BlueMeanie
Well-Known Member
I CAN just picture Gerry McCulloch and everyone else in the Celtic media department now.
“That was great, Peter. You’ve got that spot-on.”
Glasgow
“You think so, Gerry?” says the club’s chief executive as he stands up from his chair and takes off his microphone, “Do you think that comes across OK?”
“Oh yes, Peter. You nailed it. Perfect.”
And there you have Celtic’s problem in a nutshell.
A chief executive who is making so many mistakes right now. And no one around him who is prepared to stand up and say so.
He said sorry over the trip to Dubai on Celtic TV
Because who in their right mind thought that “apology” was a good idea?
My Sky Sports colleague, Andy Walker, got it spot-on when he said the first 40 seconds of the interview were decent.
For a brief moment, Lawwell sounded like he was willing to hold his hands up and accept complete responsibility for the monumental error of judgment which led to Celtic’s trip to Dubai.
But he couldn’t help himself, could he?
No sooner had he said he was sorry than he started to play the victim card.
5
A banner depicting Lawwell as a dictator outside Parkhead
And suddenly he was spouting nonsense about how the Covid pandemic had affected them more than any other club in Scotland.
It’s such a staggering statement to make that it’s almost unbelievable.
I mean, wasn’t he paying attention when Hearts were kicked out of the Premiership last season? Or when Partick Thistle were relegated to League One?
Hasn’t he noticed how those clubs have been teetering on the brink of extinction on the back of that decision?
The Jags had a game in hand in the Championship when they were booted down a division. They’ve fought tooth and nail to remain full-time and avoid redundancies.
But since then they’ve seen other clubs given £500,000 in funding to keep their heads above water while they depend on handouts from their fans and much smaller cheques.
If anyone has any right to feel hard-done-to in the last 12 months, it’s Jacqui Low at Firhill.
There is a long list of clubs who could claim to be the worst-affected in the country but they don’t see it as some sort of competition.
Celtic do. And clearly Lawwell does. The fact he was even thinking like that as he was supposed to be issuing an apology to supporters sums up how out of touch the club is.
Sure, Celtic have lost a lot of money this season. Going by the fact they have the biggest stadium in Scotland, maybe that’s how Lawwell quantifies it.
But the “poor old Celtic” act is pathetic.
They actually benefitted from the season ending prematurely last year because they were given the title.
They would probably have won it, to be honest, but they were still named champions when the season wasn’t actually completed.
I just cannot understand why no one at Celtic listened to that interview before it went out and said, ‘Guys, this sounds awful’.
Celtic supporters must have been watching it through the cracks between their fingers. It was the worst sit-down since Jim White went to meet Charles Green in his hospital bed.
Celtic have just lost all grip of reality.
They thought it was a good idea to spend huge sums on five days in Dubai — and then a week later are furloughing their Under-18s to save cash.
Surely it must have crossed someone’s mind that people might start to ask questions about that.
Look, Lawwell had to come out and say something. When Christopher Jullien tested positive, meaning Neil Lennon, John Kennedy and 13 players couldn’t be involved for the Hibs game, it was time for some crisis management that he simply couldn’t avoid.
But if you’ve got no grasp on the mood out in the real world, and if no one is prepared to tell you, then you’re asking for trouble. And all it does is back up everything people think.
Celtic supporters have been accusing the club’s board of being short-sighted and blinkered for a long time.
They weren’t happy with the appointment of Lennon after Brendan Rodgers waved cheerio.
And since then they’ve seen things go from bad to worse with appalling recruitment. They’ve been digging a hole for themselves for so long that it’s hard to see how they recover.
The league is over, Rangers are champions in all but name, and things are so brutal at Celtic they don’t even know how to say sorry.
