Dermot Desmond

It's so difficult to do a better job than they have done though. How can they be more flexible with the wage budget when we don't have enough money?

It's like me saying to you, you should be more flexible with the money you set asside to attend football, when you actually don't have any more money.

As long as Celtic are stuck in the SPL we will be on our knees going nowhere. As we are hampered that we have no TV money and no TV exposure so we don't get as good advertising/kit/sponsorship deals as we could, which means we are missing out on extra merchandising and because of all that there is no interest from investors as there can't be any growth. Also stuck in the SPL means good players don't want to sign for us and any players do sign quickly want to leave to play in better Leagues.

 

There are two ways.

1. Cutting the squad down to 22-25 players. Keep them in category based on wage - Blue Chip wages to attract £30-40k a week players. 15-25k a week players. 15k a week & less.

For example

5 on or less £40k a week = £9.6m (maximum)
5 on or less £35k a week = £8.5m (maximum)
5 on or less £30k a week = £7.2m (maximum)
5 on or less £25k a week = £6.0m (maximum)
5 on or less £20k a week = £4.8m (maximum)

25 players costing the Club £36m annually under maximum expenditure. That is a flexible simple model which we could attract better quality of players, the thing is Lawwell does not do it which is detrimental under the Footballing inflation. Having 39 players on co-equal wages which cost us £34m which the barrier of £25k week (Scott Brown) is simply not good enough to attract better players. To even state that its difficult to do a better job is delusional. Lawwell has admitted we can be more flexible, we can go out and spend £6-7-8m on a Striker. We can do these things its incredibly irritating reading that we can't do nothing when we can.

2.

There is a possibility in which (hypothetically speaking here) when we appoint a Manager we can in a short term alternative take a share issue to acquire capital for the Football Department (either in adding surplus invest to the wage budget or transfer allocation). A extra £10-20m in capital received from shares would benefit us greatly and give us another flexible instrument to raise capital. We have done this previously and its paid off so much that it has exceeded expectations. Its denial to suggest we cannot take that alternative.

This is complete nonsense to suggest we cannot do nothing due to our birth right playing in Scotland. I am fully aware of the constraints: The only threat poses to us is lucrative Leagues luring our players away for higher salaries. THAT IS IT. Why do I keep regurgitating that we should be more flexible (in the methods I have provided) to keep players here. I fully understand if a player wants to go to some mob called Southampton because they are offering them £60k a week, that is fair enough it doesn't suggest we shouldn't offer them a better deal (more than it is currently with this £25k a week nonsense). That is completely unacceptable. Dnipro got to the Europa League final due to investing properly and giving players flexible wages. Don't insult my intelligence by suggesting we can't or you're clearly at it. Its criminal that Lawwell takes a £1m salary by regressing our talent due to his one diamentional business model and blaming everything on England when he takes no alternatives to be flexible enough, its insulting and in fact completely delusional to suggest we cant be flexible its pesado-herd-mentality.

 

We've not go that much money to be spending £36million in wages on just the first team squad, if we were doing that then we couldnt offer anyone improved contracts, also the wagebill includes bonuses + coaches, doctors, youth teams, youth players, youth coaches, kit men, groundsmen, etc time you add that in to your first team squad you'd have the wagebill at about £45million a season, which is about £10million over the score.

Realistically if we done what you said we wouldn't be able to spend a bean on transfer fees or signing on fees, so would have no danger of signing any type of £40k a week player, who'd either 1. Cost about £5million+ or 2. Want about £1million+ in a signing on fee if he was on a free transfer.

Dnipro come from Ukraine, who produce a far better standard of footballer to Scotland, they also come from a League where the top 2 teams Shakhtar and Dynamo Kiev set the bar really high as they can afford massive transfer fees and wages and have very good teams.

 

You are also underestimating how difficult it would be to manage a squad of bluechip and not bluechip players earning up to 4x more than each other. What if Griffiths was playing like he is in the bluechip team, he'd obviously be demanding bluechip wages which would mean him going from about £8k a week to £30k+ a week, then for example Rogic does the same, then Tierney does the same, soon you need to start letting go of players because you can't even afford the players you've got.

Also having £40k a week players, eats away at their value. If we spend £40k a week on a player who cost £5million, then if we keep them for 3 years, they'll cost us £6million in wages, meaning we need to be selling them for £11million+ just to break even on them.

You haven't thought anything through/dont know what you are talking about.

If you took control of Celtic in 2003 instead of Lawwell, we'd be absolutley humped by now.

 

Also if we sign a "bluechip" player and he does a Boerrigter, then it would ruin us. The transfer fee and £30k+ wages wasting away for years costing us £10million+ for a dud.

Happened before, we only need to look across the City at Gabriel Amato, Marco Negri, Daniel Prodan, Michael Ball, Thomas Buffel, had the old Club not signed those 5 guys who really made no impact at all on their team then they'd probably not have snuffed it as those 5 players probably cost them a good £35million they just wasted. Theres more than that too Guivarch, Boli, Flo, guys who done really nothing for them. That mistake is easy to make when flinging about £5million especially now as £5million arent even that good nowadays.

 

Using the term realistically to imply my model in suggestion is impractical when our turnover was £51m with a surplus (now thats very low over the years due to the failure of CL revenue and lowering attendances.) is well within our ability - Not to mention if we did take on that flexibility we would take 80-100% of transfer capital into the transfer budget by currently having 39 players its complete nonsense to suggest we can't its insane.

