THE AGM season is well and truly upon us. If Scottish football was a healthy, happy place these would pass off without incident, relegated to sidebars and footnotes about dry, humdrum resolutions about balance sheets and all manner of other arcane boardroom regulations. It isn't though, and what began today and will carry on across Glasgow in a week or so's time will be the expression of a winter of discontent for the national game.
While the accounts still stack up at Parkhead, where the club's supporters and shareholders can still expect them to win a fifth successive top flight title with a degree of comfort, it is fair to say they might also be significantly better. It wasn't so long ago that chief executive Peter Lawwell was estimating that the absence of Rangers from the top flight was costing them £10m a season, but continual non-qualification for the Champions League and the talent drain which goes along with it is an even more worrying trend.
As sobering as this is for a club with Celtic's proud European heritage, in truth chairmen, directors and fans alike are all powerless to do much about it in the face of the massive systemic challenge of being a big club marooned in the small Scottish pot. So it is understandable if some Parkhead supporters decide to influence what they can influence and lash out about certain other aspects of how their club is being run.
Until the wind across the continent changes or a big idea can be found to get Scottish football out of this mess, obsessing about getting a new manager in seems a bit like re-arranging the deckchairs. While Ronny Deila was issued with a vote of confidence from the Celtic chief executive the proof will be in the pudding when it comes to whether the Norwegian is permitted a third crack at reaching the Champions League. While the likes of Leigh Griffiths represent evidence of the Norwegian's ability to improve a player, such examples are piecemeal. The arrival of Kieran Tierney in the first team points at a way ahead, getting more tangible results from their much-vaunted youth system, but that is a long term project and results won't happen overnight.
But the football, though, is only half of it. There has been a politicisation of football supporters in this country in recent times, of which Celtic supporters are in the vanguard, and it was hardly a surprise that more fury is being expended on matters such as implementing the living wage for all club employees and the thorny matter of the re-election to the board of Lord Livingston. Continuing intrigues about Rangers' use of EBTs from 2001 and 2010 can be filed in the same bracket.
Across the city, next week's AGM promises even more fireworks than gazebo-gate. While there is a new-found connection between the Rangers first team and the fans under Mark Warburton, and a new sense of togetherness with owner Dave King, the battle with Mike Ashley continues to rumble on. A resolution calling for the voting rights of any shareholder involved in the running of another club to be removed is a threat to the Newcastle owner's influence, while each day brings fresh news of court cases involving the club. Until all this is fully sorted, the club's hopes of fully returning to normality are being thwarted.
So this is Scottish football, circa November 2015. Our domestic game is in a state of some disarray, the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England have all made it to France 2016 without us, and suddenly there is gloom about our ability to turn the talented, eager kids we have at primary school level into decent professional footballers. We are all stakeholders at the agm of the future of Scottish football. And we are angry.
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