the ‘molecular level’ spiel once again, just for good measure.

You’ll remember it, because it gets trotted out every time Cavenagh’s name appears in a headline.

Here is the bit they pulled out again, as reported by the Daily Record:

This club gets into you at the molecular level. And, once it’s done, you’re done. It’s happened to me and a bunch of us.

I’ll give him this, it’s a good line.

It’s the sort of thing that makes a certain type of supporter go weak at the knees.

And let’s be fair, he has backed it up with a few quid.

But a line is a line, and the sale of a company is a sale of a company.

Neither of them wins you a league title on a wet Wednesday night in Paisley.

The irony is that Celtic fans are dying to get rid of the billionaire at our club, while the Ibrox support are gagging for one at theirs

Think about that for a second.

We have a man who has been in the background at Celtic for the best part of 30 years, and has the means to change this club at the drop of a hat.

Do we want him?

Do we hell.

Because Dermot Desmond has the money, and he has never once shown that he is willing to use it for the good of the football team.

We sit here watching the books being balanced, the net transfer profit being posted and the squad being stripped for parts, while the absent meddling golfer plays another round.

Meanwhile, over at Ibrox, they’re getting excited about a man who might become rich enough to buy half of Glasgow.

The grass is always greener, isn’t it?

Except in this case, one of them is actively praying for what the other one is desperate to be rid of.

One thing we can’t argue about is Cavenagh’s willingness to spend money at Ibrox

I’ll say it plainly, because it’s the truth.

Cavenagh broke the Scottish transfer spend record last summer.

He didn’t dither, he didn’t hide behind the word ‘prudence’, and he didn’t issue a statement at midnight telling the fans to be grateful.

He spent the money.

Whether he spent it well is a different debate, and one for the Ibrox fans to have on their own forums.

But when it comes to willingness, nobody can say it was missing.

And the same certainly can’t be said for Desmond.

Our man has to be dragged kicking and screaming to the cash machine, and even then we’re lucky if the PIN works.

If they win the league this season, does anybody think he won’t do it again to ensure Champions League football?

Because I don’t.

Think about what a Champions League place means to a man who has just sold a multibillion pound company.

It means prestige, it means the money coming in, and it means a very big stage to stand on.

He knows it, and the Ibrox side know it.

So if they get to the top of the table this season, I’d expect the chequebook to be flung wide open all over again.

Now, there’s a long way to go, and Celtic are the champions for a reason.

I’m a realist, and I’m not about to say the sky is falling.

But we’ve watched what the board has done with our own Champions League qualification, and it hasn’t been pretty.

We’ve watched them take away the firepower and then act surprised when it fails.

Now imagine facing a team that has a billionaire in the boardroom, and a mission to spend whatever it takes to get there.

Meanwhile, we’ll be waiting on a statement about tennis balls.

An ominous thought…

BETTER WATCH OUT, CELTIC!

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