As recently as October Dermot Desmond reassured Celtic fans about the fantastic structure of the club.
It came soon after the resignation of Brendan Rodgers. The outgoing manager has said nothing about the circumstances that led to that decision.
Desmond didn’t hold back in his criticism of Rodgers. The manager that delivered 11 out of 13 domestic trophies.
More important than that the former Liverpool boss delivered 12 Champions League points in the new look 24/25 format.
That delivered five sell-out home matches including a Last 16 Play Off against Bayern Munich. Giddy heights.
All driven by a manager. In June 2023 Rodgers made it clear that making an impact in Europe was a huge factor in his decision to return to Celtic.
Rodgers delivered that in season 24/25 funded by the sale of Matt O’Riley. A player transformed the previous season.
THE PERFECT CELTIC STRUCTURE BUILT BY DESMOND
Despite his success within budget Rodgers wasn’t backed to go again.
The money from selling Nicolas Kuhn and Adam Idah was almost all banked.
In the final days of the transfer window £10m was thrown at Michel-Ange Balikwisha and Sebastian Tounekti. Three Celtic managers never had faith in either of those club signings.
Martin O’Neill salvaged a double from a season of chaos.
Since the Scottish Cup Final win five weeks ago Celtic have done absolutely nothing.
Complacency reigns. It dominates every aspect of the club. From the very top downwards, led by Desmond.
On October 27, shortly after the announcement that Rodgers had resigned Dermot Desmond took over the club website:
Celtic’s structure — where the manager oversees football, the Chief Executive manages operations, and the Board provides oversight — has served the club with great success for more than two decades. We all share the same ambition: to ensure Celtic’s continued success domestically and to achieve further progress in Europe. Every pound generated by the club is reinvested towards those goals and the continuous improvement of Celtic Football Club.
Celtic is greater than any one person. Our focus now is on restoring harmony, strengthening the squad, and continuing to build a club worthy of its values, traditions, and supporters.
To achieve further progress in Europe? £11.4m of the pounds earned by the club in 24/25 was paid to HMRC in Corporation Tax.
Success in Europe would require winning more than 12 Champions League points.
In just over six weeks Celtic face a Champions League Play Off tie over two legs.
Against an unseeded but organised and ambitious club. One that has been aiming for the Champions League group phase for months. A club like Kairat Almaty.
It took until the day before pre-season training for Martin O’Neill to get deals for three of the four coaches that assisted him last season.
COUNTDOWN TO CHAMPIONS LEAGUE PLAY-OFF
Desmond highlighted the Celtic structure that has delivered success for two decades.
The structure that has failed to navigate Champions League qualifying seven times in their last nine attempts.
That has lost out to Kairat, Midtjylland, Ferencvaros, Cluj, AEK Athens, Malmo and Maribor. None of those clubs has ever paid their CEO £3.5m in a single season.
So far Celtic have failed to sign a single player in 2026.
As It Stands Kelechi Iheanacho and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain are no longer at the club.
By the time the summer transfer window finishes any combination of Daizen Maeda, Arne Engels, Alistair Johnston and Ben Nygren could be elsewhere. O’Neill doesn’t rate Reo Hatate or Paulo Bernardo.
The successful structure that Desmond boasted about is soon going to be tested to the full.
If Celtic fail in season 26/27 many will conclude that the structure collapsed when Rodgers was pushed into resigning.
Not a chance in hell of making the champions league. Zero effort and zero ambition are all Desmond and his placemen have to offer. The laziest and most incompetent bastards you’ll see in European football.
Every team that has to qualify will be relishing being drawn against us.
Utter shambles. Get Desmond out!
In other words hes not going to back MON as he promised desmond needs to go he does not give a toss about the club the fans or the management team
Reminds me of the summer of 1988. The old board must’ve been feeling pretty smug after putting those noisy big-spending huns in their place with a cheeky centenary double. We were so far ahead there was no need to sign any players – how can you improve the best team in the country? Fair enough, big Packie came back from the Euros injured and McKnight had been flogged to West Ham so an England U21 goalkeeper was signed at an impressively modest fee. What could possibly go wrong?
Well across town the Huns had actually changed hands (relatively quietly by today’s standards) and an unhinged megalomaniac with unlimited credit was now in charge and they were tooling up to blow us back to the Stone Age. And for a decade it worked, we were thrown around by their wake turbulence and nearly destroyed by it. Only when the Bunnet put us on a firm financial footing were we able to slowly but surely overtake them. That was built around strong financial control but bold signings when required…. Yet somehow we have returned to the executive inertia and ‘biscuit tin’ financial hoarding instinct of the 1980s.
Celtic cannot be run like this. The suits should heed the lesson of what happened to previous ‘custodians’ when their stubbornness overtook their usefulness……
Captain @ 10.58am…
Good post buddy…
Aye – I remember it well, that old time ‘Barkas’ was called Ian Andrews, came from Leceister or Southampton or something like that and was an unmitigated DISASTER throwing FIVE into the net v ‘Rangers’ (as they actually were then) at Liebrox…
Think they replaced him with an ageing Alan Rough for a while and remember him playing v Honved in Europe !
It destroyed Ian Andrews career. He never really recovered from that. We had been linked with signing Andy Goram(!) from Oldham the previous season but Hibs beat us to the punch, and he replaced Roughie who ended up with us for half a season, including making his European Cup debut at 36 in that Honved game.
In a parallel universe, Goram might have signed for us and become known for belting out the rebel songs while draped in the starry plough flag instead….
[DD]
“…Every pound generated by the club is reinvested… [for] the continuous improvement of Celtic Football. ”
Desmond must have been p!ssed and/or just having a laugh when he wrote that nonsense last October?
It looks painfully obvious that the club is now in a significantly worse position compared to last summer – both on and off the pitch?
Or a Brazen Liar Bob (original) !