I hate to say this but in my opinion the cycle of decline started in 2012, with the 5 way agreement, PL's belief that we could not survive without the scum, and the willingness of our board to be instrumental in the saving the team from Ibrokes, I understand your point of view on finance and the disparity caused by the excessive amount of money "invested" by sky in the EPL, but it is that disparity that means that our board look at ways of increasing our income, I guess you probably disagree with the majority of us, will being more proactive in the search for talented players who won't cost the earth benefit us as a club, in my opinion it could benefit us in 2 ways, if signed early enough a better chance of getting into the CL, and secondly as a club well-known for developing players a 2nd income stream from player sales, players already identify our club as a stepping stone to the EPL, thanks to players like VVD,and Winyama, this is why I'm mystified with the reluctance to sort out the clubs scouting. I just think we could do better, HH
I dont disagree with the theory of buying cheap good enough players
But the problems are outwith the board power to solve in value added way in the current set up imo
If the dude being spotted as good enough, is actually good enough, then the minute Celtic get mention the likes of lower EPL level teams can gazzump us
and agents know this
On top of that Man city and other farm clubs can acquire the player and loan him out to the other CL hopeful teams or even us
They get better base wage that way
And in the current tv football world its easy for scouts to watch players from the globe
The timings in are blocked in 3 ways
Clubs want best price: selling before end of window means they might miss out on better offer and might need that dude for their own European challenges
Agents want bigger cut so want best wage for player
And other clubs getting more income in bigger leagues can and will gazzump us if they can get the bargain
No board can navigate that without paying bigger premium for early release and often agents will demand much larger wages unless its right on the window
I want players in early that are better than we have
I bet your life the board do to
But we are hamstrung in the market when we have small fish traditionally getting 100M upfront everyseason from Sky
it creates massive inflation in wages of all players in all leagues for the player we want
The club cannot afford to get into bidding war with Sky clubs
And Celtic track record of finding gems mean when a player gets mention from agent Celtic want him
Agents can and often do find EPL clubs to tempt them with bigger wages
Thats not something any board can control without bigger revenues
And we are already on the cusp of maximum wage threshold with bidding for players Low EPL want for their collections
In Glasgow and Scotland generally we get the same inflation as EPL without the subsidy
We have same markets but have diminished funds
How many people watch Celtic or Rangers worldwide when sky show game
I bet its more viewrs than low EPL clubs
But they get the bung and we get all the problems those subsidies create
its the rigged system
The budgets dont have much room for better players unless these better players come for low wages in comparison to uk market for their talents
The board cannot force anyone to sign early
therefore blaming them for failing to find good enough for CL early is not really very fair