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HOW WIM HELD CELTIC TO RANSOM
Scotland on Sunday 25/04/1999
By Jock Brown
ON Thursday, June 19, 1997, an agreement was reached for me to take up the brand new post of Football General Manager of Celtic. The extent to which this appointment was to change my life should have been immediately apparent.
I asked Fergus McCann when he wanted me to start work since I was scheduled to go on holiday to the United States for two weeks. “I need you to start immediately,” he replied. “I want you to be in Cyprus tomorrow to meet a prospective new head coach.”
After the Cyrpus trip, I eventually linked up with Fergus to meet Wim Jansen at One Devonshire Gardens in Glasgow. Wim came over as a reserved, almost reticent man, but he had clearly served his time as a coach and his playing credentials were outstanding. He explained to us his time at Feyenoord and the background to his fall-outs with the head coach, Wim van Hanegem, and it was clear that he was a very focused and single-minded individual.
Two players, Henrik Larsson and Regi Blinker, were instantly targeted by Wim in the process of our new head coach assessing the existing staff to establish the areas which required strengthening. Fairly early in this process, I suppose, I should have been alerted to troubles ahead.
“You lied to me,” Wim told me one day.
“In what way?” I asked, not being aware of anything that could provoke such a comment.
“You told me we had a lot of good players at the club, but we don’t,” he replied.
“Yes, I did say that,” I replied, “and one or two international managers appear to agree with me. I also said that it was up to you to make the players into a team and that there would be substantial funds to strengthen the squad.”
I soon became convinced, round about December 1997, that Wim Jansen had no intention of staying longer than one season at Celtic. Why, otherwise, would he have shown such trifling interest in young players at the club? Why was he not communicating urgently his needs to eager young coaches at his disposal? And why was he showing such reluctance towards communication with members of staff and club officials?
The situation was difficult, again bearing in mind the glare of publicity and the absolute necessity of halting Rangers’ bid for 10 in a row. I took the decision to embark upon a policy of appeasement until the end of the season.
In the interests of winning the championship I was convinced I had to do everything possible to keep the head coach happy at virtually all costs until the final match was over. There was a growing impression in my mind that Wim would not be too troubled about the team’s failure as long as no blame for such failure was attributed to him.
I struggled to cope with the head coach’s response to a polite enquiry after a struggling 1-1 draw against Motherwell at Fir Park in January. That was a match in which Paul Lambert scored a spectacular long- range effort to earn a draw, this coming not long after his equally spectacular second goal against Rangers to win the Old Firm derby at New Year.
After the match at Motherwell, I asked Wim for his theory on why we found it so difficult to cope with a fighting team like Motherwell when they didn’t have the type of quality player wearing Celtic colours. “It is simply a lack of quality,” he said.
“When matches like that are very tight we simply don’t have the necessary quality to make the difference.”
I was amazed at my success in curbing my incredulity. What I was unable to refrain from asking him was the name of any player in the Motherwell team who he thought might improve our team on the basis that I would then attempt to buy him.
“Oh, no, there are none,” he said.
Our decent run was continuing and the media had backed off somewhat. I was able to enjoy what was obviously only the lull before the storm.
The lull ended at a point shortly afterwards when The Herald carried a story claiming that Wim and I were at odds and did not get on well. The story declared that Wim resented my ‘interference’ on football matters. Naturally there were no quotes from anyone and no source was identified. Clearly the correct thing to do in the interests of the club was to defuse that story by issuing appropriate statements, principally from Wim but also from me. But Wim did not want to say anything. He argued that he only ever gave press conferences pre-and post-match and could see no basis for departing from that policy.
I issued a statement indicating that when I had been involved in the process of identifying a suitable head coach for Celtic, I was not looking for someone who would be my best pal or someone who would be my companion for a pint after work in the evening.
Sure enough, at the first press conference attended by Wim later that week, the issue of our relationship was raised. I pushed the line about not looking for someone to have a pint with and Wim said as little as possible. However, he was pressed quite forcibly on the question of alleged interference on my part with his football responsibilities.
