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Despite Celtic’s early exit from Europe in his first season, Nakamura brought some wonderful footballing ability to Celtic. In doing so Celtic pronounced their intention to exploit Nakamura’s standing as a Japanese footballer with the launch of a Japanese version of the Celtic website. Peter Lawwell had previously informed the north American markets that Celtic were a ‘franchised story’. This franchised story was now going to be exported to the far East via the website.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The site carried news stories and lots of updates about Nakamura at Celtic. At the time the Tokyo CSC commented on its launch and citing hundreds of registrations to the new site. Coupled with this Skyperfectv announced coverage of SPL games with the obvious emphasis on Nakamura.<\/p>\n
Nakamura provided 4 years of service to Celtic and many sublime moments in both the SPL and Europe. During those 4 years Celtic had more than enough opportunities to develop partnerships and links in the far East on the back of Nakamura’s name. Presumably the original plan was to gradually elevate Celtic’s name so that a new group of fans could continue to follow Celtic beyond Nakamura’s time at the club.\u00a0Clinking on the following link demonstrates where Celtic ended up following Nakamura’s departure.\u00a0<\/p>\n
www.celticfc.jp\/<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n Clearly this is a redundant link which more than demonstrates an inability to develop the opportunity which Celtic claimed existed. Indeed, no sooner had Nakamura departed Celtic, \u00a0Skyperfectv announced their plans to no longer show SPL football in Japan. Surely though, before this occurred, Celtic should have been diligently building links to these supposed new markets? Or perhaps they just weren’t there?<\/p>\n Nevertheless Peter Lawwell made specific reference to the Japanese market in the 2006 Annual Report and signalled that it would be ‘an important focus of attention for 2006\/07’. By the time the 2007 Report was published it contained just a passing reference to Japan lost among the seemingly scattergun sponsorship portfolio which ranged from a Polish airline through to some dodgy property village in Spain. Moving on to 2008 the Annual Report contained a wonderful cover picture of Nakamura celebrating one of his trademark free kicks. However flicking the pages the Japanese market spin had all but dried up.\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite the apparent lack of tangible outputs the club announced through that publication that it was seeking to appoint a Director of International Development, the first job of its kind in British football.<\/p>\n Jason Hughes was appointed to the job in July 2008. He outlined his role at the time citing the need to build on where Celtic were strongest which he claimed as being North America and the Far East. Hughes went further in saying, “The first thing I’m looking to do is draw up a business plan: What works for Celtic and could it work even better? How do we spread the brand further using, for example, new media and other tools?<\/p>\n “We hope to develop existing relationships, create new ones and build circle of relationships that is good for the supporters, our partners and, ultimately, the team.<\/p>\n “We hope to engage existing passions. I’m not so sure we’re competing with clubs such as Man United and Barcelona in reaching out to new corners of the world.<\/p>\n “It’s a good thing others are also in the market because we can develop an even better understanding of what works.<\/p>\n “I’ve a clear vision from speaking with Peter about what the club is trying to achieve and we share the same goals for Celtic.<\/p>\n “This is the right strategy to follow and we’re looking to put the flesh on the bones of our initial dialogue.” \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n You would have thought with such enthusiasm and intention that the objectives of an international development business plan would have figured prominently in the 2009 Annual Report. Nothing of the sort was to be found in that document and the club’s inactions speak far louder than the declining trumpets accompanying the supposed new global markets..<\/p>\n In similar fashion to the Japanese website Celtic developed Chinese and Korean versions of their website on the back of the signings of Ki Sung-Yueng and Zheng Zhi. Celtic again clearly thought that there were new markets here in which commercial benefits would accrue for the club. Zheng Zhi’s arrival was not the first Chinese player. Du Wei had arrived in the same season as Nakamura with a wave of interest and lots of talk about commercial opportunities back in his homeland.<\/p>\n Of course the Du Wei deal was dressed up as a long term contract but in reality it was an extended trial which came to an abrupt halt after an excuciating 45 minute debut for the player in the cup defeat to Clyde. Du Wei’s bags were packed days later and thankfully for him he has gone on to have a decent career back in China. his short stay and disastrous ending were highly unlikely to turn Chinese commercial heads Celtic’s way.<\/p>\n Perhaps Celtic thought the arrival of Zheng Zhi would herald a greater opportunity to focus on one of the world’s largest markets. Unfortunately another click on the Chinese version of the Celtic website and we see that the last news story covered there is Zheng Zhi’s signing.\u00a0<\/p>\n