"But Celtic are different"

Why do our board and major shareholder believe a Celtic exceptionalism justifies no Director of Football?

But Celtic are different.

We got there! The transfer window is complete, we signed a host of of internationalists and filled some key positions. It was fraught, but we got there. Fantastic that we got players in and with the team already motoring these will be welcome additions for the Champions League games ahead but after squeezing through so tightly, any business should be reviewing and asking - could we have done it better? Do we have the right structures and the right people doing the right jobs for this key task? My answer would be no…until we have a Sporting Director/Director of football. So why don’t we? Celtic are different.

It's a phrase you will hear regularly if you engage with senior executives at Celtic. If you start to discuss and compare with other elite European clubs, you'll be told that “Ahhh, but Celtic are different". When you compare a player trading model with other clubs across Europe of a similar size and how our return in investment (despite recent sales of Matt O'Riley, Jota, et cetera) is poorer than our European peers, you'll be told that “Celtic are different”.

“Celtic are different” in this scenario because we operate in Scotland and Scotland is at the northern, arse end of Europe. It's cold and its wet and the league's not exciting. Yes, “Celtic are different”.