I read one highly unlikely article yesterday suggesting we were going to sign Alfred Finnbogason AND were still bidding big money for Kevin Doyle ahead of an 11pm tonight signing deadline. It’s hard to be so wrong in so few words, but this one hit the mark.
Alfred is a target but, and this is the key point the newspapers have not picked up on, he is one of four strikers Celtic are seriously considering at the moment. He looks the part, as do the others, I am assured, but the deal has to be right for Celtic to move.
Our strategic plan is to buy players at a comparatively low price, develop them on the Champions League stage, and sell high, in order to be able to build a team capable of competing further in the Champions League.
To do this we need to buy from the right markets, at the correct age and on the right wage. There will be exceptions to this rule. A few weeks shy of his 27th birthday, Dirk Boerrigter is unlikely to appreciate greatly, but teams need experience to tackle the Champions League, as well as some specific skills, so Dirk is here for what he can give today, not to be the next £12m exit.
We will see more business like Wanyama and Hooper. Before Celtic agree a deal for Finnbogason there would need to be a gap between the buy price and the projected valuation IF the player is a success. If this gap doesn’t exist we will do business elsewhere. Sticking to strategy is more important than pursuing a target like some latter-day David “this time we’re really going for it” Murray.
You can also forget about the 11pm deadline tonight. That is only relevant if we need two or more new players to overcome Shakhter Karagandy. If we want to add Finnbogason, or any ONE other player, the deadline for a Wildcard signing is a day before the game, or pretty much when the team leaves Glasgow Airport, so there is no effective deadline tonight. As such, I would be surprised if a deal was concluded today.
Right now, at Lennoxtown and Celtic Park, people are deciding how to invest our money. We have the kind of choices consistent with a well-run club, but while we are a well-run club, we can’t get caught up in the hubris.
We are living through some big changes in our financial model. Revenue from domestic football (season ticket sales-now discounted, Rangers game £42-per-head ticket sales, hospitality sales, commercial income) has fallen, or disappeared completely (I reckon we’re in the region of £9m p.a. down in these areas, we’ll have a better indication when accounts are released later this month). On top of this, the club was running at a loss without Champions League football or significant player sale (£7m for season 2011-12, the last we have accounts for), and as well as some income streams falling, costs have risen.
I heard that one ‘St Mirren’ supporting journo on Radio Scotland on Saturday said with last season’s Champions League income and money from player sales, Celtic have a £40m transfer kitty.
In the name of all that is sacred, nine years after ‘What the Celtic fans want to know is where is all the Seville money?’, the same nonsense is being peddled. As far as some are concerned, we are back where we started on CQN. The first thing you do with your money is pay your bills, including tax… there is no creditor left behind at Celtic. After they are taken care off you can look to invest in footballers.
This year, the underlying loss has been flipped because of player sales and that Champions League income, although not by nearly as much as journos who regard researching accounts before commenting on finance as an unnecessary indulgence, will tell you. Without Champions League income (this season potentially £14m plus any prize money earned), the money from Wanyama alone would not make this a profitable season, even before the spend on our new signings.
The road ahead is clear. Get into the Champions League as often as possible without allowing any individual failure to cause a collapse, sign players who will flourish at that level, sell them for a profit, repeat and reinforce all aspects of strategy with an improved budget.
Over any business period, every penny which comes into the club, has been, and will continue to be, spent. Our money will be invested in footballers who will appreciate in value, and who will give Celtic their best chance of pushing further in the Champions League on a persistent basis. It will not rest in a bank account earning a pittance in interest. The strategy is ambitious and sustainable but not reckless.
A year ago some wondered if Celtic could survive, never mind flourish, without a Rangers-branded club in the league. If successful, this strategy will not only allow the club to flourish, it may even result in higher long-term income than Celtic achieved while locked in an arms race with a former rival, with a corresponding improvement in Champions League achievement.
Is Alfred Finnbogason the man, is he better than the others we’re looking at, good enough to excel in the Champions League? I’ve no idea, but he is just one detail in the wider Celtic strategy.
Stick to plan, Celtic.
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lionroars67 @ 10:39
Never saw that before Brilliant!
tonydonnelly67 @ 11:12
Stop moaning! Stop looking for attention. ;)
A Stor Mo Chroi @ 11:30
What a saddening, yet accurate post.
McDowellCelt @ 11:31
Ditto
tonydonnelly67 @ 11:40
I was born after ’67 but I lived through the death of the Huns.
Just wish Celtic stood up for us regarding the proven cheating by RFC/SFA.
Wish we had ambition to lift the big cup in my lifetime. Seems I’ve to be happy if we make group stages.
Seems the custodians of my club want any Rangers back. I thought we stood alone.
Yes. These are good times and we should be celebrating them but we shouldn’t be selling ourselves short.
Glasgow is Green and white. Life is not black and white.
starry plough
12:28 on 13 August, 2013
Hope so, he looks a good prospect. More chance of him getting a game pre-January with the extra European games and the manager rotating squad a lot more.
Kazakstan Mountains
BSR, would love a wee bit of hockmagandy in karagandy with her!!
And you know that Balde is not a decent replacement, and you know this how?
If we dont get a striker in time for the qualifier next week then whats the chances that we play big Balde? I thought he looked great on Saturday!
I have noticed that the blog has been infiltrated by quite a lot of Zombies recently as the tone and negativity has amplified recently. I am however all for questioning the Board strategy and dont agree when some of the posters on here get upset about fans challenging figures that are quoted etc. If we just believed everything we read then we would be doing exactly what the RFC(IL) fans done. They had blind faith in their board and shouted down anyone who wanted to challenge strategies or statements. They were therefore complicit in the death of their Club. We as a collective support will not go down that route.
