Celtic Diary Wednesday April 1: Amidst All The April Fools Stories….

We at Etims remain committed to only bringing you the truth.

Unless it’s something we made up.

And we’re sticking with the truth, while all others compete to make up the most ludicrous tales for this special day.

Liam Henderson spoke about the excitement of a new challenge yesterday as he moved to Norway on a three month loan with Rosenborg.

” I can’t believe they’ve found me somewhere even colder than Glasgow “, he said, 

Actually, what he really said, and it sounds like he knows what he’s doing, was; 

“I have always wanted to go away and play. I believe I can learn a lot in a short space of time and it will be great for my development. Going on my own will help me grow up a bit, so I’m really looking forward to it.

“It can do nothing but help me at Celtic, learning another culture, getting another football experience. The manager has reiterated to me that he wants me to do well come back and hopefully push for a starting place, and that’s what I will be looking to do.

“I’m going for three months and then I will be back for pre-season, when I will be looking to kick on and try and get more first-team experience for Celtic under my belt.

“I was satisfied with what I was doing here, but you can’t turn down a chance like this. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and the manager wants me to go there, get games and learn a new style of football and come back more experienced and I’m all for that.” 

“The gaffer says I should go and it would be good for me to go and play games and I’m looking forward to doing that,”

“The manager was really positive about it when he spoke to me and I felt exactly the same when he told me about it. I’m delighted it’s been finalised and I’m excited about going over and playing.

“The manager says they look to play the same style as us – passing and pressing – and I can’t wait to get over there and start training with Rosenborg and see where it takes me.

“My family are all backing me, and my dad is coming over on Friday to help me settle in so that will be good,” 

It’s good that his Dad is going with him. It shows that the players welfare is at the heart of Deila’s thinking, and its not just a case of offloading him in the hope that someone will buy him in the summer. Henderson has a future at Celtic, if he wants it, and a spell in norway will add to his game.

And I’d like to think that if my son got a job in Norway,Ii would be able to go out and help him, er, settle.

Oh, hang on. Sod that.

We spoke yesterday of Celtic planning ahead ready for the Champions League qualifiers, and it looks like most of the preparation will take place in Boston. The sleepy Lincolnshire town , in Englands east Midlands ( is this right ? -Ed , ) is ideal for supporters and means that the team won’t be tired from criss crossing the globe ahead of what will be next seasons most important games.

Oh, wait.

It’s Boston , Massachussetts, which is a bit further. And not on the Mega bus timetable.

While over there Celtic will train for a week, and play Newcastle United, in a sort of New Firm clash, as the Geordie side now hold a virtual power of attorney over the basket case Ibrox club.

The two will also play in Dublin, at Fenway Park, which will be a nice day out.

Still on the plans for next season, the pressure to qualify for the UCL group stages was intensified, mainlky by the media, when they pointed out how much it’s worth to the club;

Ronny Cully explained the way it works in the Evening Times;

Uefa have announced significant changes to the money which will be split between all the participating clubs in both the Champions League and the Europa League.

The biggest jump comes in the level of payment for clubs who make it to the Group Stage of the major competition.

Clubs who are successful in the play-offs will earn a bonus of more than £1.5million.

But that will just be the tip of the iceberg as they will also unlock a guaranteed £10.75m participation fee just for making it into the Group Stage – up more than £4m from previous years.

On top of that, there is £385,000 available for every draw – and a victory will now be worth more than £1.1m.

A cut of the TV pot would also be assured, and, with new contracts in place, this is expected to be substantially more than £6m.

All of which means that, even if they lost all six games in the group, Scotland’s representative can expect to bank over £18m.  

 Although it’s obviously beneficial to Celtic to add that sort of money to the account, it’s still a little distasteful that these sums are being given to the continents bigger clubs. You have to ask if Celtic are getting that much, how much is going to the already cash rich clubs from the bigger leagues ?

 Which in turn will widen the gap and see the same teams competing at that level year in , year out.

 In fact, if we draw Barcelona and Benfica again I’m not bloody going.

Over at Ibrox the crisis deepened as supporters started to notice that the new board are taking the piss out of them in pretty much the same way as the other ones did.

 Whilst the press ignore the fact that unless they get a new NOMAD this week, they will be delisted from the stock exchange, and seemed to have missed the significance of Deloitte walking away, one Ibrox fan is trying to draw attention to the real problem over there;

 For the more aware amongst their support, there are certain correlations to be made between the ” 2022 vision ” of Paul Murray, and the ” Economical Recovery ” engineered by David Cameron and his sidekick George Osborne.

In that they are both bollocks.

Murray is deflecting from the real issue, which is the remarkably quick exit of Dave King when it came to the bit when he actually had to put some money in,  and the doubts now surrounding the wisdom of backing a convicted felon with a habit of not telling the truth who lives on the other side of the world.

Donald Park is, we hear, beginning to wish he never got involved, having looked at the books and realised the contract to supply the Celtic team coach will make him more money than his “investment ” at Ibrox, and he may well decide that he can’t be arsed any more.

And, as Phil McGhiollabhan points out, theres something even more important

For fans of the Ibrox franchise, and you do have to feel a bit sorry for the more decent ones amongst them, the days ahead could be even darker than the one’s behind them.

Mind you, that shouldn’t bother them, as they are condemned to eternal darkness anyway.

Elsewhere, the Daily Star might find itself in a bit of trouble after an article on Ibrox fans taking to the streets in protest at the new regime;

And with it being April 1. a couple of you might have raised your eyebrows at this story;

Ten-man Portugal struggled without captain Cristiano Ronaldo as they fell to a surprise defeat in a friendly at home to the Cape Verde Islands.  

They lost 2-0, but Cape Verde are not the minnows you might think they are;

Which is a lesson for all those people who put bets on or against teams they know nothing about.

And have you seen the queue at Celtic Park waiting to have words with Peter Lawwell about the groundshare plan ?

The picture in yesterdays Diary, from a 1965 game against Kilmarnock was the last time Celtic wore the white top with the shamrock in a competitive game.

Speaking of competitve games, why was this shirt in the news this week?