It would be correct to say that the diary has a healthy disregard for what passes as news coverage in Scotland.
It would also be correct to sat that , on occasion, the diary has mentioned that there may be an agenda which loosely cover the Celtic -“rangers ” stories.
Effectively , all stories surrounding Celtic must be negative, and those concerning whichever entity is on the rent book at Ibrox must be positive. Somehow, the marketing men think that sells papers.
But remember something, a marketing man came up with this… proving they are not by any means perfect..
Trends in circulation indicate that whatever they are doing, it isn’t working. but that hasn’t deterred them.
So when a positive story is mentioned online, and repeated ad nauseum in the printed press yesterday, one becomes a little suspicious.
The Evening Times and its sister in crime the Glasgow Herald announced that Patrick Roberts was coming to Celtic for a further twelve months on loan.
And there was much rejoicing.
Worriedly, just because its good news, Timdom accepted it as fact…
This is where it gets awkward.
If the deal for Roberts was going to be announced, given the excellent track record for Celtic keeping this sort of business under wraps until its done-if you don’t count drunks ringing us up- then i think we can safely say that the Herald group would not be getting the exclusive.
So, are they just guessing ?
It wouldn’t exactly be a tough one to speculate on.
The Diary has been saying that he’s coming back for well over a week now, and we have that on pretty good faith. Ny our own standards, at least. What we also have on “good faith ” is that there are still a few things to be sorted.
We still don’t know if its a loan or a permanent deal.
And I’m fairly sure that at this stage, no one else does either.
Especially after Celtic Quick News issued a statement which had official fingerprints showing up in the ultra voilet light
Celtic have NOT agreed a deal to take Patrick Roberts on loan next season. Sources within the club expressed surprise at reports claiming as much. The club have been working with Manchester City and the player for some months, in an attempt to secure the services of the England youth international.
A loan deal is only one of the options being discussed. But while Celtic look the most likely destination for Patrick, there is still work to be done.
So…whats going on ?
Firstly, it could be just that the papers are all desperate to claim the exclusive, and one of them has decided not to wait until it actually becomes a fact. To be fair, at least in this instance it is factually based, unlike most of the guff they print, but probably not fact.
Not yet, anyway.
If it was, I think we can safely say that Peter Lawwell, Patrick Roberts and Brendan Rodgers will be the ones to announce it.
With bloody great big grins on their faces.
Secondly, and perhaps more sinisterly, the mainstream media, who it appears are being cut out of the loop where big stories from Celtic Park are concerned, are looking to scupper the deal .
How ?
Well, supposing Manchester City see the supports reaction on line to the “news “, and decide to up the price.
If I was selling I would.
But then, I’m a bastard when it comes to business, and am merely assuming that they are exactly the same.
From Celtic’s point of view, we now have an expectant support who will blame the club if the deal now goes arse over tit after the sellers increase their demands.
All because a newspaper, who we don’t usually believe anyway, told us something we want to hear..
How easy is it to manufacture a story ? One that would work to your agendum ?
Here’s one …
Celtic are going to announce three signing next week.
They will parade the three players, Danny Ings, Patrick Roberts and Stuart Armstrong with the initial letters of each player highlighted in a subliminal show of support for the republican Green Brigade section of the clubs support.
Here’s another…note the subtle use of the outdated Old Firm tag..
Agenda…of course there is.
Solution…Don’t buy them. Read them online of you must, but drive the print edition off the streets. The online version will be quick to follow.
Back at the ranch, and Stuart Armstrong, of course , has signed a new two year deal, which means he’s happy, the manager is happy and we should be happy.
Rodgers said;
“It is what it is – the club, player and representative have found agreement,”
“He is a player I have admired a long time so to have him here for two years is great for us. It gives him a little bit of peace of mind and now he can focus on his football.
“I felt he always wanted to sign and it was a case of getting it over the line so well done to everyone for getting it sorted.”
In management the priority is to sort out the immediate problem, and allow yourself time to deal with any greater issues…
It suits all parties at the moment and we should now get behind the lad and help get him back to where he left off last season.
Celtic fan Robert Snodgrass has been told he can leave West Ham, but there is little interest in him from Celtic as we are more than well covered for fans…
Celtic take the trip down the Ayrshire coast to Kilmarnock today.
Kilmarnock boasts the only council in Europe who actually want to see the North Koreans and Amercians go head to head in nuclear combat, as they feel the knock on effect would be to bomb their town forward to the stone age.
Perhaps I shouldn’t joke about that…
There are 51 million people living in South Korea right now. In terror.
Seoul CSC 서울셀틱서포터즈클럽 Retweeted Samuel Sinyangwe
We’re more worried about signing Paddy Roberts, mate.
Just get the points and get out of there.
“Rangers ” are at home to Hearts today, and after their defeat to the other Edinburgh side in another home match last week, they have altered their attitude to referees, presumably in fear of more correct decisions..
Craig Gordon reminded fans that although the Celtic B team gave Kilmarnock a proper doing in the League Cup, things will be different today..
“It’s a different game,” he observed astutely
“We’re away from home and it’s a different pitch which will require a different style of play. It’s a very quick surface so you have to be very exact with your passes and we’ll have to adapt to all of that.”
