You and I have been discussing football finances here since 2004. In our early years Celtic lost several million pounds each year, CQN’s call was ‘we must breakeven over any business cycle’, an incredibly controversial view in those times of indulgent bling.
By 2004 Celtic hadn’t added a player who held down a sustained first team place for three years (since John Hartson in 2001). We also lost a talisman that summer. The pressure was on to spend, from the stands and the dug-out, but Brian Quinn, our chairman, had concerns about running at a permanent loss. In the face of considerable criticism from the bling-brigade he stood firm.
Celtic won three of the next four league titles while reaching new territory in the Champions League as others continued to spent beyond their means and exploit unconventional taxation policies, which ultimately saw them liquidated, but while the end game was predictable, most didn’t predict it. This resulted in strife at our club.
Finance was a focus of CQN in the early years when we produced granular analysis of accounts and budgetary forecasting. As we became less of a basket-case the time spent debating money reduced.
We can all talk about strikers and defending, policing and political influences, good corporate governance and the SFA, but if you scratch below the surface of those with many years of CQN behind them, I suspect you’ll find people who can’t resist a football club’s cost and revenue breakdown spreadsheet….
The document which appeared on the internet yesterday on a former football club [let’s call them ExCo] was a joy. To me, anyway. It provided many small details which add up to one or two enormous conclusions.
ExCo forecast current year spend for 2011-12 on cleaning costs to be £380k, electricity at £455k, insurance at £374k, postage and carriage at £146k, IT at £261k, professional fees at £613k and telephone costs at £149k. Stewarding was £593k, policing, £343k, match day ambulance, £89k. They spent £160k on finance salaries and £176 on press office salaries while ticket operation salaries cost £268k. The list is exhaustive, 10 pages of costs detailed.
Operating costs, before items like our old friend, amortisation, and tax (don’t laugh), were predicted to come in just shy of £37m, but the key message in all of this detail, is that if you want to operate a football club which can accommodate circa 40,000 spectators you need an infrastructure which costs around £20m.
The police, building maintenance, insurances, grass seed and everything else has to be budgeted for before you can look at player wages, not to mention transfer fees. £268k might sound like a lot to pay for ticket office staff but if you need to issue tens of thousands of tickets you need fulfilment staff. All those assets: enormous properties, thousands of fans, blanket media attention, can feel like liabilities to the guy with the responsibility to pay for them.
On reading this the overwhelming memory I had was of former Rangers director, Paul Murray, who a year ago told the world that Newco Rangers would not be viable, and he was hoping a Newco would have SPL football back then. New clubs cannot qualify in European competition until after they have completed three years trading (a minimum of four years without Europe).
With no European revenue for four years, Newco would be unable to pay all those ‘fixed’ costs and put a competitive team on the field. A big club can’t survive trapped in a small league with no European revenue.
This is reality. Scotland has one healthy large club and has a dozen or more potentially healthy small ones, but nothing will ever be the same again.
Thanks to everyone who has bought Willie Wallace autobiography. Orders in from Belfast, Blackpool, Bonnybridge, Burntisland and Blackrock. If you order now you will receive a copy signed by the man himself….
Email me if you have an article for CQN Magazine inside of you waiting to get out; celticquicknews@gmail.com.
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voguepunter
14:17 on 17 May, 2013Aternoon,evening and morning all.MickTT,good to see you back….hope you’re not looking for cup final ticket :0)ghuys is the gemme oan the telly Sunday?
Scrolling back here and no got to the end yet
I did say to the wee chap, does this get me a ticket for the cup final…… panic on face..we laughed…
Eh naw… I deserve…one… I do….
HH
BMCUWP
I didn’t get a bowl bag… from Grieves
And I thought about doing the bawbag bit..but then thought better of it..lol
Oh morning…
Ayrshire is green and white, but wet.. bowling at 10:15… waterproofs on, and throat very wet….!