Anyway, fingers crossd that we qualify for the CL and the Zombies pain is increased by this and also the car crash antics of their Tribute Act.
new article posted.
BSR
Sign them immediately :)
HH
The thing that’s annoying me about Finnbogason saga is that if we are bidding on him and don’t get him fine, as long as we have back up. But don’t waste time. He has a set price and someone will match it, if various clubs match it at the same time he’ll go elsewhere. We know how much they want (I’d guess £5m) and they’ve rejected bids close to this so we know they won’t bargain and why should they.
We have the money from Hooper and his wages will be similar, or if higher then they’d be less than we’d have been offering Hooper.
I just wish we didn’t waste our time, if we’re not going to get him move on and don’t let it become a “we tried till the last minute”.
Wonder if they’ve put a clause in the Jackson Irvine loan?
TheBounce CSC
The only reason another club was prepared to give us as much as £12M for Vic was because of his performances in the CL group stages. Otherwise, we would only have been offered 6 or 7 million!
That’s why I can’t understand our current predicament. Virgil was clearly brought in to show off his skills on the big stage and probably be sold on within two years, Balde is a work in progress, but where’s the next batch of players to be developed for CL experience and eventual asset management? Are they already at Lennoxtown coming through the Development ranks? I seriously doubt it !
Mostly, I’m a happy clapper, but why do we continually take these risks with qualification for the CL? We were far better prepared last summer, but this isn’t the first time we’ve adopted such a high risk approach to qualification and the money/kudos that it brings to the club.
Baffled….!
T4
I think that the majority of the support have come to accept that we try to buy low and sell high, that there are few Larsson-esque players willing to stay in the SPL when interest surfaces from elsewhere.
However, strategically there is no justification for selling the spine of the team without a proper and well advanced plan B. Each day of the window that goes by is a day wasted in terms of squad cohesion.
Each day emboldens the potential selling club and tends to raise the price payable by the increasingly desperate buying club.
The annoyance for fans is that this represents unnecessary risk-taking by the board and that the Khazak opposition might just cause an upset. The purchase of a proven goalscorer and a Centre Back lessens the potential for CL failure.
I begin to worry that the board have taken the view that EL football until Christmas is a sufficient, albeit less attractive, scenario for the club.
Demonstrable ambition by the board will be reciprocated by the fans. On the other hand, stagnation will, undoubtedly, lead to a negative reaction from the fans who feel the board is not matching their individual contributions to the club.
Malarkey
19:22 on
12 August, 2013
Mike in Toronto
…………………………………………
Think you’ll find theres around 540k paid out annually in dividends to DD, Peter Reilly, Nominet and a few others in various financial instruments. Its all there in the annual accounts?
DD is just A.N.Other billionaire without the public profile of a big football club……its why they do it, to get public recognition.
I’m not saying DD contribution has not been helpful or beneficial but he has never put a pound into Celtic that is not secured with guarantees of a yield……..no Ordinary Class shares for him thank you.
Being old enough (only just) to have seen the likes of Jimmy Johnstone, Bobby Lennox, Billy McNeill in the early 70’s and then witness our slow decline into mediocrity, with the odd high point, I think our present progress is perfectly acceptable.
We have a stadium fit for a king, a player recruitment policy that is working, zero debt on the balance sheet, CL group stages better than 50/50 this year, a youth policy that appears to be working………
We are trapped in a small country of zero significance to the advertisers with tickets around 50% less than the clubs we like to compare ourselves to so unless we want to pay 600 on average for a SB the present way is the only way…..
Just saying…..
Bawsman @ 12.14
It was my first time to see Balde in action in Dublin and I along with some of the Liverpool contingent were hugely impressed. His goal was a peach, beat two Liverpool players on the right touchline, played in to kayal then out to Stokes and back in position to flumax the Pool central defender to run on and plant the ball in the back of the net. As you say, gave the Liverpool back four a torrid afternoon.
tonydonnelly67
12:09 on 13 August, 2013
As long as you realise that I am the King Happy Clapper….hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
greendreamz
12:46 on 13 August, 2013
Just to correct one aspect of, your post, please…….the last share issue was guaranteed by DD to the tune of £15m (for Lennoxtown etc) ……the Celtic fans came up with £11m, so DD only had to contribute £4m…….BUT…….. If the Celtic fans hadn’t bought the shares, DD would have had to pay £15m …… Just one example of where he has contributed…. HH
Kevjungle
Thanks for the welcome, no am certainly not a hun. As Blantyretim stated last night, we maybe should not build young Jackson up too much. However, I feel he is the real deal. Agree with your views on what a Celtic midfielder should be like, and would add Bobby Murdoch, Stevie Murray and The Maestro to your list.
p.s. Big Mouyokolo looks the part.
SydneyTim
11:01 on
13 August, 2013
If Pl had been successfull with our striker policy over last few years, I would say go on Peter. Don’t pay over the odds. But he hasn’t he has wasted millions signing projects up front who did not have a record in scoring goals and guess what. Continued on with their record of not scoring goals and millions down the drain
So yes he has to pay over the odds for a goal scorer
________________________________________________
That’s not entirely true/fair to PL. I have no doubt that the manager(s) and coaching staff identify the players they think the team needs and THEN the negotiations re fee and wages begin involving PL etc. That Bangura, Rasmussen, Murphy & co have been such faliures really cannot be his fault.
67Heaven … I am Neil Lennon..!!.. Ibrox belongs to the creditors
12:58 on 13 August, 2013
greendreamz
12:46 on 13 August, 2013
______________________________________________
Am I right in thinking that DD also paid the wages direct to some of the big name signings also. Bellamy, Keane etc.
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Changed OK?