My expectation of a year-end bank balance that was over £80m was quashed, largely due to spending on the redevelopment of the Barrowfield training complex, an item which will hit again this year. We did, however, reach new heights of £77.2m, up £5m on 2023.
That aside, the eye-catching item in Celtic’s preliminary accounts to the year ending 30 June 2024, is that operating expenses (before player trading and exceptional items), was £17m more than our income was two years ago.
What does that mean? We don’t have the breakdown yet, this will come with the audited accounts, but we are spending £105m on wages for Brendan and Callum, a few hundred others, and in running the village which is Celtic Park.
All of that cash won another treble, it earned Champions League qualification, which begets more money, it platformed Matt O’Riley, who earned us yet more money in signing for Brighton (in this financial year).
By any measure, this is a virtuous circle. But spending £17m on operational costs more than you earned two years earlier is a significant risk. You and I both know what happens when the music stops, and a football club has multi-year player contracts to fulfil.
We were in a position to take this gamble because of the bank balance and the way we have been managed over so many years. We can cope with a hit to income without spiralling into vicious circle.
My get feeling on this, is that £105m operational expenses is higher than is comfortable. Operationally, we need to get so many things right to get over the line while running so hot.
This is the realpolitik of long-term sustainable success in football across the world. You can sign a great player, like Matt O’Riley, and lose him for the season, six minutes into his debut, or Ross County can come from behind and beat you 3-2, to dismantle your commercial viability.
We pay people to worry about this and to get it right. On this measure, we are the example others across the world aspire to.
An early exit from the League Cup contributed to a £1.5 drop in football and stadium income. Merchandising managed to add £1m, despite the drop-off in sales of Ange jumpers. The big bump came from multimedia and commercial activities, up £5m to £44.5m.
Much of that over the last two seasons has been Champions League money. However, it has been said before but is worth restating, our commercial team consistently bring in money our competitors fail to match. Deal with Adidas and Dafabet, as well as handful of other sponsorships, underpin Celtic’s ability to plan with certainty.
Football income can vary from season to season, but the commercial deals allow us to make medium-term decisions. Last week Adrian Filby, our commercial director, who has been responsible for the commercial and merchandising income streams since 2008, left to take up a similar role at Aston Villa.
The good thing about commercial deals is that their cyclical nature allows time to bed in new heads. Still, a lot of experience left the building last week. Newco’s James Bisgrove signed their Sydney Tournament contract for a fraction of what Celtic’s Adrian Filby held out for. The millions of pounds difference in those contracts is the value of experience.
Chief executive, Michael Nicholson, noted, “There is no room for complacency. We cannot stand still and we are determined to improve. In support of our strategic objectives of dominating domestic football and competing in the Champions League”.
Yesterday we noted that Dave King was talking about Newco dominating Scottish football. One man’s fantasy is another’s every-day reality.
Chairman Peter Lawwell reminded us that at the turn of the millennium, Celtic had won 80 major trophies in 112 years, and that we have since added 38 in 24 years. Peter didn’t use the word “dominate” in describing Celtic this century, but there can be no better description. This is Celtic’s century, we operate at an exceptional level, enjoy it!
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Hello Celts! 🇮🇪🍀
And now to read the article. 😂👍
Those figures for a club in our environment are stunning to be honest.
I reckon the biggest measure of how we all rate PL, would be to ask fellow Tims if we’d be ok with him taking up the CEO position at the Huns.
I for one would not be pleased to see someone of his calibre take up a position like that with them.
Let the Dave King’s and Charles Green’s of this world continue to blow smoke up the ars@@ of the rotten mob.
They still don’t realise the damage David Murray did to them all mentally with his moonbeams and spending what they could not afford. Not just the liquidation of their club.
Fancy us to get off to a storming CL start tomorrow with a 3-1 win. Early goal and crowd right up for it, should help do the trick.
😃🍀🇮🇪🏆⚽️🇮🇪🍀
Gas. In any other industry those figures would be celebrated.
And yet…………….
Thanks Paul67, interesting thoughts about operating costs, particularly with the increased wage bill after the Summer transfer window
I think it shows where we are that a profit of 13m doesn’t even get a mention these days.
We’re a well-oiled machine on and off the park
When I saw a sum set aside last season as a contingency against failing to qualify for CL I thought that a potential strategy game changer going forward.
It removed fear of the consequences of failing , like having to sell players, and holding off signings until qualification secured and doing so without due diligence.
I think the signs are the strategy has been tweaked for this season.
