Celtic like to portray themselves as a club like no other. And, when it comes to monetising the past to fleece their own fans, they really are the world-class operation they aspire to be in every department.
The marketing men say that a new third kit released last week is inspired by the tiles at the entrance to the iconic stadium where they won the European Cup in 1967. Good luck to them selling that one.
All the tiles in Lisbon would struggle to smooth over the cracks in the relationship with a fan base tired of handing over money and seeing it gather dust in a bank vault.
Securing a league and cup double last season, Celtic got away with one. So far, a promise to learn lessons from a period of self-harm has yet to come through. Beyond the appointment of head of business operations Paul Mazoyer, the public perception is that nothing has changed in any real, meaningful way at all.
They fired up the DeLorean and travelled 20 years back in time to find a new manager. An unseemly mess then followed over the appointment of Martin O’Neill’s backroom team Shaun Maloney and Mark Fotheringham.
Paul Tisdale left six months ago, and there is still no word on who the head of football operations will be. Or whether the price of assistant manager Maloney landing a new deal is an agreement to carry on doing two jobs for the price of one.
Players return to pre-season training on Friday. The departures of Kasper Schmeichel, Luis Palma, Stephen Welsh, Julian Araujo, Tomas Cvancara, Benjamin Arthur, Junior Adamu, Joel Mvuka and Hayato Inamura will leave a few empty lockers in the Lennoxtown dressing room.
Daizen Maeda and Arne Engels could still go before the end of August, while Benjamin Nygren and Alistair Johnston are flaunting their wares in the biggest shop window football can offer. Celtic will fill the gaps by signing players. How talented those players will be or how quickly they will sign them is harder to predict.
Uruguayan left-back Marcelo Saracchi really should be a no-brainer, but recent events fail to inspire confidence that they will go early or go big. Or stray terribly far from the model of throwing a couple of million quid at transfer punts just a little too late to field them in the Champions League qualifiers.
Low-balling teams with offers for their best players is one thing. Demotivating key members of their own management team by trying to lower their salaries points to a bigger cultural issue. A persistent reluctance to pay the going rate for anyone at all.
In old episodes of Batman, Commissioner Gordon used to fire a signal into the cloudy skies of Gotham whenever the city felt the need for a hero. When Celtic have an issue in the technical area, a green searchlight bearing the image of O’Neill is beamed over the coffee shops of King’s Road.
Answering the call to use his know- how and experience and front-of-house man-management skills to push, pull and cajole Celtic over the line, O’Neill allowed his assistants Maloney and Fotheringham to deal with the nuts and bolts of training and coaching, and the trio managed to retrieve the mess left by Tisdale and Wilfried Nancy to win the league and Scottish Cup.
In the process, they secured a crack at the Champions League qualifiers and, for that alone, Celtic owed them. Seeking to save a few quid on their wages was a strange way of showing gratitude. The optics, as they say, were poor.
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Employed on an emergency rate last season, the back-room bhoys might have expected the same terms for the next 12 months, with another year’s option, no questions asked. What transpired offers some indication of why Celtic appear to have tens of millions of pounds burning a hole in a bank account.
Maloney met controlling shareholder Dermot Desmond in London to find some common ground over a number of issues. While they seem to have got there in the end, the episode fuelled the apprehension of supporters ahead of the summer transfer window.
At Celtic it seems as if every major expenditure, every significant appointment, needs to be run past one man before securing the green light.
And it’s difficult for fans to harbour much hope of a quick or decisive movement in the transfer market when the terms and conditions of the manager and his backroom team become the footballing equivalent of a hostage negotiation. Big decisions at Celtic rarely seem to happen quickly or easily.
Others do things a little differently. Despite losing the league title, a manager and a captain, Hearts’ data partners Jamestown Analytics are wasting no time wallowing in self-pity.
Interviews with four managerial candidates are already progressing. And while fans clearly can’t afford to grow too attached to managers or players from now on, they have already signed York City centre-back Malachi Fagan-Walcott for a six-figure fee, as well as French forward Amadou Ba-Sy, Calvin Miller, MJ Kamson-Kamara and Josh McPake.
Rangers have snapped up Lawrence Shankland on a free transfer, with the likes of Luke Graham of Dundee and James Penrice of AEK Athens expected to follow as part of a “Scotland-first” signing policy.
If nothing else, supporters of Hearts and Rangers can see what their clubs are playing at. They see evidence of a plan and coherent strategy to address their failure to deliver on key performance targets last season.
All Celtic fans hear from their club is carefully controlled communications on in-house channels which answer few of the big questions they would like answered. Facing the biggest squad overhaul in living memory, Celtic have yet to leave the starting blocks. And, speaking to Go Radio this week, former Parkhead striker Andy Walker struck the nail on the head.
He said: “Any of the Celtic supporters I am speaking to at the moment ask, ‘Is there any chance we could get a signing? Is there any chance we could be ahead of the game? Is there any chance they could announce, oh my goodness, look who has signed for us? Look who Martin O’Neill has managed to persuade to come to Celtic for all the challenges that will be in front of him next season’.”
Few doubt that the champions will sign a raft of players through necessity and, if the process becomes quick, transparent and smooth, it might quell some of the unrest amongst supporters. If not, sales of that 60th anniversary Lisbon kit will be hindered by the four little words football directors hate to hear more than any other.
Not a penny more.
