Back in 2011 a campaign was launched by Craig Whyte (subsequently adopted by others) to convince Scottish Premier League clubs that Rangers were necessary for their survival, and in the event of a liquidation event, the league should invite a phoenix club into the top flight.
The people at Celtic became aware of this and after the initial revulsion that a team, who at that stage were three-in-a-row champions, could liquidate, then phoenix with the same players and income streams, but without the debts associated with building the playing squad, they ran the numbers. They asked themselves the question, could we survive without Rangers?
The answer was straightforward, if we can’t survive without Rangers we’re as well not surviving at all. We needed a strategy which would cope with the drop in income, the lack of domestic competition, but still deliver Champions League competition. Easy, right?
Not easy but by no means impossible.
Celtic were running at an operational loss without selling players or getting into the Champions League group stage. That season (2011-12), in reaching the Europa League group stage, we made a £7m loss (mitigated by a later player sale). The subsequent drop in season ticket sales in a league without Rangers (it happened), drop in associated commercial and match-day ticket sales cost around £5m. Dropping the price of season tickets by £100 this season arrested the decline in sales, but brought in £4m less than last season.
To balance this, we qualified for the Champions League group stage last season and this, sold £20m worth of talent this summer (and have spent £6m so far on new arrivals).
We have something practically unique in football, a sustainable strategy which is also successful.
Is it without its risks? No.
Will it tax the team and manager, even against teams like Elfsborg and Shakhter? Yes.
Is it as good a strategy as we could have? That is a matter of opinion but results on the park are the only place that matters.
We’ve made lots of decisions so far this summer. Selling Hooper, Wanyama and Wilson, while bringing in van Dijk, Derk Boerrigter, Balde and Mouyokolo, before getting to this stage. Would Norwich and Southampton have waited or signed alternatives, leaving us with rapidly depreciating assets?
I’ve no idea, but these are the kind of factors which contribute to each decision.
You can play your hand cautiously, hold the players, risking buyers leave the market, or sign more players early, on the basis that they are available and you are prepared to pay the asking price, irrespective of your valuation. You can certainly give yourself an easier ride by taking decisions against strategy based on pressure.
This would not guarantee success (nothing does) but it would further mitigate the risk of failure, however, it would potentially leave fewer resources to build a team which can reach further still.
We played a more ambitious hand. Strategy was adhered to, which looked a folly, to some, a week ago.
For the first time in 40 years we have a sustainable, successful, team development strategy, which is only just beginning to bear fruit. It is too tempting to take those fruits and blow them on the same strategy most of our UK-based peers do in an attempt to guarantee entry to the promised land.
Faith in the squad, manager and scouts was rewarded. Whether you like it or not, we have one of the best development strategies in football. Well done, Celtic.
Neil Lennon is an ambitious man but if he thinks he can stem the “disgusting” “hysterical” reaction to a Celtic defeat he is overreaching. Some will learn but others will have rationalised their reaction within a second of the manager’s comments being made. ‘Tis the nature of the beast.
Well done to everyone who attended last night. The place wasn’t full but there is something about a Celtic Park crowd of around that size which seems more effective than when we’re crammed in.
Enjoy being a Celtic supporter.
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“Enjoy being a Celtic supporter.”
I do, every second! God bless the Celtic!
ever wondered about the some of the strange links to other stories (most read/most commented) when you read a celtic story – usually anti celtic and sometimes they even throw in some anti-catholic sh*te – todays eveningtimes has as its no 2 most read story –
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/sport/udinese-blasted-for-fielding-weak-side-against-celtic.15336723
total roy hudds
Awe_Naw_No_Annoni_Oan_Anaw_Noo
Disegree,it gives Celtic better opponents to beat ;)
The rage, bitterness and bile of the hurting zombies is entirely predictable and absolutely hilarious
For its a grand old team to support!
Feeling great today, atmosphere last night was top quality, players were excellent and Kris Commons you are our Big Game Player, what a strike !
HH
Auldheid
I’m a fan of the idea of summer football, my worry was that it is for the ‘lesser leagues’ however teams from those leagues (Elfsborg, Malmo) are very sharp in the first and second qualifying games. We look a lot sharper now but summer football would negate the risk in those 2 rounds (which we will be in for the forseeable)
I also think it would benefit the other teams as the qualifiers do indeed hurt them early on.
