Celts ‘pack of cards’ hasn’t folded Dave.. it’s holding the aces
It’s brutal for Rangers keeping up with a club that just refuses to stand still dn’t coul year - We 27- r.. rda rego affo McG to old e e hav so w one e mak
CASH IS KING
We’ve all got that look in our locker. The painted-on smile that’s trying to hide a world of pain.
You tend to need it when you bump into a neighbour who’s boasting about their fancy new motor when you are standing next to your battered old jalopy that’s got four baldy tires and a petrol light that’s permanently flashing.
Then they tell you how tough life is because they have builders in constructing one of those cracking garden man caves that has a bar and a 96in telly.
Keep smiling Michael, just keep smiling...
There will be a fair few Scottish football club directors – none more so than at Ibrox – with the same look on their coupons in the next few weeks after Celtic announced their interim financials.
Posting profits of nearly £34m and sitting with more than £50m in the bank is serious lolly – and it’s a different galaxy to the rest of the game in this country.
Good news for Celtic. Not so great for everyone else.
Fair play. It’s certainly nothing to do with luck and it turns out the ‘pack of cards’ at Parkhead that former Rangers chief Dave King talked about folding a while back actually holds all the aces.
The Hoops’ numbers give
Rangers a genuine headache. They have also ramped up their revenue in recent years on the back of Euro runs and selling players.
But they have been playing catch up – and it’s brutal when the ones they are trying to catch refuse to stand still. It’s not Celtic’s fault.
In fact, in the wild global game, this is an outift that should be held up as a shining example of how to run a football club.
Ange Postecoglou has rebuilt the entire Hoops squad – bringing in about 138 new players – yet his club is still almost £2m UP on transfers.
We saw some stark contrast this week. There was Livingston admitting they were switching the VAR kit off this weekend because the five-figure sum it would cost them to run it wasn’t worth it to them or Inverness Caley Thistle.
Ten grand is the kind of dough found down the back of the couch at Parkhead.
There are Hoops players who pocket that a week and have barely kicked a ball all season.
Livi boss David Martindale flagged up the gulf the other week and some touchy folk took it as a bit of a slight against Postecoglou.
It wasn’t. Not in the slightest. It was just Martindale laying out the facts in his typically honest fashion.
And he was right.
Celtic strolled to victory against the Lions but there was a move in the game that brought it all home.
It started with the £3m left-back, he passed it to the £4m centre back, who traded passes with his £6m partner. The ball went to the other £3m right-back, who moved it on to the £6m winger, whose cross was inches out of reach for the £4.5m striker. A £26.5m move.
Meanwhile, the guys trying to get the ball off them cost even less than a week’s worth of VAR.
What chance have they got? What chance have most of them got? Livingston run a tight ship but others are trying to fill financial black holes.
St Mirren are skint, Motherwell are chasing their tails, Dundee United are bleeding money.
Hearts are the ones who seem to have cracked it but Aberdeen and Hibs are relying on dough from American-based owners.
The league is barely competitive as it is and the gap only seems to be increasing.
The rest need to paint on that smile and suck it up as Celts remain out of sight – while Rangers’ suits have the unenviable task of trying to stop a runaway train.