Celtic are about to embark on their fourth season as the last remaining Superpower in Scottish football. The old wars were won, while current challenges on the domestic front are accomplished with ease, but many questions remain about the club’s place in the world, what it’s objectives should be and how best to deliver them.
My expectation is that Celtic’s annual accounts, which will be released next month, will show they club washed its face, largely aided by the sale of Fraser Forster, but turnover is likely to be around 35% below the peak figure from season 2012-13, where we progressed to the knock-out stages of the Champions League, selling tickets and merchandise by the ton.
Season ticket sales are down around 10,000 from their peak a decade ago, reflecting the lack of domestic competition, an overhang of the economic climate, and – I expect – a tail off from what was an unsustainable high during the years of regrowth after the long, dark, 90s. The good news is the distress rate appears to have bottomed out. New blood has replaced old in many parts of the stands, as many learn to appreciate The Game for its sporting merit, not simply a means to three points.
We had a terrible start to the Ronny Deila era. We huffed and puffed in Iceland, were torn apart in Poland, but the performance against Legia at Murrayfield was nothing short of a capitulation. From the opening minute of the game we were worse, much worse, than we were in Warsaw.
Results and performances remained disappointing for months as Aberdeen regularly led the league into the new year, but signs of recovery appeared in the Europa League, where we qualified for the knock out stages and put on two credible performances against Inter.
Last autumn Ronny was under pressure. In another era, this could have been overbearing pressure. The change in managers brought a change in tactics, training and personal objectives, which disoriented the club. It also meant that we didn’t have a recruitment strategy in place for the new requirements.
There are many long term strategic threats, but if Celtic ever lose a league again, it’s likely to be when they embark on such an overwhelming technical change. If we do this again, we need to anticipate the shock and compensate accordingly.
Sporting objectives remain clear: win the league every season “forever and ever” and qualify for the Champions League group stages. Having given this some thought, I cannot see the scenario when we will lose the Scottish league title.
A horizon exists in Scottish football, no one can see beyond 10-in-a-row. This season WILL be five-in-a-row, most bookies are offering 1/33, a 3% return on your money, on this outcome. After that the countdown to 10 will grow louder, but 10 is not a real horizon, it just exists because Jock Stein’s ways were eventually copied. He had no mystical touch, only good strategy.
Rangers should never had stopped at 9. The money they had gave them an enormous advantage. Wim Jansen arrived from nowhere (Japan) with half a team signed by Jock Brown. It defied logic how we won that title, but it’s also clear than many at Ibrox had put their tools away before the start of that season. There is a warning here for Celtic. The latter parts of the Martin O’Neill, Gordon Strachan and Neil Lennon eras were all characterised by less innovative signings. More scouting trips to Edinburgh, fewer to Cracow, and the like. When the players, manager or scouts get weary, teams fail.
Achieving Champions League group stage qualification is the most difficult challenge Celtic face. We are clearly a better team than Qarabag, and have considerably more resources, but much of Wednesday night was spent worrying if the goal would come, and about what we would face in Baku. Even if we’re successful, strong unseeded teams will await in our section of the next round draw.
We are more than good enough to win league after league, but we’re not more than good enough to qualify for Champions League after Champions League. This should be Celtic’s objective for the next year – arrive in next summers’ qualifiers with a much better team.
The success of this will depend on Ronny’s ability to turn potential into actual European class players. He can do this, but he’ll need a tail wind. In particular, we have to hope that an earlier, ‘recruit from Edinburgh’ strategy, has not been redeployed in the form of a ‘recruit from Dundee’ one.
There are objective measurements we can point to. We are sound financially, pay our bills when due, have seen off all domestic competitors, will report more than 40,000 season ticket holders, a buoyant retail business and strong commercial partnerships. The stadium looks incredible, whoever conceived of the Celtic Way deserves some credit – but please – finish the job.
Copy what we saw at Murrayfield, put turnstiles at the perimeter of the footprint, build fan zones, build a café outside the ground. 30 years from now people will not sit in stadiums like Celtic Park, they will have better facilities, start planning for them now.
As anyone will tell you, football is a results business, and results over the next four weeks will have an enormous bearing on what state we feel the club is in. Defeat will not mean we are on the wrong path any more than victories mean we are on the right path, but it’s the game we play, so ‘play on’.
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Goldenye Nintendo 64 with proximity mines… and alcohol. :)
Just lost a post there, not a particularly exceptional one, but it had taken about an hour to gig out the research and write it up.
Laptop froze.
Narked…
It was a discussion on NegAnon/Weeminger’s “Punching Power” and the relative Weight of clubs. Are Celtic punching above or below their weight.
Basis for it is to ignore Turnover, and look at Margin – particularly the margin contribution from each main revenue stream in the mix, namely: Matchday margin 80%, Merchandising 50%, Commercial 100% and Media 100%.
Turnover might represent the “Weight” of a club, but Margin determines the available budget to spend, and therefore the “punching power”.