I don’t travel to games as much as I like but in the league of ireland the summer football has gone some way to helping their teams in european competition of late.
Paul67 et al
Should have known with Billy McNeil invited to partake in the draw today for a Tournament that ends in Lisbon all would be well. And no doubt the Lisbon Lions will be a highlight as part of the build up to the draw. Fantastic result last night. Pundits have a habit of saying that 2-0 is a tricky result in football, but not when your next goal would literally be worth double. Got the benefit of our experience over the last couple of years methinks, and dug out that bit extra. That Manchester City are in a higher pot than us tells you all we need to know just how skewed the Champions League is, but we will be in a group of four no matter what. Caught Liam MacLeod’s commentary for the goals, replayed on Radio 5 this morning, that is more like it. Then again in my rulebook for the world, all Macs, Scottish and Irish the world over should support the famous Glasgow Celtic!
not a bad pass for matthews on saturday from broonie
Really don’t want any of the English outfits. Arsenal just doesn’t excite. Chelsea and Man. City ethos of spend, spend, spend is ridiculous and Manure’s fans disgusted me at Celtic park last time.
Taranus
Hey sir – Hardgate is lucky to have mah da. Salt of the earth is Jimbo :-)
Temmu Pikku says his farewells to his Schalke team mate. He’ll be a Celtic player by Saturday
https://twitter.com/white_italy/status/373073215062421504/photo/1
Nothing to fear in the draw.
Bring them on.
spikeysauldman
14:22 on 29 August, 2013
————————-
I’m genuinely confused – that evening times story is from October 2011..?
Paul67, thank you, that was a tremendous read. I wholeheartedly concur.
Immensely proud of the Celtic family’s achievement last night. If anything, the last several days have exposed the fragile disposition of the msm, our enemies, and assimilated tims alike. They shouldn’t ever detract us from the bigger picture.
Over the two ties, the Kazaks gave everything they had plus some. Other than the high jinks they should be immensely proud of their efforts. Hats off to their manager especially. Taking his team as far as he did was an amazing feat given the constraints he has to operate under.
We’re in touch with that emotion.
The Celtic strategy is, as Pau67l says, a fine balancing act. Many are frustrated by the perimeters. Ignorance is bliss.
I loved the wry smile etched on Neil Francis Lennon’s face last night in a post match interview. When asked about impending signing his expression said it all. Prospects’ agents get in line. Who’s daddy now? :-)
Hope the penny finally drops for the naysayers. If so, welcome aboard.
God bless. Hail Hail.
Prediction:
From Pot 1 – English
From Pot 2 – Italian
From Pot 3 – German
Tough. But we are in there. That’s all that matters.
Awe Naw – our club co-efficient is on the rise, which should hopefully mean a Pot 3 draw at this stage next season….assuming we get through the three rounds of qualifiers, which is down to the ever-decreasing national co-efficient.
This is one point, as Scottishleaf pointed out at end of previous article, where thon died club actually helped us out! I hope SL wasn’t inferring that we could end up with FOUR qualifiers!! :-(
Auldheid – if the Hoops support could see that McLeish was fully implemented and the cabal was removed, I think they would support handing over more than the £2M you mentioned. I believe we’ve already agreed to hand over a significant sum from the latest domestic tv deal, but we could re-direct further CL income in an attempt to raise the level of the game in this country.
Summer football is a no-brainer to me and we could negotiate a better deal with Sky, bringing further revenue into the Scottish game.
It all sounds so straight forward, but the SFA is rotten to the core and the blazers won’t be easily displaced.
T4
Oscar Knox
I’m all for better communication of the rationale but one of the problem’s is in what Paul says – the readiness of some (or perhaps the inability not to)to convert that openess into the proof their own particular cause requires to keep it going.
When you open up to folk you have to feel that you can trust them not to use the vulnerability that opening up produces to turn it back against you.(and that is excluding the media)
If the default mindset is the Board is not to be trusted why should the Board be prepared to trust folk who do not trust them?
Trust is a two way street. It is a street I think Celtic should be trying to walk but I can well understand the reluctance to be more open.
A lot more prepatory work on changing minds about what Celtic’s aims are in the modern world and the means of communicating that vision and then keeping it fresh needs to be put in place.
The latter is more or less a summary of a conversation I had with the Support Liaison Officer who was in agreement.