“We’re quite a young squad so a lot of the players have probably come through playing on similar surfaces so we can adapt to that,”
“We trained on the astro here just to get ourselves used to that again. Our next few games are on astro, including the Astana game, so we’ll train and play on that for the next week or so.”
Some players may be rested ahead of the return with Astana next week, whilst others will be rested during that game, as the Celts are five up from the first leg and that means the Khazaks will probably find it a little tougher than they had hoped to qualify…
Or will they ?
Declan Hill, a hack? who likes a conspiracy theory, pondered the Celtic Astana result…
Ninety percent of match-fixing in football is easy to prevent.
One of the keys to a successfully fighting corruption is to recognize ‘choke point games’. These are games – 3rd match in opening round of the World Cup, 6th match in Group Stage of Champions League or any Italian game featuring a team in danger of relegation from April onwards – where one team has a lot to gain, while the other has very little.
This week’s home-away games of the ‘play-off round’ of the Champions League is such a choke point. Historically, there have been a number of examples of match-fixing at this stage in the Champions League. The match-fixing Sapina brothers were able to get teams to lose and UEFA looked long and hard at the Latvian team in 2013.
The economics of ‘choke point’ fixing are simple.
There is no effective financial deterrent for a team in losing the game. In this case, the losing team goes on to play in the Europa League.
Therefore the strategy is simple, if you are not a rich team with the resources to compete successfully in the Champions League you show up and play the first match. If it does not go well then somewhere in the match you make the decision to lose big (above the Asian spread on the game). This way the team makes money losing the game and it ends up in a tournament that they have a better chance of winning.
To be clear, this is not to suggest that FC Astana of Kazakhstan engaged in such behaviour in their 5 – 0 loss to Glasgow Celtic. However, it is to say that the second leg of the play-off round to be played on August 22nd, is a match that UEFA should focus on with laser-like intensity.
The need for such a focus is made worst by the fact that the sponsors of the football team FC Astana, the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Kazakhstan, are the same organization who sponsored the highly-controversial Astana Cycling team of Lance Armstrongʼs comeback fame and multiple doping infractions (see: ‘If We Want to End Doping in Cycling, Astana Must Go’ or ‘A brief history of Astana scandals’:
https://www.outsideonline.com/ 1927876/if-we-want-end-doping-cycling-astana-must-go – https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/astanas-uneasy-ride-professional-peloton-139345). The sporting organizations are officially linked together under the same club name.
Again this is not to suggest that Astana football club followed the dubious path of the cycling officials or that the sponsors in anyway encouraged doping but it is to say that there is a sports business atmosphere in Kazakhstan that does not encourage confidence.
This is particularly because FIFPro – the football players international union – declared Kazakhstan to be a hotbed of match-fixing. In 2012, FIFPro conducted a survey of their members in twelve eastern European countries about violence, intimidation and match-fixing. 34% of the Kazak players reported that they had been approached to fix a game in their league and 44% said they were aware of match-fixing in the league. This was the highest number in all of Europe and possibly an under-reporting of the problem as FIFPro had this to say about the difficulties of working in Kazakhstan:
Regarding the collection of information, union representatives found organizing personal meetings with players the most difficult stage. The clubs also intervened and disrupted the process of completing the questionnaires. In Kazakh football, clubs can do nothing without the Federation`s (Football Federation of Kazakhstan – FFK) permission. Problems arose when FFK ignored the unionʼs letters. Clearly, FFK ordered all clubs to disturb the process of the project. As a result, meetings with players had to be organized secretly. Players were really helpful in this regard. There are many problems but no major areas of concern were identified because all (clubs, players, agents) are afraid of FFK. Some of the cases were prepared for the Black Book, but players requested their stories were not published.
FIFPro Black Book Eastern Europe: The problems professional footballers encounter: research, p. 66.
It is little wonder that the players were so frightened. In the same survey, FIFPro also found that almost 28% of the players claimed to have been victims of violence and more than half of those players had been attacked by their own club officials!
All in all, then Kazakhstan has a stained reputation in sports integrity. If UEFA wants to ensure that the credibility of Champions League does not suffer it should monitor the upcoming game very, very, very closely.
Presumably thats why Celtic managed five goals from three shots on target.
Its all a fix.
Anyway, one or two of the more active social media outlets have jumped on the story and used it to try to wind up a few of the more reactionary Celtic fans out there.
Why bother ?
For those who support the club that rise from the ashes of their previous favourites, there isn’t a lot to cheer about these days. nor is that likely to change anytime soon.
Let them think they are annoying us, give them their wee moment of glee.
Frankly, its all they’ve got…
Every now and again Celtic minded media throws up a story that is delightfully refreshing… this from the shamrock magazine which tells of an early instance of possible match fixing…
Does anyone want to do the obligatory “Duff ? -He was fucking shite ” pun ?
No ?
Okay, we’ll leave it out then.
I’m not leaving this out though…another example of the boundless optimism installed by a combination of PR and an accommodating and vivid imagination..
And we all know who came in..
Even the bookies didn;t rate “rangers’s ” chances but they wouldn’t listen
They will never learn.
Yesterdays picture..
Caption: Cute wee dog finally grabs a proper meal.
Today…
