Dermot Desmond

There is absolutely nothing about pointing out that the consistent demise of our club coupled with the response, "ain't * I can do about it" from a bloke taking a salary that probably matches our highest earning players, that requires any expertise.

There is though, something extremely pig-headed about refusing to recognise this.

In the most simple terms possible - if there is nothing Lawwell can do to improve our current situation (which is what was insinuated), then he should go. You know fine well that same standard would apply to ANY Chief Executive in the country.

 

If people aren't buying season tickets(we've lost 13,000 season ticket holders in the last 10 years) what leads you to think they would pay for membership or a share issue? simply isn't happening because * wouldnt be interested.

And it doesn't matter if we're not competing with England, English teams are competing with us for signings or signing our best players, the growth of money in the English League has dwarfed us to were now wee * mobs like Sheffield Wednesday, Middlesbrough, QPR, Derby and Cardiff can pay bigger fee's than us.

 

I am not the business type just a mechanic but what I don't understand is how can the board be happy when us fans are so disillusioned with the quality of football on offer that we are lucky if the stadium is half full .
Ok a lot of season ticket holders are not showing up but there are fewer and fewer fans getting tickets for individual games so the drop in revenue through ticket sales and merchandising must be substantial?
Sponsors don't want to see half empty stadiums so I would imagine we are not in a strong bargaining position for sponsorship deals ?
What do we hear from the board absolutely nothing as usual so to me we are all being taken for mugs again as the club is happy to take our hard earned cash but treat us like * .

 

* spot on once again.

Its not even logical this Lawwellism, it defeats the purpose of him being Managing Director.

 

But we are currently only in such a "good" situation due to how Lawwell has conducted his business in the last 10 years, we are at a brick wall now there is no way forward, we have maximised all revenue streams we can and are now stuck, share issue and membership is pie in the sky talk considering 25% of our season ticket holders have disappeared.

It's hard to get a good team on the park due to: 1. The Small budget meaning we need luck to get good players and 2. That once we get good players they don't stay for long as the standard of the League is utter * so even when we do get good players we maybe have them for 2 years or 3 if we're lucky then we're back to square 1 meanwhile over the 2/3 years that said good player was here it has now got even more difficult to get good players because so many teams have got much richer than us again that we've been pushed even further out the picture.

 

The bolded is literally all that needs to be asked, at least initially.

So the EPL is taking over, what are we going to do about it to at least protect ourselves?

Well, more and more kids are growing up that frankly could not give a flying * about Scottish football or Celtic. We are more often than not, their 'diddy' team. You wan't to maintain what is an extremely strong asset of ours currently (our supporter base) then you do something about it, because I can assure folk that if we don't it won't be there in 10-15 years time. If it means providing free match tickets to every school-child in the greater Glasgow area then so be it ffs :smiley-laughing002:

You recognise that we operate under significant transfer constraints? Fine, let's make sure we have THE BEST scouting network we can possibly have, not just a good one, we want something that leads its field. Right now we might as well just be watching the latest Dundee United game while texting that Dudu Dahan guy.

You recognise that Scottish football is a *-heap that struggles to maintain supporter interest? Push for restructure then! The whole * country is crying our for a 16 team league, you're probably the most powerful man in the game here - start * knocking that door down instead of looking forlornly through the window and hoping. The death of Rangers was the most significant event to happen in Scottish football in decades, the perfect chance to change EVERYTHING, and we voted in favour of a change that would've had a completely negligible impact on us (maintaining a 12 team top flight).

 

People aren't buying season tickets because of various factors, in fact after this reply I bet my assumptions are matched in a thread I will create. 1. Regressed quality 2. No major threat domestically 3. Inflated ticket prices 4. European failures 5. Lack of quality in Management

Thats the 5 reasons I hear in person why people don't go back. That is the reality you cannot deny that.

You're still assuming no one would be interested, what makes you think people wont but shares to strenghten the Footballing quality? Its happened before and worked with great success. Even Klon used a marquee signing fund to get Klose, so say there is no alternatives is a complete lie.

English sides are buying our players because we are not flexible enough to offer them a better contract, that does not insinuate that all players will stay here if we offer them a better offer its just the reality we don't offer them wages that makes them consider thats the point im addressing the Board are simply not flexible enough to contain our players, in fact we do the opposite we purchase to sell on for £PL inflated money which over the course of 10 years of lawwells presence of Managing Director has done * all for us.

 

I don't duspute that, however who hasn't this affected? We use it as a crutch while other clubs simply adjust to exogenous factors and move on. Honestly, as a club we are whiny as * about English football.

 

Sorry, but I simply don't believe this is as good as it gets. Point 1 and 2 are both applicable to about 99.9% of professional clubs in Europe today.

 

Exactly.

Its says it all when the SFA (which Lawwell is a part off and I don't want to hear the complete * that he doesn't have a say) copy a English set up when there was an alternative to copy the Germans set up which on record has the best matchday experience in the Football industry. You want the truth? No one gives a * because the TV controls there lifes, the £PL is in their livingroom so what is the point in going to Celtic games? Thats the reality and our Board aren't interested in countering it, if our Managing Director is going to take £1,000,000 a year and will not do * all to get us out this whole regression mess then attendances are going to get worse. As Chris Sutton said "Its not rocket science its going to get worse" but for some * up reason some are not willing to admit it into their consciousness because of this whole Lawwellism at the Club. I am sick of this *.

 

It's going to get worse regardless of who is in charge though thats the point, as the years go bye smaller Leagues get weaker, it's no just Celtic, a lot of smaller Leagues are getting worse, most obvious the Dutch League is turning to * as well.

Little to nothing can be done as the reason we're all turning * is that big Leagues are getting richer and all their teams are signing all the best players.

Last 10 years English, Spanish, Italian, German, French, Russian and Turkish Leagues have all got massively more wealthy where as everycunt else is still the same so those small Leagues who havent really got any richer have been raped of all their best players by these richer Leagues resulting in all their teams being reduced to *.

 

Neil Lennon in todays Belfast Telegraph saying the downsizing made him leave. No doubt some in here will deny that reality and blame everything on England.

 

So you're telling us right now that NOTHING can be done with a Billionaire, Millionaires on the Board with Millions of Celtic supporters around the world? Theres nothing we can do? If you seriously think that then honestly its no wonder the Board gets away with its * it feds to the support.

 

It was obvious he left because he was constantly getting the budget cut and by all accounts never got on with Lawell either. Heard a few say he never wanted Balde and few others, they were being brought in for him.

 

If there was im sure hundreds of club across Europe would love to know. Most notable ourselves, Ajax, Feyenoord, PSV etc

 

Yeap, but why are people persistant to deny this? They flat out refuse to accept it.

 

The Lawwell brigade will still deny it and say "rar but he wanted a new challange rar". Lenny knows the craic and knew what we needed to do. I feel unclean at how we * up since Karagandy which was the wake up call.

 

Ajax for example are a PLC their Board do not care about their vision. If they did they would have won the European Cup again.

As for Feyenoord and PSV I don't know what they are set up as but I hear the Feyenoord Board do not replace talent because their Board are only interested in their salary like any other corporatists.

 

Nobody denies Lennon left because he thought he'd struggle to rebuild his team, it's pretty obvious.

The budgets weren't cut though, we still spend about £8million a season on transfers and the wagebill is still about £35million as has pretty much been the budgets for 10 years now.

 

Yeap, its literally unbelievable how much people deny it. The Lawwellism is so entrenched its sickening.