Yeah, I’ve said on here before that there are sometimes articles in the mainstream media and elsewhere where I genuinely cannot understand who the hell wants to read them or who the hell they are supposed to be for.

Well, today we’ve got another one of them.

And this one is about Mika Baur and the vast profit Celtic might make if they sell him.

The reports today say that clubs in the Premier League, Bundesliga and Serie A are already monitoring him, that Celtic could potentially command somewhere in the region of £12.5 million to £16.7 million, and that his value may rise further if his form continues. He only joined Celtic in the summer, is under contract until 2030 and has no release clause, so there is absolutely no pressure on the club to sell him.

And immediately I have the same question I always have when I read this kind of thing.

Who is this for?

Who, among the Celtic support, is supposed to read that and feel pleased?

Are we supposed to be excited that a player who has been here for five minutes, who already looks like one of the best footballers in the country and who might become a genuinely outstanding Celtic midfielder could make us a tidy profit if somebody comes calling?

Is that supposed to be the good news?

Because I don’t understand it.

I understand why other clubs are watching him. Of course they are. Anybody with eyes can see that Mika Baur is an exceptional young player with a very high ceiling.

What I don’t understand is why the exciting part of that story is apparently what we might sell him for.

He has barely got his feet under the table.

We haven’t even seen the best of him yet.

And already we’re talking about the exit price.

I mean, this might be a good one for the number crunchers. It might be a good one for those who think value is only represented by whatever transfer fee we can get for a footballer.

But the rest of us don’t want to read this shit.

The rest of us don’t want to sit around thinking about how much profit Celtic might make on a footballer we’ve only just bought and some of us already really like.

Baur is the guy you should be building a midfield around.

He is not an asset you should be polishing up for sale at the market.

And yes, I know this isn’t the club pushing this stuff. I’m not pretending it is.

But Celtic have conditioned the support to expect exactly this kind of thing.

Nobody would be terribly surprised if Baur was gone in the summer.

Nobody would be terribly surprised if Camilo Duran was gone in the summer either.

That is just how things work at Celtic.

We make no serious effort to keep our best players for as long as possible.

In fact, some players are brought to the club with the explicit understanding that if they perform well enough and a sufficiently attractive bid arrives, Celtic will move them on.

And that is one of the many ways in which this Board of Directors is absolutely lousy at selling Celtic as a progressive football destination with real ambition and intent.

Because what exactly is the sales pitch?

Come here.

Improve.

Win a few things.

Get noticed.

And then we’ll help you leave.

That might be a perfectly functional trading model.

It is not the same thing as building a serious football team.

And supporters are entitled to want more than a spreadsheet which tells us how much profit somebody might generate before we’ve even had the chance to enjoy watching him properly.

That’s why, as dispiriting as these reports are to read, they are not a shock.

And I don’t think this is simply because the media wants to make trouble. I used to think that was a bigger part of it than I do now.

The truth is that Celtic behaves this way. The club follows this basic transfer strategy, and when you give people in the media and elsewhere an open goal like that, of course they are going to put the ball in it. Of course they are going to find ways to weaponise it against you.

And I can’t really hold them accountable for that.

In their position, I would probably do the same.

Do I think Mika Baur is going to leave in January? No, of course not. Not even this Board is that ridiculous in its conduct.

Do I think he could leave in the summer?

Yeah. Absolutely.

Because that would just be so Celtic.

Over the last couple of years, the average length of time some of our new signings spend at the club before being moved on has seemed to get shorter and shorter. We are already at the point where 18 months barely feels surprising, and it isn’t much of a leap from there before a player gets one season, or even less, before somebody starts talking seriously about the exit.

And no matter what kind of profit Celtic made on Baur, I would find that embarrassing.

It would be another demonstration to the football world that we are not operating primarily as a serious sporting institution trying to build the strongest team possible. It would reinforce the impression that we see footballers first and foremost as saleable assets rather than sporting ones.

I’ve said this before, and I will keep saying it because I think it gets to the heart of the problem.

This is not a business supporting a football club, which is what it is supposed to be.

This is a football club supporting a business.

And those are two very different things.

Choose The CelticBlog as a Preferred Source on Google News