Onwards and upwards.
I was happy to see our profit down this year – writing out ten million pound cheques to HMRC to pay for corporation tax made little sense to me.
Invest the cash, grow and put money aside.
Good afternoon all.
What larks Paul67
– what larks
AN DÚN on 17TH SEPTEMBER 2024 12:22 PM
Last year we booked the profit on Jotas transfer on the last day of the year. I think we’d struggle to find something to spend it on in 24 hours
Does anyone happen to know what our profit/loss (before taxation) has been across each of the last three years?
There is noway on earth that Peter Lawwell would ever consider the job at Sevco. No way
He is got a job as chairman at Celtic and director at ECA. Even if he didn’t have these positions he wouldn’t consider it.
The accounts show a business performing well and this is being reflected on the pitch with new signings doing well and merging in to the team. Who would have thought our goalscorers on Saturday would be Arne and Luke. Paddy Power will be still counting his winnings.
Peter Lawwell of Rangers doesn’t sound as good as Peter Lawwell of. Celtic
Around 64m
In total
6, 40 and 17 by year
A generation of Dominance and yet a faction had pitch forks at the ready a few short weeks ago. You Dont know what you have got until you loose it .
Truding away from Hampden having watched Brian mcLaughlin swing one over for Willie Falconer to get on the end of to fescue a point against Motherwell, seems a very very long time ago
BIGBHOY on 17TH SEPTEMBER 2024 12:42 PM
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Not my point really.
Was asking fellow Tims if they’d be happy if he took in a major role at the club across the city?
I know I wouldn’t be chuffed. Not due to him being at the Huns, but the job he’d do for them.
Yes Paul, “Long-term sustainable success”, that’s what we’ve built domestically since the start of the century. Now with our strong financials, strengthened squad, top manager and entry into the revamped CL, we can kick-on and build some European success in this more amenable format.
We are making important infrastructure improvements however major changes to the main stand will not be happening any time soon. The money required would put our whole operation under financial stress which is something we have striven successfully to eliminate. Maybe in future, in a different and more lucrative environment it will happen.
Bigbhoy,
I think Melvin U was saying you wouldn’t get many Celtic fans saying they’d be happy if PL went to Rangers, which is a sign of how competent they think he is.
Whether they like him at Celtic may be a different story but I think most would realise how much better he has been than any of the Huns head honchos
Aye, what Melvin said 😅
Not really connected to the article but I heard a football manager recently saying that managers are nowadays often paid their contract upfront.
The thinking is that it removes the “can we afford to sack him” question if things are going poorly.
CELTIC40ME on 17TH SEPTEMBER 2024 12:36 PM
AN DÚN on 17TH SEPTEMBER 2024 12:22 PM
Last year we booked the profit on Jotas transfer on the last day of the year. I think we’d struggle to find something to spend it on in 24 hours
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Yes, I agree, Jota’s transfer makes it more bizarre – we chose to account for the Jota money in that financial year to boost our year ends and pay more tax.
Regards profit. Because of the way you account for players and their wages,and other capital expenditure it’s almost impossible to reduce your profit at the end of the financial year. But you can increase it.
Incoming players transfer fees are expensed over the course of their contract, so if we sign someone on the last day of the window the accounts for that year will only show 1/365th of a quarter of the value of the transfer fee. It might be that agents fees, that we’re starting to hear more about, and was referenced by PL in his statement, could be included in one hit. Maybe not
But if you sell a Jota on the last day of the window all the profit goes into that years accounts.
To reduce profit by, say 20m you would need to sign players with a total value (transfer fee and total wage package over 4 years) of four times that at the start of the financial year, the previous summer window. You’d still have to include that 20m in your accounts for the next three years as well
So you have to anticipate the profit, and commit the club to spending that extra amount over 4 years, not just one. Last summer it would have been very difficult last summer to anticipate that we would sell Matt O’Riley this summer for 25m profit., for example.
Better to do your work, make the profit when you do and pay your tax
MAJESTIC HARTSON on 17TH SEPTEMBER 2024 12:55 PM
Aye, what Melvin said 😅
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😂👍 Think you put it across better than I did though.
AN DÚN on 17TH SEPTEMBER 2024 1:07 PM
I think the middle aged accountants behind the screens know what they’re doing.
Excellent results. Just goes to show how pointless and irrelevant it is to measure ourselves against a basket-case.