Half of the Dnipro side was foreign recruitment some even ranging from £1m. I'm not going to sit here and deny that the Ukrainians are producing better footballers it doesn't masquerade the fact that we can get talent by investing into talent that is worth the wage.

 

The sudden demand is a myth, when in our history have we had players demand all for a sudden for higher wages? We didn't see it under O'Neills side when we had Sutton and others who were producing great performances for their value of investment. Its complete nonsense just another reinforcement duplication from what Lawwell has stated in the media, its pathetic.

Break even? Why would we want to break even when we are paying for quality, we want performance not a monetary process of pecuniary? Go on, explain to us how this whole signing policy has worked when it hasn't seen our turnovers increase, its complete bullshit to even suggest or insinuate we need to break even when it has shown no benefits financially and on the park other than putting us into a transition period, this whole monetary value sell on from depreciation as you have suggested just tells me everything about your willingness to do everything in recapitulate on the Boards counterproductive failing strategy. This is what I mean with this Lawwellism psychology by wanting to profit from the depreciation on assets - If we signed a Larsson he would be out the door within 18-24 months thats how entrenched this is, its not even benefiting us but for some reason you find its acceptable to invest into every transfer hoping its for monetary purposes. Unbelievable.

If I took over I would be doing anything to raise capital to be more flexible than lying to my own supporters. If that makes me putting us out the box then it just highlights how much you use the context of authority of the Board, its honestly ridiculous.

Another default negative connotation that somehow if we sign a dud it would be the end of the world, im sorry to break the news to you pal this model has seen us waste more capital on duds than actually bringing in success, your psychology and understanding of this idea of wanting us to me more flexible is so dissentient to you that you actually cannot comprehend other alternatives, in fact you refuse to admit into your own consciousness that even when Lawwell has stated on record we can give higher wages you just flat our refuse we can do anything. Its pathetic and bares no logic to our Club and other future other than happy clapping to a corporate lying arrogant fat * of a CEO that couldn't give a * about our fanbase other than his salary, I know that is impossible for you to comprehend as you have been so psychologically sedated by the Boards rhetoric its formed some sort of psychological defence mechanism. Its incredible. I'm speechless.

That just sums you up im afraid, comparing alternatives for us to raise capital than that lot over in Govan which has access to a unlimited credit/debt facility while failing to pay income tax is so insulting and distant in comparison its ridiculous. We don't spend the money we do have or be flexible enough with it, that dead lot recklessly spunked money they didn't have. But aye that clearly applies to raising capital. Clueless. Please, don't what ever you do in the future and choose to be a consultant or work in the financial sector because you would never grow a business with that financial aptitude.

 

You could have fooled me!!!!:smiley-laughing002:

I think dont think you have given this enough thought mate!


I think i only looked up the dictionary 4 times!

Interesting though!:icon_mrgreen:

 

I * love the fact that there are people who's experience of running multi-million-pound companies is negligible to say the least (most likely) actually believe they can tell experienced, qualified professionals like Lawwell, in detail, how to do their job and run the club.

Football forums! You have to love them! :smiley-laughing002:

 

You do realise that far larger and more complex companies than ourselves actually pay individuals, usually with significantly less interest in the company than we as fans have in the club, to come in and provide them with advice when negotiating difficult periods?

I suppose we could take your approach and basically shut the place down, after all why bother expressing our opinion on footballing matters (none of us are experienced top level managers), politics (no experience of any level of politics), or players (anyone ever played the game at the top level?) No, people should only be allowed to express their opinion on matters that they have a very high level of practical experience in, after all it's not like anyone who was ever experienced in something got it wrong once in a while, is there?

 

I don't think it's that far fetched, take my idea for example, keep the exact same wage budget overall, just have a smaller squad with higher individual wages.

Don't think that'll make any difference on the balance sheet.

 

What a heap of dung that's like never banging anyone in case you get an std. Your logic is also false. In terms of wages look at the amount of squad players and how much they accumulated combined. If we reduce quantity like suggested with quality we will be fine.

Also maybe it was you or maybe it was another "we will be liquidated if we spend our own money" type but it has been pointed out that our spending has not changed in 10 odd years. Look at Balde, Gravenson, Donati etc all expensive players we put on the shelf. We can afford to sign expensive payers and we can even afford it if they fail. Please stop trying to mislead the rest of the support, the quote that if we sign an expensive player and he is a failure will "ruin us" is outrageous.

 

If we done this week should play youth in the domestic cups. We would not have much room for key injuries.

 

This *' guy^^^^

 

Is spot on

 

Hey, I'm not saying we shouldn't do it, I'm just saying that I get a chuckle out of it every so often, especially when some people break it right down. I do it as much as the next guy :smiley-laughing002:

 

The youths would be the back up.

I've pointed this out before, we done it under O'Neill, no other manager brought through the youth and the quality of youth than he has. He backed up the squad with Maloneh, McGeady, Miller, Marshall, Kennedy and a myriad of others. It gave them first time experience, while maintaining a quality first XI.

We want to be serious about our youth development, put your money where your mouth is, put us in a situation you need to rely on it.

A core of 15 players or so, back up by youth and players of a bit lesser quality like O'Neill did with Sylla, Laursen and co.

 

What a strange thing to suggest in the first place when you think about it, the degree in which we have * up at boardroom level overt he last 4 seasons is so great and spectacular that it has had me genuinely asking on occasion was this by design. And no I dont think our board self sabotage before the wee gang start but our failure is so obvious that it at least is worth thinking about.

 

Here fishy, fishy, fishy.....

 

Is full of big words and no substance*