HH
…pfayr – not so sure Whyte is in the driving seat. Ticketus chasing him for £18m (ish) and no sign of him getting his hands on the assets to pay them off, at least not for years.
He seems to be intent on bringing the whole thing down making sure no-one else benefits from his rightful bounty. To be honest, it’s brilliant.
Some of the photoshopping on KDS Sevco page is magnificent by the way.
As Charlotte drops even more incriminating evidence into the public domain, the media the SFA and the orc support agree on a strategy via a single company:
http://Www.headsinthesand.ie
ASonOfDan @ 08:02,
Well if Paul67 can state “CQN’s call was ‘we must breakeven over any business cycle’, an incredibly controversial view in those times of indulgent bling……. As we became less of a basket-case the time spent debating money reduced.
And the best the mineshafters can come back with is the Willo Window, all the while we see the carnage going on with our profligate nieghbours, the debate is surely over.
Hail! Hail!
Tomtheleedstim
I didn’t mean to suggest CW is in the driving seat
What I was alluding to was that with his secret recordings, leaked docs etc …..he appears to have been much sharper than those who have tried to stiff him
corkcelt
16:41 on 17 May, 2013I think the Celtic Chorus Group will need to get themselves kettled and be the subject of FOCUS harrassment to establish a bit of street cred. Hopefully they don’t have too many falsettos in their ranks as I’m finding it increasingly difficult to match the high notes in any singalong. On a more serious note one would have to assume that there must be at least a hundred in this choir if they are attempting to get a few songs going. It seems strange that noone yet on here seems to know anything about them, how they were put together and how they will be put sitting together in CP. If they are starting life at an away game, will they not be in close proximity to Green Brigade.
At least a hundred to start a song…no in the jungle.. one loud voice would start it off..great days
Pf
The Charlotte info is dynamite, why are the MSM reluctant to run this (historic allegiances aside) is there a levenson concern?
Sevco and their fans have a fool proof strategy to make sure none of this causes any damage. Don’t you all know that they are just going to wait and see how it all pans out.
Che
Perhaps…depends on the source of the documents/ tapes…hardly phone tapping …and it’s exposing deceit and falsehood
Or…a pecuniary concern
If sevco go bust …they’re ruined …Tims don’t buy their rags ..MSM in Scotland are immersed in operation save the Hun …and most in the wider uk are scarcely interested
Che – I must read up on Levenson. It could well be part of the lack of reportage – hence the silence of the usual suspects?? I suspect the old maxim ‘never waste a crisis’ has been put in place by the wealthy elites who run things when one of their own was getting grilled over press abuses – they step in and make sure the rest of their own are protected by the outcome of the inquiry.
Aff tae the barbers fur me……………
Hail Hail
The Comfortable Collective
08:30 on 18 May, 2013
Sevco and their fans have a fool proof strategy to make sure none of this causes any damage. Don’t you all know that they are just going to wait and see how it all pans out.
======================================
If they wait long enough at least one new club started on their behalf is bound to work out OK
A thousand monkeys, a thousand typewriters – eventually the law of averages suggests it’ll happen – genius plan isn’t it?
Not much get up and go in Sevconians. More like they didn’t get up and their gone. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Brogan Rogan Trevino and Hogan supports Kano 1000
07:55 on
18 May, 2013
Could this be coming to a cinema near you?????
http://m.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-peter-mullans-paradise-creates-524592
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Love it!
Daniel Day-Lewis as Brother Walfrid?! Another Oscar for best actor I would suggest!
…and one for best film, best screenplay, best director, best musical score…..
HH!!
Pf/rt
Cheers, think there must be something to have held back the C4 guy in particular, but your right the usual front runners have been decidedly quiet
Thus far…
Morning all….
Pfayr
I don’t buy into the theory that Tims don’t buy/read the papers.
Sadly most Celtic supporters I know still purchase them regularly. Their information is supplemented by blogs such as CQN but many are still reliant on rags from the poor end of the market.
When is the fiver-tenner man going to be dragged out of his castle and be answerable to the frankenstein monster he created?