AN DÚN on 17TH SEPTEMBER 2024 1:07 PM
If we’d booked it last year instead of the year before we’d just have paid tax on it last year and you’d have been complaining about it now instead of then
https://x.com/CelticFC/status/1675969159358717953?lang=en
We sold Jota in July but decided to account for it in June. We decided to boost the profit and pay the tax. Bizzare.
CELTIC40ME
We’d have had a year to invest it in the club – not one day.
AN DÚN on 17TH SEPTEMBER 2024 1:21 PM
Thats not how accounting works
We would have to pay the tax on the book profit for Jota regardless of when it was booked. We make 40m profit in 2023 and 13 in 2024 or 25m and 28m. The profit is the same over two years and so is the tax payable
You’d be moaning now not last year
GlassTwoThirdsFull on 17th September 2024 1:12 pm
Excellent results. Just goes to show how pointless and irrelevant it is to measure ourselves against a basket-case.
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Yes I agree and a point well made, but – and of course there is always a but – the Ibrox club is our only serious contender in Scotland regardless of the missteps it continues to make, therefore whilst we don’t “measure ourselves against” it, we must always be aware of where it is and what it is doing – let’s hope that view continues to be in our rear-view mirror.
Where were you the night Celtic played Slovan Bratislava?
You might recall other more important world events, JFK was shot just months before, meanwhile in Parkhead the enclosure was a dearer standing area, no idea why, probably because it was nearer the main stand and the brick tunnel, not that it mattered when you got a lift over. Once a bhoy always a bhoy and Celtic by floodlight was a technicolour dream, but only in the first leg, as Bratislava didn’t have any, so it was a day time kick off. Not sure if there was even an airport as according to Celtic wiki – the Celtic team flew into Vienna and drove the rest of the way.
This was 1964 near the end of the Jimmy McGrory days and the Celtic line up was a familiar sight and song, 🎵 Fallon Young and Gemmell Clark McNeil and Kennedy Johnstone Murdoch Chalmers Divers Hughes 🎵and 60,000 Celtic fans proudly sang the news. Bobby Murdoch, Rutherglen’s finest son, and a Celtic product as were they all, scored the only goal a penalty and Jock Stein’s shadow loomed large as he was soon to weave his magic.
Simpson, Craig, Wallace, Auld and Lennox and the Lisbon Lions were in Parkhead already halfway there, when the beat the Czechs. Who would believe that, sixty years later, Callum MacGregor with Celts from all around the world, might be onto the start of something good.
🎵Scheimchel Johnston Taylor CCV Scales MacGregor Engels Hatate Kuhn Kyogo Maeda 🎵
There will be no dancing in the streets of Slovan.
CELTIC40ME
I’m not disputing the fact we pay tax every year on profit.
I’m making the point that when you invest year in then that profit falls and the tax on it falls.
We could have invested the Jota money over the course of a year and not pay 20% on 40 million profits – as we chose to do last year.
TRAGIC …
A young Celtic fan has been tragically killed in an English motorway horror after he boarded the wrong bus following the Hoops’ clash with Hearts.
It’s understood that John Burns was the pedestrian that was hit on the M6 near Carlisle in a fatal collision on Saturday evening, September 14. He was reportedly dropped off in the town after boarding the wrong bus.
John Burns was almost 23 years of age and he had attended the Celtic v Hearts game on Saturday.
His family ( NO Mention of where John and his family are from ?) have asked Celtic to have a Minutes applause for John during the Slovan Bratislavia game on the 23rd Minute.
Apparently John had NO Money on him and his Mobile was switched Off when he was found ?
Its strange that this young Bhoy had no money on him and as to how he managed to get on the wrong Supporters Bus at Celtic Park ? Why NO ONE was with John is also a bit strange ?
JOHN BURNS R.I.P.
This is what happens when you let failed bean counters run a massive football club.
Brother Walfrid must be spinning in his grave
John Burns R.I.P.
Just listening to Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks live at the Hollywood bowl.
It sounds like a Scottish boy introducing him to the stage. Anyone any idea who it is?
I’m listening on Spotify so can’t look at the sleeve notes 🤷
John Burns R.I.P.
Far too young.
CORRECTION…
I think JOHN BURNS Family are hoping that the Supporters who will attend tomorrows Champions League match against Slovan Bratislavia will have a minutes applause on the 23rd minute in honour of young John ?
I am unsure as to whether the Burns Family will have to ask Celtics permission ?
There is a FUND raiser for the Burns family ONLINE, but I have NO IDEA of how secure it is, so I will NOT be Posting the LINK on here.
JOHN BURNS R.I.P. taken so young.