The Title is Over, the Rebels Must Fight On!
Financial disparities in Europe no longer wash with the fans, who are demanding real change at the club, as Norwegian minnows show how it is done.
He may be a club legend, but Martin O’Neill’s excuse of financial disparities after Celtic’s humiliating 4-1 thrashing by Stuttgart in the Europa League last week is nothing but the same tired PR spin the club rolls out whenever Europe exposes their chronic shortcomings.
The club legend, returning to the hot seat after Dermot Desmond picked up the phone for a second time this season, was charged with reviving domestic fortunes, but couldn’t resist the reflex. He said: “The money has changed the game. There’s not the money in the SPFL. No team here can buy a player for £30m. We can’t do it, Rangers can’t do it, Hearts can’t do it, none of the sides can do that.”
It’s a line straight from the club’s excuse playbook, trotted out post-mortem after every continental embarrassment. But let’s cut through the bollocks, this isn’t about finances; it’s about a boardroom bereft of vision of ambition, a squad lacking quality and edge, and a fan base that is struggling to admit that the club is no longer part of Europe’s elite. Celtic sit pretty on £65 million in cash reserves, a war chest that could fund real ambition, yet they peddle this poverty narrative while pocketing European & transfer cash and dominating domestically - until this season. When the stark reality of their lack of ambition, downsizing, and vision has come back to the bite them hard on the arse.
This isn’t sour grapes from a frustrated fan; it’s a cold, hard reckoning. O’Neill’s words, echoed in post-match interviews, paint Scottish clubs as plucky underdogs eternally outgunned by European behemoths with £260 million revenues and £110 million wage bills. Celtic’s own figures lag behind, sure. Stuttgart climbed back into the Deloitte top 20 on surging matchday income from their runner-up Bundesliga finish and Champions League run. Fair play to them; they’ve built a machine. But Celtic? They’ve got the resources to bridge gaps, yet choose complacency. If money was the be-all and end-all, Hibs wouldn’t have swaggered into Parkhead last weekend and nicked a 2-1 victory. Hearts, no oil barons are funding them, wouldn’t be perched atop the Premiership, four points clear of Rangers and six ahead of Celtic (game in hand notwithstanding), their results forged in resilience and consistency rather than riches.
Let’s dismantle the Celtic sob story piece by piece. “It doesn’t mean that you can’t compete,” O’Neill admits, almost as an afterthought, before pivoting to wistful dreams of deep European runs. But compete? Celtic haven’t won a knockout tie in Europe for 22 years - a damning stat. Stuttgart shredded them 4-1 at home, with Kasper Schmeichel culpable for at least two, earning boos from a fed-up and angry fan base. The second leg in Germany on Thursday night? Damage limitation at best, a humiliating rout at worst. O’Neill improved results domestically, until the Hibernian defeat which was in all honesty coming, but Europe remains a black hole.
The club’s financial health mocks the narrative. Latest accounts peg cash reserves at around £65 million. Yet spending? The bare minimum. No £30 million marquee signing, granted, but nor is there a coherent strategy. Compare to Stuttgart: ruthless recruitment, youth integration, and a fanbase fuelling revenue spikes. Celtic hoard cash like misers, citing “prudent management” while fans hurl tennis balls in protest and the Green Brigade rot in exile as the atmosphere resembles a morgue on match days. Interim chairman Brian Wilson’s meeting with supporters? Window dressing and doing nothing to placate a fan base in open revolt. Demands for CEO Michael Nicholson’s head, fan media access, and ultras’ return gather dust - all the while the board sit in their ivory tower looking down on the fans hoping they would just go away and stop bothering them.
And domestically? The irony bites hard. Celtic lord it over the SPFL, with financial muscle that should render league titles a formality. Yet Hearts top the table through smart coaching, the use of modern analytics, unity, and hunger. Hibs, perennial mid-table scrappers, exposed Celtic’s soft underbelly: poor defending, no Plan B, and a manager’s post-match shrugs. If finances trumped all, these “lesser” clubs wouldn’t dare. Football isn’t a ledger; it’s a battlefield of ideas, tactics, and creativity.
