When theRangers accounts were released announcing over £23m of annual losses, you probably received the same sort of messages I did. Many of them no doubt mentioning impending doom for the Ibrox club, jelly and ice cream to be added to the weekly shopping list and joyous celebrations when the inevitable happens.
This time around, if it does happen, I don’t see the cause for celebration. Instead, I see our own club, by way of our own custodians and their own narrow and parochial vision, likely to do what they always do and manoeuvre themselves to protect an Old Firm brand they pretend to distance themselves from.
Meanwhile the SPFL and SFA, who witnessed every set of accounts published since the new club was formed, now reach £104m of losses in total haven’t raised a finger to protect the Scottish game and the Scottish clubs they are there to safeguard.
Indeed, the only thing different this time around is even in a liquidation event, the club operating out of Ibrox in whatever guise a Third Rangers returns, and it will because that is where the will lies in the corridors of power and even within our own boardroom, will this time avoid what our own board members prefer to refer to as demotion.
READ THIS…The Celtic Family at War – “A dimwit snider every bit as duplicitous as those he seeks to criticise,” David Low attacks Auldheid
Instead, the worst that will happen is a new club forms they have a 15-point deduction, their debts disappear and they start again, and in the top flight no less.
For Scottish football this should be a collective embarrassment even at the thought of this being allowed to happen. You’d think the ruinous impact on our reputation outside our wee back yard would be enough but you’d be wrong. You’d think the impact on sponsorship, inward investment or a light shone on our footballing backwater from UEFA might stir some into action but none of that will matter, it should, my God it should, but it won’t.
And all of this comes in a week where The Celtic Trust appear to have been engulfed at best by infighting and at worst by infiltration. At a time where our own board needs to be held to account for sitting on their hands and viewing another chapter in a rigged game unfold, The Celtic Trust can’t decide if they are The People Front of Judea or the Judean People’s Front. Indeed, if the dog dropped one on the carpet they couldn’t agree on the colour of the deposit. As a friend said to me the other day “The Celtic Support have no leaders and the board know this.”
How else do you explain an organisation that drove forward with calls for new membership and in turn new ideas, deciding to ignore a democratically decided upon and fully supported by the required number of shareholders, resolution, and in turn their board deciding to strive forward with their own version, ignoring the new members ideas they courted and they themselves had agreed on? The irony of that from such a Board who proport to challenge our own PLC’s board’s duplicitousness.
There are questions to be answered by The Celtic Trust in the way they have gone about their business in recent weeks and even the deflection of a former chairman to try and undermine a very vocal member of the Trust with a late-night tweet was unbecoming of someone of his stature and smacked of attempts to hastily discredit rather than bring warring factions together.
Today the Green Brigade highlighted the disgust felt by many towards the rumoured appointment of Bernard Higgins with their tennis balls protest just as the game at Dens Park kicked off. It will no doubt be splashed all over the papers tomorrow along with the disrespectful failure to observe the Remembrance Day minutes silence. One protest will actually get in the way of the desired effect of the other.
Yet the attempts to silence members wishes seems to be prevalent at the Celtic Trust, the reasoning behind such a stance leave those leading that organisation open to all sorts of accusations. That in itself is worrying, but in a time when Celtic as a club have an out of touch board making bizarre decisions, or indeed dragging their heels on others, the Celtic support are lacking in cohesion and leadership. In the meantime, our board must be laughing at the ease with which they can go about their business unchallenged.
Niall J
Spot on with most of this article yet the headline about ‘rembrance day embarrassment’ isn’t really reflected in the article. If people don’t want to respect the minutes silence that’s their view. No Celtic fan or site should try and speak for the masses. Most Celtic fans despise the British army. Headline does not reflect the articles point of view. Weird
Most Celtic Fans I would imagine were embarrassed by the remembrance day embarrassment yesterday and that usually is the case. It also affected the impact for the second protest. Plenty of Celtic families and many Celtic players fought in the World Wars and may lost their lives, as we have continually featured on here before.
If the majority at the game agreed with what you said then presumably they too would have broken the silence. It sounded like a very small minority of the 4000 fans lucky enough to get tickets (that in itself is a privilege that should be reconsidered).