Pitchforks at the ready when the huns get their blindfolds off and realise…who realy
caused their downfall!!!
HT
You need to widen yer circles of pals :-))
A son of dan
More interested in us having top class players in our team so that we can beat the likes of Ross county away at least once, than worrying about a new lower division club
Woolover eyes csc
Hamiltontim
08:39 on 18 May, 2013
‘Morning all….
Pfayr
I don’t buy into the theory that Tims don’t buy/read the papers.’
Agreed.
The blogosphere tends to overestimate its own influence amongst the rank and file.
Pfayr
I tried but the new ones just read from the upper end of the rag market ;-)
Sipsini
If he gets hauled up in court for it …sdm doesnt have a leg to stand on
Coat on… aff oot ;)
asonofdan
08:02 on 18 May, 2013
‘Cup half full’ hasn’t permeated some regions yet….LOL…… How any Celtic fan can find negativity in these halseon days is beyond me…..
HT
“I don’t buy into”
You could’ve got away with leaving out the 4th word.
67
At the risk of being a negative pedant … Halcyon days ;)
Tbj.
You’re humour has no limits…funny though:-)
Che,
I think the MSMedia are reluctant to credit the internet as a source of material.
The MSM has been behind the blogosphere on every aspect of this story. RTC was completely ignored (even after he won the Orwell Prize), and it was only when the writing was on the wall that the DR lifted RTC’s information and published it as an “exclusive” – 2 weeks before administration.
There may be concerns about authentication – after all, who is CharlotteFakes?- but there is plenty here to allow the MSM to start asking questions of RIFC and the SFA.
They can always couch their copy in terms like “documents appearing to suggest… widely circulated on the internet…” etc etc.
There is also their reluctance to damage RIFC, which publication of these documents would undoubtedly do. The MSM have, as ever, a pro-Rangers bias, and if they can get away with ignoring these devastating leaks, they will.
Che
I do not into ….!!!!
Easy jinky. A lot of fans actually believe this Peter lawell ( Paul 67) mince. That we have a amazing team
Oh we’ll let’s hope for an away win tomorrow Not been many recently. Shhhh. Not allowed to say that here on Pravda
Sipsini
No no … no no no no .. no no no no .. no no theres no limits
Or
No no .. no no no no … no no no no … no no theres no rangers ;)
Btw … listening to the cw / cg tape … the word sevco must cut very deep into the zombie flesh. It is like hun kryptonite
Che
I thought you’d be on the previous article picking a 3 legged donkey that is destined to fall at the first in the 3:30 at Kempton Park.
Italia
Indeed but for how much longer?
Surely there comes a time when the story, the possible criminality becomes even too big for them to hide it behind self interest?
HT
Its in the planning….
Sydney
I doubt any real sensible jungle jims think we have an amazing team.
But …. cast your mind back to the souness / smith / murray days.
Could anyone have predicted these days of disaster for them and relative success for us
The whole company / club argument highlights the need for a healthy company
Che
I think I stated in the wee sma hoors ( half asleep) … its like the jurno who broke the swalex story last week.. you get the info… its decision time… stick or twist
soundcloud doesn’t play in my Android and the documents won’t open large enough to read either – poor show
might need to blow the dust off the old desktop pc to see what’s going on here
has some clever soul created a directory of links to Charlottes dynamite
che… pressure will build. I suspect Cosgrove or AT might be the first to seriously address it.
unless someone at Ibrox wants it discussed first
It makes you wonder do the MSM really help Rangers?
If you had a friend, whose lifestyle was taking him downhill rapidly, and you pretended to his pals and family that there was nothing wrong, what sort of friend would you be?
Lenny/Lemmy ? Still should be enough to win the Spl.
And get on the good side of the Nolans..
Il pleut trop fort in ole Shangri la ce matin; not a great day for excellent cancer mouldy to be on his bike.
And the scrofulous Scottish defence league are in Dumfries today, to give him a warm welcome.