“Has there been any interference at all in footballing matters from Jock Brown?” he was asked.
“No,” he responded quietly. He certainly did not elaborate but he could not have been more unequivocal.
There was no comeback from those attending the conference. Yet several of those present on that occasion have continued to refer to my interference with team matters, ignoring Wim Jansen’s unequivocal denial.
While things had become more difficult between us, and the relationship was uneasy Wim was not interested in communicating and I had substantial difficulty with appeasement. However, there were pressing matters which required our joint attention, such as the recruitment of new players to improve the first team squad for the season ahead.
Accordingly, I arranged a meeting with Wim on the morning of 12 March, 1998, when the only item on the agenda was personnel for the following season.
Wim had already made it perfectly clear after the signing of Harald Brattbakk that he was content with his squad for that particular championship campaign and had no thoughts about bringing in new players. At our meeting I told him I was anxious to identify new players for next season, and to tie up contracts soon .
To do so I needed to make a detailed report to the board relating to Wim’s assessment of the playing squad and identification of potential new recruits. I told him that I needed a detailed appraisal of the current playing squad, along with identification of the areas of the team requiring improvement and, ideally, names of players he fancied.
“I am not interested,” he said. “I don’t work that way.”
I suggested gently to him that we would have to work that way in order to obtain budget approval from the board. “All I want to know is how much money I will have to spend,” he said.
“It’s not that simple,” I replied. “The board will not sanction a substantial sum of money for spending on players without receiving from you the information which I have outlined. I do believe, though, that if we present a good report I will be able to obtain for us their complete backing.”
“I am still not interested,” he said.
I knew at that moment that there was no possibility of him staying at the club. Nevertheless, I asked him to consider the matter carefully and told him the date of the next Board meeting at which our recruitment plans would be discussed. It was clear that I was wasting my time.
ON March 21, I was alerted that a story would appear the following day about a ‘get-out’ clause in Jansen’s contract and that he might not stay at the club after the end of the season.
Sure enough, the story was blasted all over the back page of a Sunday red-top the next day. It indicated that Jansen had a ‘get-out’ clause at the end of the season and may exercise this and leave the club. It also indicated that Murdo MacLeod was unhappy with his lot, in particular because he did not have a contract. The plot thickened.
I issued a statement in which I said that the details of Wim Jansen’s contract were confidential but that he had expressed no dissatisfaction to me at any time. I also indicated that I could not understand the reference to Murdo MacLeod because he had signed two contracts since arriving at Celtic, one as reserve-team coach and another as assistant head coach when he had been given that appointment with Wim. That obviously struck a nerve. Our relationship deteriorated further.
I was extremely concerned about the disruptive effect of allowing such inflammatory material to reach the public domain at a time when the club had a real chance of winning the title. At that point Wim astonished me. On the Monday evening it was brought to my attention that he had given an interview on the club hotline in which he confirmed the get-out clause and expressed his concern that the club had not approached him to take the contract into the following season. I was told he had given the interview on the understanding it would not be edited.
All my instincts are against censorship and I was once a member of the National Union of Journalists. But I knew that if the material was used on the hotline it would be all over the following day’s papers. Similarly, if the club blocked the material, it was inevitable that Wim would still issue the same information at the pre-match press conference on the following Friday since he had obviously made it clear that he wanted this information in the public domain. I decided to let the tape run.
The whole affair was sinister. Wim’s contract provided that from 1 April 1998 discussions would take place with a view to both parties agreeing to kick in the remainder of his contract, or otherwise. There was no justification for any discussions to have been contemplated by the time he allowed this information to reach the public domain. There had to be other reasons behind the sudden departure from his policy of giving only pre- and post-match conferences.
What was clear was that this was not in the club’s interests. However, it did set up a perfect excuse if the championship challenge failed. Wim could not lose. I could not win. Either he won the championship and became a hero, or he lost the championship and it was all my fault.