Shorthand is as follows, numbers rounded:
Celtic’s Turnover of £65M (2014) is £45 odd million from domestic, plus £20M in Champions League years, split as follows:
Matchday £22M
Merchandising £13M
Commercial £6M
Media £4M
Domestic Punch: £34M
Plus UCL Years
Matchday £6M
Media £14M
Add £19M to the punch every other year (fingers crossed) giving a reasonable weight of Celtic punch of £44M
Lyon at £104M turnover, have lower Matchday than Celtic (£13M) similar Merchandising (£16M) , much greater commercial (£19M), and Media (£56M) including the Champions League, and punch at £93M. Excluding UCL, Lyin punch at around £80M.
Atletico Madrid, turnover £102M, have £23M Matchday – lower than Celtic – £8M Merchandise – again, lower than Celtic – £26M Commercial and £45M Media, giving a total punch of £93M.
Southampton turnover £72M (2013), similar to Celtic, have lower Matchday (£17M) and Merchandising (£4M) than Celtic, similar Commercial (£4M), but greatly more Media at £47M, punch at £67M.
The bad news is that these are Southampton’s 2013 figures. 2014 added an additional £33M from media, which went straight to punch, giving £100M, while the new EPL deal will add around £20M more going forward.
The point?
Although Atletico and Lyon have slightly different sales mixes, the margin contribution lets them punch at the same weight.
Celtic, with greater Attendances and Merchandinsing sales than each of them, have half their power.
Southampton, 5 years on from oblivion, and with average crowd of 30,000, are heavier hitters than the lot of us.
I could have used West Brom btw, average crowd 25,000, Matchday £7M, Merchandising £3M, Commercial £7M, Media £70M, punching power £84M. West Brom twice the size of Celtic? That would be taking the psh. Sadly, it’s the same story for pretty much all EPL clubs outside of the ‘Big 4’, whose numbers are so absurdly bigger than Celtic’s as to make comparison meaningless.
Note: The original (lost) post was far better than this cobbled together guff. Honest.
Why does everyone seem to want to eat at Celtic Park before, during and after a match? If Celtic had ‘proper’ eateries around the stadium it would probably still not satisfy the neganon types on prices and no doubt would attract a call for ‘living wage’. Yawn.
Mac and his Marvellous Bunnymen….
Echo & The Bunnymen – All my colours – YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC_VRXenP4Q
A few more technical issues it I’ve got access on MS Edge but not on Chrome right now.
Paul,
Can you allow hard returns in posts? Otherwise the formatting is worse than the written material…
Ron Bacadi
Aye and too many people with Celtic shirts on too 8))
Evening,
Nice new format with the two sites coming together. On the laptop don’t like the overlap at the bottom of the screen from the CQN banner and the facebook buttons etc, a wee bit annoying, but can live with them.
Winning Captain’s
When on the mobile, being chucked out of the site after reading half a page of the posts. Any help appreciated.
HH Dan
Blantyre, would hope so, especially on mat h days
Playing it safe….
It’s Friday I’m in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa2nLEhUcZ0
P67
Love the new look — Very swish.
Seems to me that you understand the concept of a growth agenda.
Unfortunately PL does not seem to be cut from the same cloth.
I fear all the growing hype sorry tripe about 10 in a row will be all we have to think about. Quite sad really as it will be used to mask our decline and unfortunately too many in our support will get caught up in it. Very insular and to self indulgent for my liking.
What next for the club?
Holding pattern until the Tribute Act get up to speed?
Oh well at least next Wednesday will be exciting.
Too exciting for my liking but that is what happens when you stagnate and the world moves on.
Noticed some talking about not building developing due to lack of daily activity at Celtic park and the whole open once a fortnight… For those not paying attention the whole area is seeing significant influx of new residents all around Celtic park, Celtic have a number of visitor everyday and a couple of hundered workers,
as well as significant main road (route) in and out of glasgow
Celtic have significant ground that could be, in part, sold for housing in order to assist in greater street usage, i am a big fan trying to get the players around the stadium more, we have already said we need an indoor football pitch, so don’t put up in hills, get it done on the land behind the js stand, get a couple of hundred seats open up to public to view some training, u21 games, youth training in the evening etc…, use it 6 days a week 10 hours a day, all the visitors need somewhere to eat etc… Don’t believe me? Go see the amount of human traffic at at barrowfield or lennoxtown when the youths or ladies play,
Celtic could easily make use of a a couple of decent bars/ food shops etc… 7 days a week with home games packed due to home supporters and away games packing them up due to showing europe and domestic away games, weddings, funerals, birthdays, christian, Muslim, Jewish events etc… And regulars
the ability to maximise income is only limited by the lack of investment, one needs to come before the other
oh and a side not i hope next season sees Celtic offer Celtic t.v on season ticket renewal forms with 35 to 40% discount when purchasing books, that might add a couple of thousand people to that particular activity and with more viewers comes more money to develop a better produce and more investment in team
or out invested and simply take home bonuses etc… And there in lies the problem
The Celtic Way is impressive,particularly at night time when illuminated,even if it is only partially finished.
Serious question…as I genuinely don’t know the answer..
Who paid for all of this?
Did our custodians invest any money from the club?
Live on Wednesday evening
.
FK Qarabag v Celtic – UEFA Champions League Third Qualifying Round 2nd Leg
.
