The will he won’t he saga continues as the bookies favourite (until Saturday that is), Roy Keane’s name is still doing the rounds as the man to fill Neil Lennon’s shows in the corridors of Celtic Park.
Over the weekend, Vital Celtic, reported news of an apparent board room split on the decision on whether or not to hire Keane as the permanent manager as prominent Celtic podcaster, A Celtic State of Mind, suggested that there are two camps on the board. Those is favour, and those not.
Podcast host, Paul John Dykes said of the split, “So I remember days before I mentioned on the podcast, sending it out (The Roy Keane rumour), and you came back to me and said, ‘Well somebody in our boardroom wants to test the water or wants Roy Keane blown out the water‘, which basically did happen.
“I mean if you were to do it in terms of a popularity vote, the vast majority of Celtic fans that I seen on the back of the podcast and on the back of the tweet where like ‘No chance I don’t want to go near it’.
Will Celtic regret letting Scott Brown go?
YES
NO
And he wasn’t half correct, at least regarding the fans. I have been canvassing the supporters since 9th March when the Keane news to Celtic really took off and after almost three weeks the poll results will be a devastating blow to the half of the boardroom that reckon Keane is their man.
After over 14,500 votes, 76% of fans taking part do not want Keane as the next permanent Celtic gaffer. That’s 11083 fans. Now of course I know the poll can be manipulated and the results can be skewed, but assuming we are on a Celtic site, talking Celtic issues, you can be pretty certain that this poll captures the feelings of the fans.
The boardroom, clearly, won’t take any notice of fan polls but they will sit up and realise that if all those fans decided not to purchase season tickets on the back of a Keane appointment, it could cost the club over £6.6m in lost sales. And lets imagine if the poll was hijacked by rival fans to make the Keane to Celtic results look more favourable, the damage will be even more significant.
So the message is clear, to me at least, the club cannot afford to dither any longer, they must get the new man in now. But they also cannot afford to take a gamble on a Keane project that half the board seem willing to do.
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