The news of the forthcoming change in CEO at Celtic Football Club was most welcome today. Lawwell’s resignation and Dominic McKay’s arrival heralds a new era, which is much needed at this stage. We’ve enjoyed four cracking seasons domestically, winning the quadruple treble. But that is balanced by four Champions League qualifications in the last nine years and not a single European knockout tie being won since 2004. It’s time to kick on in Europe and show ambition to build a Champions League qualifying, third place group, late stages of Europa League team.
Much has been made of Peter Lawwell’s tenure off the pitch in terms of Resolution 12, the five way agreement and the handling of things during the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act. On the other hand, he should be praised for supporting fans by pursuing and succeeding in opening the safe standing section at Celtic Park, along with improving facilities at the stadium. The state of the art Lennoxtown Training Centre was also built during Lawwell’s time at the club. His financial management of Celtic was sound, though there are varying views on his entrepreneurial abilities when it comes to brokering commercial deals. The majority feel that he was excellent in this regard, whilst others suggest that he didn’t come up with anything unexpected or extraordinary to merit his standing as one of the best CEO’s in Britain. Some supporters also felt that his balancing the books largely relied on selling top players such as Wanyama, Forster, Van Dijk, Dembele and Tierney at the expense of qualifying for the Champions League and improving the team.
Those are off field matters, best suited to another article as I am no expert in those areas and simply aim to focus on the future direction of the club. We have just won nine league titles in a row. There was possibly only one title challenge in that run in truth as Rangers had a ten point deduction during the first season, before being liquidated, and Aberdeen were our closest challengers for the next six seasons. The reformed Rangers eventually finished a distant second in 2018/19, but have since overtaken us just two seasons later. We had a free hit at Champions League qualification in each of the nine in a row seasons, but only made the group stages on four occasions (reaching the last 16 once). In that sense, I would argue that the real on field success during the last decade has been the incredible run of four consecutive trebles (including an Invincible treble). It should also be noted that Peter Lawwell can’t be blamed for having no title competitor as we could only beat what was in front of us. Aside from that, Celtic have won 29 trophies since Peter Lawwell took over as CEO in late 2003 – 13 league titles, nine Scottish Cups and seven League Cups. That’s a very good record, winning 54% of all available domestic trophies during his time at the top.
The time for change has come now though, in my opinion. After having one man in the role for over 17 years, it will be good to freshen things up and bring new ideas to Celtic. Fans have been unhappy at the lack of communication from the club, the handling of season ticket refunds, and the fact that we have allowed Rangers to overtake us to such an extent that the quest for 10 in a row is all but over in January. The Ibrox club started in the lower divisions in 2012 and have managed to get 23 points ahead of us in the SPFL, which is extremely disappointing. All of this, combined with the refusal to replace the Manager after the worst string of results in over two decades (though there may have been mitigating circumstances given Lawwell’s resignation), protests outside Celtic Park in recent months, the Dubai debacle and overall disconnect between the club and supporters means that now is a good time for change.
In Dominic McKay, we have a new CEO arriving with a background in communications and marketing. As such, I feel encouraged that he is the right man to repair the relationship between supporters and the club by improving engagement with fans. In addition to this, COVID-19 has changed the dynamic of football in the sense that clubs have been offering PPV streams, whilst Celtic have provided a virtual pass to season book holders. It has been suggested that football may go down the route of clubs having their own TV rights in the future. I have been thinking for some time that Celtic could build on this experience, improve the Celtic TV service and add programmes to the channel, with a view to potentially selling our own exclusive rights to matches (as we already do to fans outside of the UK & Ireland) when Scottish football’s Sky TV deal expires. That’s just a thought from myself, hoping that we could utilise the size of our fan base to bring in more revenue and start closing the gap on smaller sized clubs who are fortunate to be in leagues with mega TV deals. What excites me is the fact that McKay is an expert in this area and could come up with bigger, better and more viable marketing ideas.
Dominic McKay has a record of producing some innovative and ambitious projects. He brought the PRO14 Rugby Finals to Celtic Park in 2019 and reportedly facilitated our spell at Murrayfield in 2014 when Paradise was being used for the Commonwealth Games. Similarly, he put on a fully sold out (65,442) exhibition when he brought the Liverpool v Napoli friendly to Edinburgh two years ago.
I am told that the match day experience at Murrayfield has been really enhanced for rugby supporters thanks to McKay, who looks at ways to create events and improve things for fans. He has also worked in a sport where alcohol is permitted at Scottish stadia, which many football fans would like to see re-introduced to our game, and was able to hold a rugby fixture with fans present during the COVID-19 pandemic. Having been in charge of government relations, McKay’s arrival bodes well for the many Celtic fans longing to return to the stands as soon as possible.
With all that said about his off field credentials, the area that I, like every Celtic fan, am most interested in is the football side of things. I would love to see this new era bring a fresh ambitious approach. There will be major changes in the playing staff and hopefully in the management too. Personally, I would like to see a shrewd Director of Football appointed, with a young and exciting Head Coach alongside him. Dermot Desmond’s son has joined the board and it appears structural change to modernise the club could be afoot. We appear to have Ben Davies arriving from Preston in the summer, who comes with a good reputation, though I confess that I have never seen him play. Hopefully many more promising players join us and we get our business done in good time to prepare for the European qualifiers.
Always worth another look, Celtic's display in Amsterdam in the summer of 2001 was one of the best away performances in recent decades. O'Neill's team is the yardstick we should seek to match today. pic.twitter.com/1AblXDgY9A
— Lisbon Lion (@tirnaog_09) January 30, 2021
This nine in a row period (which we hoped would conclude with ten) is coming to an end, and with that I feel we need to refocus our ambitions to put this club back on the stage where it belongs. Celtic is a huge club. Domestic success is great, but shouldn’t be the limit of our aims. Champions League qualification should be a priority and our aspiration must be to participate in the competition regularly. The resultant prize money of speculating to reach the groups pays dividends and can be re-invested. In my opinion, we should strive to build a team which seeks to finish third in the group stage and then pushes to reach the latter stages of the Europa League. Even if we don’t qualify for the premier competition, our intentions should still be to go deep into the Europa League. We had the opportunity to do just that last season, when, after an excellent performance in a tough group, we were paired with FC Copenhagen. Those are the type of ties that we should be progressing from, but just like each year since 2004, we failed to do so. It won’t go to plan every time, but that is an area that must be improved upon. In Dominic McKay, we may have the man to bring about those improvements, as part of his role with the SRU was to oversee the development of Scotland’s two premier rugby clubs, Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh Rugby, in a European context.
Let’s hope that this hierarchical change brings about a new and exciting future for the club, allowing us to maximise our potential. I wish Dominic McKay all the best in the role and look forward to his arrival.