17:30 on BT Sport Europe / BT Sport Europe HD
I would be all for the kiosk serving us in the North Stand offering a decent cup of coffee, never mind food of any description.
Also think that SB holders should have all home games on the book, maybe having to get tickets for cup games by three four days before match otherwise seat can be sold.
“Huns are shooman and they need to be lu-hu-huved,just like everybody else does.”
#thewaltersmiths
Dude looking for best Broadband – I have BT – pretty good
Paul67 et al
Cannot be easy for any business, never mind a football one, to operate in an environment made up of two, albeit related, markets, one domestic, one European, the first in which we dominate, the latter where we have restricted access to a cartel. Celtic, for the moment at least, are facing this dilemma every season, all or nothing, Europe or bust, sometimes decided before the flag has been raised. The league flag that is.
Bobby Gillespie and his Bhoys..
Great Tim…..Great Band…..Get Yer Rocks Off
Primal Scream – Rocks – YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3ZCZjhjguA
I was outside Celtic Park on a Saturday afternoon a month or so ago and the whole place was almost completely deserted. Even the Emirates arena was closed. The Forge area surely has enough food outlets for the locals. If there was money to be made, the businesses would be there.
Surprised at the opening line about “the last remaining Superpower in Scotttish football”. Yes , I get the sentiment however we are no superpower, not in my eyes. We are a club who has earned plaudits and respect for being a superpower and remain a great club in the eyes of world football and particularly amongst genuine football fans.
To call us a Supepower in the Scottish concept is , in my opinion, a bit of self aggrandising that suits the Orcs better and does not sit well on our shoulders. I will spare us all the kings of our own dung hill stories, we saw on Wednesday night that a competent and technically capable side could make our players look stilted.
The horror show of the first twenty minutes v Inter Milan is seared into my mind and a more relevant comparison with how both sides have slumped since May 1967.
The good news is that I know we can do better, just hate having to wait for it all to happen. Perhaps the Sky money will be distributed more evenly or maybe Kirk Broadfoot will sign for us sooner.
ROBERTTRESSELL on 31ST JULY 2015 5:19 PM
Dude looking for best Broadband – I have BT – pretty good
.
I recently upgraded to BT Infinity 2 and am now getting 50+ Mbps – more than enough for iMac/iPad mini Airplay mirroring.
SYD, true, I expect most fans want a bevy before the match, and can’ t see Celtic providing a big enough boozer to cater for thousands. Maybe call in Walkabout on a franchise?
Just how brilliant were this band in their pomp?
The Stone Roses – I am the Resurrection with lyrics – YouTube
▶ 8:13
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R81V3et1sJY
NegaKev @ 5.22
You are PL and I claim my “substantial bonus”.
.
Stop being so negative man.
We have so many windswept acres around CP.
Let’s use them — we are miles behind the times with all our tarmac and Type 1.
“Deila has already moved on frontline flops Teemu Pukki and Amido Balde this summer and Stokes, signed for £1million from Hibs by ex-gaffer Neil Lennon in August 2010, is certain to join them” CQN reporters showing the SMSM
Who writes this cr*p. CQN showing all the quality of an SMSM lovin’ Hun hack.
Anto Stokes is one of the best forwards we have had a Celtic for many a year yet he , by definition, is lumped in with the likes of Balde and Pukki. If Ronny’s new striker scores as many goals and weighs in with as many assists as Stokes in his time with us we will be lucky.
Full size indoor pitch?
Build the first one next to CP.
Get GCC and the Lottery involved.
Put something back into the area around CP.
.
What about aReserve Stadium for another 30 games a season?
MadMitch
Not negative, just realistic. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see the surrounding areas tidied up and properly tarmaced. The Celtic Way is great and I hope they attend to the other sides. I just don’t think there’s ever going to be a thriving selection of bars, bistros and cafes because there won’t be the custom to make it work.
just got to airport only to find flight cancelled …. 5 hour wait for next flight … if we could use emoticons on CQN, there would be a few angry face ones right about now…
and just realized that kick off will be at 5:45 tomorrow morning! eeek!
Any team news for the morra? Biton fit? Muldini not ? Chifti suspended so that means a start for scepovic s
Startthegriffhesournumbernineafterallcsc
MiT
Just to cheer you up. As the KO is not until 5:45 in Toronto and 12:45 CP time, we will be able to tell you the score beforehand and you can have a relaxing afternoon.
Incidentally, where does the name `Toronto` come from? I know I could Google but you need something to do over the next five hours.
JJ SothoughtfulCSC
Did someone not say izzie suspended tomorrow?
JJHS …. I needed a laugh, so thanks for that! (smiley face emoticon)
“l was looking for a knob and then I found a knob…”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-33731489
Morriseythe23rd won’t b happy when he sees this.
Heard earlier today that a young boy I had the privilege of coaching for a couple of years will be making
Rest of post……
….will be making his Premier League debut at Paradise tomorrow. He comes from a great family who I know will not sleep tonight with excitement. My own lhad played alongside home for a few years and is stoked for him, we all are…well done wee man. All the and thoroughly deserved.
Nice one JMcC
Who’s he playing for?