Enter Bodo/Glimt, the Arctic Circle minnows who make Celtic’s whinging look pathetic. From a town of 55,000, they generate £30 million revenue, pay £10 million in wages, and pack 8,000 into their stadium. Yet their Champions League last-16 play-off? A demolition of Inter Milan home and away, capping a season of stellar results: beating Manchester City, Atletico Madrid, drawing with Tottenham and Dortmund. Last year, Europa League semi finals. Celtic fans would demand a city wide parade for half that.
Michael Grant in The Times nailed it, Bodo/Glimt loom as “Exhibit A” for Celtic’s failings. Their model? Multi-layered brilliance under Kjetil Knutsen, in post since 2018. Intense pressing regimes, data-driven recruitment from Norway’s talent pool, boardroom stability, and a crystal-clear identity: attack, unite, overachieve. No ghosting giants; they topple them. Inter, Serie A kings with megabucks, humbled twice.
I’ve banged this drum for years, that Celtic should pull out all of the stops to appoint Knutsen as manager. His Bodø blueprint screams modernisation: high-energy football suiting Parkhead’s cauldron, youth pipelines over aging or overpriced mediocre imports, and a club ethos that drags everyone upward. Celtic’s board which is asleep at the wheel - clings on to past glories - needs this jolt. Appoint him at any cost. Ditch the tinkering and projects; build for Europe as well as domestic dominance. Bodo/Glimt transformed from Norwegian also-rans to disruptors. Celtic could too, but won’t without seismic change. A change that Dermot Desmond and his loyalists blocked when the SRU’s Dominic McKay tried to drag Celtic into the 21st Century and ultimately saw his departure weeks later.
Celtic’s season unravelled as soon as the Summer transfer window closed. It went from bad to worse then they appointed Wilfried Nancy. And it was signed, sealed, and delivered when the club signed 5 loan players in January - rather than first team ready heavy hitters on a permanent basis.
Third in the Premiership, six points off Hearts, beaten in the final of the League Cup by St Mirren. O’Neill has clearly downplayed the chasm of poor morale within the squad - “I don’t think it will be a massive worry”. Fan protests? “Doesn’t help psychologically,” he snapped, siding with his benefactor Dermot Desmon and the board. Wilson’s “fair-minded,” apparently. Fans disagree, baying for blood and Nicholson’s scalp.
Contrast Bodo/Glimt’s unity. No protests, no bans, just results. Their success shames Celtic’s “towering advantages” over SPFL clubs, as Grant notes. Hearts toppled Celtic and Rangers through grit and determination; Hibs snatched scalps. Money amplifies, but mismanagement at board room level and on the pitch kills. Celtic’s board, beleaguered and visionless, feeds the beast: poor decisions, fan alienation, transfer hesitancy.
Leadership demands candour, not deflections. Sadly, and with all the respect in the world, Martin O’Neill is trying to be diplomatic at a time when Rome is burning behind him.
Here’s the gut-punch to those Celtic fans who still believe it, Celtic aren’t European elites. The ghost of Jock Stein, and the Lisbon Lions, haunts like a curse rather than inspires nowadays. Every group-stage exit, every play-off pounding revives it: “We were kings once.” Enough bollocks. Fifty-nine years post-Lisbon, reality bites. Big five leagues dominate via money, yes, but also structure. Celtic live off black & photos while Bodo/Glimt make history.
Bodo/Glimt prove small clubs can slay giants through stability, smart recruitment, coaching genius. Knutsen’s Bodø is built on data-led scouting, high press, fearless mentality. It can be replicated at Celtic if they shed the deadwood, those bereft of vision, those counting coin rather than counting on field success.
The title is over this season, it is now between Hearts and Rangers in my opinion. For Celtic, there needs to be a massive rebuilding job with immediate effect on and off the park. The board needs overhauled, Nicholson needs to be handed his P45, Desmond’s loyalists shown the door to allow for the club to modernise, and bring in Knutsen in at any cost.
Fans demand change, we demanded it back in the 90s and we are demanding it again. Ignore the fans at your peril. If you do then, Celtic will forever be haunted by the ghosts of 1967, forever Europe’s punching bag. The choice is stark. Act now or forever live in the old photos of 1967.