A Wee Idea or Two for Dermot Desmond from Para Handy…

Dermot Desmond doesn’t need another article telling him Celtic has problems. He has people for that. What he might find more interesting is a suggestion about what he could do with the club’s rather considerable advantages.

Celtic already has the support. It already has the stadium. It already has the brand. It already has a substantial cash reserve. How could Celtic make itself considerably more valuable over the next ten years?There’s a thought.

Take the supporters. Celtic has a worldwide following, yet there is surely more to be made of it than selling shirts and occasional overseas tours. A properly developed international membership scheme could give supporters abroad meaningful digital access to the club — live academy content, interviews, historical material, coaching features, exclusive matches and events — while creating a recurring global revenue stream.

Take Celtic Park. Why should it be busy for three hours every other Saturday and largely dormant thereafter? A proper year-round visitor operation could turn the stadium, museum and Celtic’s history into a seven-day-a-week business.

Take the academy. Instead of simply producing players for Celtic and the transfer market, why not develop it into a recognised football development centre, with elite coaching, sports science, data analysis and international partnerships? Celtic could sell expertise as well as players.

And Europe? Perhaps the aim shouldn’t be merely to qualify for the Champions League playoffs and see what happens. Build a permanent European football operation: analysts, recruitment specialists and regional scouts whose job is to identify players before they become expensive and fashionable.

None of these ideas requires Celtic to gamble the family silver. Indeed, they have something in common. They turn assets Celtic already possesses — support, history, stadium, reputation and money — into new assets.

That sounds rather like the sort of thing a businessman might find interesting. And it offers Mr Desmond something else. A chance to leave Celtic rather more ambitious than he found it.

Not a revolution. Not a purge. Not another chairman’s strategic plan which disappears into a filing cabinet. Just a decision to ask:

“We’ve built a very successful Scottish football club. What would it take to build a great European one?”

Para Handy

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