{"id":16930,"date":"2021-05-10T09:09:46","date_gmt":"2021-05-10T08:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etims.net\/?p=16930"},"modified":"2021-05-10T09:09:46","modified_gmt":"2021-05-10T08:09:46","slug":"celtic-diary-monday-may-10-what-can-we-expect-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/etims.net\/?p=16930","title":{"rendered":"Celtic Diary Monday May 10: What Can We Expect Next ?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s time now to look ahead, rather than constantly rake over the ashes of last season to try to make some sense of it all.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We will have a new manager, and just as soon as the English play offs are over, for Bournemouth at least, then we will have a backroom team in that he trusts and feels he can get results with.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>One pish stained informant mumbled something about senior players being told this last week, well, we think thats what he said, he was slurring a bit, even if they&#8217;ve all been pretty aware of this for some time now.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Especially the ones who have been sold.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>With it being several weeks now since Neil Lennon took the rap for something that probably wasn&#8217;t entirely his fault, the new man won&#8217;t be greeted with any sort of fanfare, but more likely with an enormous sigh of relief.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A new backroom team means that the current one will move on, and its probably for the better.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Supporters haven&#8217;t been able to vent their fury at the ground and this has meant a bit of an overload on both social and mainstream media, and none of it helped as players confidence drained almost visibly as the games and weeks went on.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Throw in the protests at the ground and the attacks on the team bus and its little wonder a few of them chucked it.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s likely that some fans will be allowed to some games before christmas, but not in any great numbers and one of the problems involves which fans that will be. Not because it might end up being all the whingy whiners but its likely to be based on geographical criteria.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Ireland, for instance, sends a lot of fans to Celtic, and I&#8217;m not sure if they would be exempt from any quarantine rules, and may find themselves chained to a hotel bar for a fortnight, which means they would be released in time for the next home game&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Hang on, coachloads of fans stuck in a bar for a fortnight ?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The hospitality economy would recover within days&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As it stands, there is no official word on season book prices or even if they will try to sell them all. There may even be a system where a book entitles the holder to a ticket in a ballot to get to a game, and its not difficult to see why the club are taking their time on this one, with one season of non attendance and piss poor tv coverage already under our belts, they want to avoid a repeat as far as possible.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>With the election now over, there will be discussions with Holyrood aimed at some sort of workable solution, and we&#8217;re just going to have to be patient.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s cause for optimism in some quarters, as a combination of measures, such as vaccines, lockdowns and distancing seem to have curtailed infections, but the worry is that a relaxation will see a resurgence.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>After over a year of this pandemic, the correct steps must be made to make sure we don&#8217;t end up back where we started, and common sense has to override the desire for popularity in politicians.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t expect any full houses at Celtic Park possibly until the New Year, and thats probably wishful thinking, which means the fans won&#8217;t be able to get behind the team either, so we might need a little bit of patience as the new guy settles in.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Private eye magazine did a little piece on football finances last week, and one surprising bit of information it contained was that only two clubs are listed on the stock exchange in Britain&#8230;Celtic and Manchester United. &#8220;rangers &#8220;, of course, have their own unique financial arrangements and it appears so does everyone else.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Not being on the stock exchange means no forensic examinations, and more or less a freedom to do whatever is required to maximise profits, and this has to be a warning sign for an industry already deeply divided between the haves, the have nots and the keeping it hidden from the taxman camps.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It certainly explains the closed shop idea of the European super League, which will happen anyway, only under the rule of UEFA, and with so many cloak and dagger operations to &#8220;maximise profit &#8221; with all the commission payments to anyone who is in a position to help, its little wonder the SFA can get away with their own ideas about maximising profit&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>No one is interested in Scotland, as the real journalists are looking at much bigger stories, in the same vein, and that leaves us where we were a decade ago, with one club flouting the rules and the others turning a blind eye.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Drawing attention to this and dealing with the dirt on our own doorstep will not be a priority of the new CEO, simply because we have to get the results on the field going our way first, and that in itself is going to take up quite a bit of his time.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps though, someone who had a million jobs to do when he was CEO will, now his shackles are off, take up the fight against corruption.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If he wants to restore whatever reputation he had among Celtic fans, and to be fair, it was mostly good apart from the return to the old firm and a lack of accountability to shareholders over incidents that potentially cost the club millions, then an all out and focused attack on the SFA, using honesty as a weapon, will go some way to him at least not having his name followed with the contents of one;s cleared throat whenever it is spoken&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Unlike the rest of the board, at least his other commitments are Celtic related.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile&#8230;what&#8217;s going on here ?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pbs.twimg.com\/media\/E0zeiI5XMAAzpgd?format=jpg&amp;name=360x360\" alt=\"Image\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; It&#8217;s time now to look ahead, rather than constantly rake over the ashes of last season to try to make some sense of it&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":16277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/etims.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/when-someone-walks-away-quote.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2J7If-4p4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16930"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16930"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16931,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16930\/revisions\/16931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}