Dear Rangers and Celtic,
After reading the papers this week, I feel obliged to apologize to each of you on behalf of the rest of Scottish football. Obviously, life for each of you has been extremely difficult to bear over the last year or so, and it is only beginning to become apparent that this is entirely the fault of the Scottish game, and Scotland itself.
I was most horrified to hear that Celtic can no longer attract renowned players such as Craig Bellamy to the club because, according to Chief Executive Peter Lawwell, Scottish football is of such poor quality. Not only that, but agents are disparaging about Scotland to their clients. Oh, how you must hark back to those wonderful days when players like Henrik Larsson, John Hartson and Neil Lennon himself could be signed and paid high wages - incidentally, I haven't got the mental agility to understand why you could afford high wages then, but not now, since your income is exactly the same (because obviously you were only paying what you could afford back then, yeah?), but I guess this is because us mere mortals are not bright enough to get our heads round that sort of thing.
Why, I even had the daft idea that Celtic might have wasted huge amounts of money over the last few years on players (though I'm sure, ultimately, that Massimo Donati, Juninho and Glenn Loovens will take their places as Celtic legends) and on the whims of managers (perhaps Tony Mowbray might have made a slightly erroneous buy or two - still, at least you didn't have to give him a massive payoff or anything).
It's not terribly rosy on the other side of Glasgow, either; I understand the turnover at Ibrox is now less than the TV money received by sides at the bottom of the English Premier League, and debts remain at £35 million despite the impressive cost-cutting of the last two seasons. How relieved I am to hear that enough loose change was found under the sofa in order to purchase James Beattie; I didn't realize that businesses in such huge arrears could still spend (I hardly think you can call a veteran such as Beattie an investment) £1.5m on new assets, but I'm obviously delighted that normal financial rules don't apply to you - though obviously it would be far preferable if you were allowed to, for example, splurge £12 million on a demotivated Norwegian centre-forward as you could a decade ago without fear of repercussion.
Of course, this rather disappointing state of affairs is completely due to the failures of the rest of us in the country - our lack of towns or cities that can support huge attendances and gate receipts, our inability to produce an endless conveyor belt of quality, yet cheap, footballers for you to purchase at knockdown prices, and our inexplicable failure to turn our modest budgets into playing squads capable of competing with you over a league season (though obviously we would also have to apologize if one of the other sides denied either of the Old Firm their divine right to Champions League proceeds). And, believe me, we are most sorry for the fact that we are mind-numbingly boring, what with the fact that you have to play all the diddy sides up to four times a season - obviously I assume you have tried on several occasions to come up with ideas to arrest this (though, curiously, I can't find any record of this in the press - but surely, as our
champions and protectors, you would have taken the lead in this rather than sitting around sulking, right?)
And of course, we should take into account that both sides have been moral guardians of our game for so long. Thank goodness we have never had a situation where fans of one of these clubs have caused drunken havoc or distruction whilst travelling for a major European final - otherwise we would be far less marketable. Equally, imagine if these two venerable clubs were associated with something like, say, racism, or perhaps sectarianism? It is hard enough to find sponsors as it is, during the times of the Credit Crunch, let alone if the sport was blighted in such a way. I shudder to think of the state we might be in but for the shining light of Rangers and Celtic.
So, in conclusion, I acknowledge completely that the current problems that both sides of the Old Firm face are not in any way due to financial mismanagement and over-spending from the two clubs, a complete lack of new ideas and initiative on their behalf to improve our national game, an absence of foresight regarding development of young players or remedies for potential future problems, or . They are entirely down to the other teams playing rubbish football, having a rubbish attitude, having rubbish attendances, and not coming up with any solutions by which Rangers and Celtic can become more wealthy. Oh, and Scotland being a bit of a crap country, apparently.
Because, obviously, if you yourselves were in any way to blame, you would acknowledge it, instead of tactlessly trying to deflect criticism onto everyone else. As you would agree, anyone behaving in that way should be told to stick it up their own backsides.
So, once again, I apologize for the way Scottish football is letting you guys down.
Regards,
L.
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