My choice was simple. I could try to look after my own position by attacking Wim and Murdo there and then while the championship race was uncertain, or I could continue my policy of appeasement in the overall interests of winning the title. There was really no choice to make. The title had to be won.
It had become clear to me, however, that my policy of appeasement had to go even further. It was important that I communicated with Wim as little as possible in order to avoid any kind of disruption or confrontation.
I did have to communicate with him, however, on one particular player issue. That related to Malky Mackay. A more decent, hardworking, committed professional it would be hard to find. His frustration was mounting because he had been excluded from all squads since September 1997 and it was clear to him that he was no longer featuring in Wim’s plans. I knew that to be the case and following discussions with Malky I asked the head coach if he would sanction a loan for the player for the remainder of the season.
I then became involved in substantial negotiations lasting the best part of a week, and it was agreed that he would go on loan to Huddersfield Town for the rest of the season. All the details were sorted out in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon and I sought to advise Wim of the progress made.
It was between 3.30 and 4.00 pm. He did not answer his phone at home so I called him on his mobile. He was shopping in the supermarket with his wife, he told me. I told him I had now concluded an agreement to allow Malky to go to Huddersfield Town, and Wim went berserk. “No, No, No!” he shouted. “I don’t want him to go.”
I explained to him that we had discussed this several days earlier and he had sanctioned the move, as long as he was going to a decent club. Huddersfield Town qualified.
He argued in a very agitated fashion that he did not want anyone to leave the club at this stage in the run-in to the championship and he certainly did not want Malky to go. “If you are selling him, that’s different,” he said. I eventually said that I needed him to tell me whether or not he would sanction Malky’s departure. “I don’t want him to go, but you do what you like,” he bellowed.
I telephoned Malky at home as he was packing his bag. He thought I was calling simply to wish him good luck but I then told him that Jansen would not sanction the move and in these circumstances I could not let it happen. The big fellow was shattered. My heart went out to him. “I was there when it was agreed that you could negotiate a loan for me,” he said.
Malky duly appeared for training the following morning and asked for a meeting with me and Wim. He was clearly very upset and angry but he conducted himself superbly. Wim tried to explain to him that he did not want anyone to leave the club pending the championship run-in, and while he could not answer Malky’s observation that he had not seen fit to use him since September the previous year and had sanctioned the move a week earlier, the head coach would not budge.
THE public portrayal of the get-out clause in Wim’s contract was that there had been a screw-up on the part of the club in allowing it to be in the contract in the first place, and implementing it in terms of the contract. That was not the case.
Wim had made it clear from the outset that he wanted a one-year contract. We had in turn made it perfectly clear to him that this was not satisfactory since we required continuity. It was on that basis that a compromise was reached regarding the wording of the contract, whereby the term was three years and provision was made for a break clause after the first year.
For Wim to be quoted on 23 March as saying that he was disappointed that no one from the club had made any approaches to him was inappropriate, bearing in mind the terms of the contract. However, his outburst on the club hotline on that Monday evening created a sea-change in his method of dealing with the media. The circus began immediately the hotline was broadcast. The following morning the tabloids blasted out their version of events. Wim was collared as he returned from training that Tuesday morning and actually made comments to various newspapers. This was something he had never done before.
By the Friday’s pre-match press conference, before a crucial match against Hearts, he made it clear that he would not discuss the matter until the title race was over. He gave no indication at all as to whether he wanted to stay or go.
At that point in the season there were seven league matches remaining and a cup semi-final was looming against Rangers. It was no coincidence that of those remaining eight competitive matches, only three were won. I will never again experience the emotions of our final league match against St Johnstone. As the second half unfolded, the tension grew. When Harald Brattbakk scored with panache and conviction from Jackie McNamara’s pass, there was a roar of relief and I was out of my seat. The championship won, I made my way down to the tunnel area, timing this with the arrival of Wim Jansen. I made towards him and said, “Congratulations, well done!” He did not acknowledge me and cast his eyes firmly at the floor and walked past towards the dressing-room. A handshake was out of the question.
For him to say later that I did not congratulate him was entirely out of order.