Events between Seasons 1999/00 and 2000/01

The following events were taken from newspapers reports from the period between the end the 1999-2000 season to the first Pre-Season game of 2000-2001.

• After making his recovery from the leg break in the last game of 1999-00 season, on 27/5/99 Henrik Larsson was named in the Sweden squad for the European Championship in June to be co-hosted in Belgium and the Netherlands.

• Also on the 27th May, 2000 the news broke that Martin O’Neill was to be announced as the new Head Coach. This had to be confirmed and O’Neill had yet to extract himself for a contract with Leicester City which still had three years to run but O’Neill was now definetly the front runner for the job but would probably cost more than Hiddink because of the compensation package to Leicester City. O’Neill himself confirmed that he wanted to take the job on the 29th. This had to be seen as a major coup for Dermot Desmond who had not been happy with the first plan to appoint Guus Hiddink and had been seeking to appoint someone of his own choice. It unfolded that the principal shareholder had first approached O’Neill before the English League Cup Final in February, 2000 when O'Neill had declined the approach. When Desmond objected to Hiddink at the Board Selections Committee meeting, he had gone back to find O’Neill now eager to take the job. Allan MacDonald and Jim Hone had both spoken to him and the Selections Committee had rubber-stamped DD’s choice. Leicester City , however, did not allow their cup-winning manager to walk away lightly and both parties were locked in talk for the best part of three days. On the 1st July Martin O’Neill flew to Glasgow and was presented to the Press and public as the new manager. He was given a 3 year contract and said on appointment, "I haven't spoken to Kenny and I actually only signed my contract just over 15 minutes ago, but I have been given carte blanche by the board to see what has to be done at this club and to make decisions. After all, it's my neck that's on the block and I want to be the football manager, totally in charge of all aspects of it. Maybe it's because I'm older, but I prefer to be a manager rather than a head coach – that doesn't suit me somehow – I want to do the all-embracing job, looking after everything that affects the club."

• The probable appointment of O’Neill made Kenny Dalglish’s position unstable. Martin O’Neill would more than likely want complete control of the footballing operation and his own team in place and would not be likely to want Dalglish in a position above him. Dalglish was on a golfing holiday at the time of O’Neill’s appointment but from his point of view he believed that he would revert back to his position as Director of Football Operations. With statements from O’Neill it looked likely that Kenny Dalglish would be asked to leave and would be looking at a severance payment of between £7-800,000. He was offered the position of Head of Youth but turned this down in a meeting between all the parties on 29/6/00. Having failed to reach an agreement on position or pay-off (he is thought to have been offered £300,000) at this meeting Dalglish was sacked by the club. He chose to sue the club for wrongful dismissal. The club issued a terse statement;

"The board of directors of Celtic plc today announced the contract of Kenny Dalglish, director of football operations, has been terminated."

• Kenny Dalgish said, "Obviously Kenny Dalglish has to look after Kenny Dalglish, and Kenny Dalglish will be trying his very best to be looking after himself with this issue. But that is not to create any problems for Martin O'Neill and the players, because it is most important that they get themselves off to a good start." Despite his intention to pursue legal proceedings, he denied being bitter saying, "I would find it very difficult to have any bad feeling towards Celtic Football Club."

• Tommy Burns position was also unstable, however as Assistant Head Coach to Dalglish during the interim period he had been offered and accepted only a contract to August and could be released without the financial implications associated with Dalglish’ contract. Due to his committment to the BBC coverage of the European Championship O’Neill was not prepared to rush any decision on Tommy Burns.

• Just prior to Martin O’Neill’s presentation to the press and public Frank O’Callaghan, the non-executive chairman, resigned and Brian Quinn was appointed in his place as non-executive chairman to the plc. His reason for resigning was given as ‘personal reasons’.

• Having signed his contract Martin O’Neill stated that he would be bringing in John Robertson as Assistant Manager and Steve Walford as first team Coach. Leicester City accepted a figure of £1.25million in compensation for their manager. The figures for Robertson and Walford had to be set and leicester still hoped to persuade either or both to stay.

• Viduka and his agents, meanwhile, had been manipulating his position for the best move he could make away from the club. On 31st May Fiorentina dropped their interest in the Australian. Martin O’Neill stated that he wanted Viduka to stay but that there was a £7.5million pound sell on agreement that the player could move for that fee in the closed season. On 21/6 it looked as though Viduka had ruled out a move to Leeds Utd and was angling for a move to Italy or Spain, however on the 26/6 Peter Ridsdale, the Leeds Utd chairman announced that they had paid £7.00mill for the player and that all Viduka had to do was pass the medical and sign the contract.

• Speculation on other players movements was also rife with frontmost being Lubo Moravcik, Alan Stubbs (wanted by Sunderland and Aston Villa), Vidar Riseth (Sunderland) and Eyal Berkovic.

• On 14/6/00 Rangers signed a £31million media partnership deal with NTL. Celtic held off as they felt that the deal was too low and failed to represent the world-wide multi-media appeal of Celtic. There was also the feeling within Celtic Park of being railroaded into the deal by Rangers. The deal was held open to the end of the year. NTL were already shirt sponsors of both Celtic and Rangers.

• On 19/6/00 Celtic were said to be working towards signing Chris Sutton. Sutton had been in negotiations to move to Middlesbrough, but these were put on hold to find the terms Celtic were offering. Sutton appeared quite suddenly at the ground for a tour to the surprise of everyone. A fee of £6.00 million had been agreed with Chelsea – a Scottish record. The move for Sutton would also freed up Viduka to get his angled-for move to the English Premiership. Sutton though took a long time to make up his mind. Middlesbrough eventually losing interest leaving the field open for Celtic.

• Also being lined up for a move was Ipswich goalkeeper Richard Wright. Martin O’Neill knew him from his time in East Anglia and was trying to persuade him to move to Celtic. The club were also linked to :- Bart Goor, Darren Huckerby, Harry Kewell, Eidur Gudjohnsen,

• The players (bar Riseth, Mjallby, Larsson and Tebilly who were engaged in the European Championships) returned to start pre-season training on the 29th June. Pre-season training was taken by Tommy Burns but started with a rousing team talk by Martin O’Neill which he addressed to all the players that were not involved in the European Championships and asked them to identify why they had underperformed the previous season.

• The first sign of benefit from Martin O’Neill’s work with the BBC for Euro 2000 was the approach for Belgian defender Joos Valgaeren. Celtic were linked to him from 4th July. His Dutch club Roda JC were in no hurry to offload him and opened the bidding at £6million with Manchester City and Sunderland also interested. Alan Thompson of Aston Villa was also being associated with the club.

• Away from signing ex-Celts Gerry Creaney and Joe Miller both signed on for pre-season with Raith Rovers; the case against Frank McAvennie for conspiring to supply ecstasy and amphetamines and possessing cocaine started at Newcastle Crown Court.

Arrivals

Soon to Arrive:

Departures:

Soon to depart – Those that would leave after the start of the season proper