Lots of work to be done. LOTS.
Falkirkbhoy says Never Give Up Oscar
12:48 on
29 August, 2013
Agree that the main BBC site is often fairer to Celtic than the Shortbread.
It is hard to believe that this infantile rubbish is allowed on the air, when it has less credibility than an argument in the pub. But this is the independent BBC Scotland who apparently answer to no one.
Yet NFL also complained about ITV4’s anti Celtic coverage of the first leg.
Was that coverage where Clark Carlisle was commentating?
HH
Pabloh
Totally agree. Stuff the glamour give us qualification opportunity. I want teams we have a realistic chance of beating at home and picking up points away from home. We have a chance with the right draw. Real can wait another couple of seasons ……… When we have qualified for the last 8 on a couple of occasions :-))
Wonderful effort from the team.Hate to mention again,but the keeper almost cost us the match.He will not improve in this department so get used to it.
Hopefully we will not be going through this farce of signings again next season.In saying that Stokes,Ledley not re -signed.It would be great to go a couple of seasons with a decent squad,watch them improve,and if we have to sell,have a replacement ready.
By all accounts the boy Biton is a bit special.Pukki,we will see.He has to do the buisness.
I would have had Finnbogason ,he has still not signed for anyone.
Lennys problems will start when he has to put out his best 11.I have no idea how he will manage this if the new boys hit it off.Great problem though.
I want Arsenal,then we would miss Man City.Going to be some groups of death this time.
Tell me something ,why do Rangers supporters wear England and Chelsea tops,as for them supporting Chelsea ,I don’t think there is a lot of them at Stamford Bridge when Chelsea are playing there,on to another matter on here last night someone told me to F–K O– , Well im not effing of,im entitled to have my say just like everyone else on here, and if they don’t like it Tough.What I said last night that for a big goalkeeper ,Fraser Foster is terrible at cross balls, and im standing by that,
People on the internet saying we want Benfica in pot 1 – utter nonsense. We should be hoping for Bayern (or possibly Real) as they are not likely to drop points to any of our rivals – allowing us to get into a dogfight for second/third spot. Coming from pot 4, we want thte pot 2 and 3 teams to get a hiding from the top seeds – as happened with Barca last year. Hoping for a Benfica (or equivalent) is extremely naïve.
I feel that as long as there is no personal abuse to anyone.
Any man or woman should be entitled to their opinion on here even when I dont agree with it.
When you start to have digs at one another over opinions it is not a nice read.
Some of the best posters on here are the ones that ask questions of the board coaching staff and players its what makes this place special.
I have not seen one poster who was questioning last week come on and say they werte gutted at result in fact the opposite is what I have seen.
I had questions I wanted and still do want answered, all the financial & player stuff can wait till another day as it is not urgent now(would have been if things went differently last night) ,we gambled and dice fell well :))
but things like what we knew and went along with regarding the SFA & sevco still play
in the pit of my stomache.
I will finish with last nights result means that we are disappearing over the horizon for years to come in all departments to ALL clubs in this wee corrupt country,if newco manage to somehow survive we are out of their reach for years to come .
Enjoy the draw and mixing with the big boys all :))
sort out the SFA & MIBs csc
Oscar Knox is my Hero – RWE
At one point that fool Clark Carlisle stated something along the lines of, Celtic turned up and expected their tradition and history to beat Shaktar. He also had a go at Samaras and referred to him as the Greek Tragedy…………
Oscar Knox is my Hero – RWE
14:33 on
Yet NFL also complained about ITV4′s anti Celtic coverage of the first leg.
Was that coverage where Clark Carlisle was commentating?
___
I don’t know who was commentating, but I think it only showed up their ignorance of football north of Cumbria. So more ignorant than negative for me.
Just noticed that the new hoops top with the strips in the green part of the hoops matches the design of the Magners logo on the strip.
Trival l know but l just hope it doesn’t start a conspiracy/graphic design controversy e.g. does it make it more harmonious or are the board pandering to the commercial dollar.
:)
Hi lads and lassies, hope everyone’s feeling good today.
So, last night was a special night for the club, a special night for the players and for the manager. I’m delighted that we’re through, and I’m looking forward to the draw. I also had a good laugh at some of the opposition comments last night, and this morning, and they are hurting pretty bad. Which always makes me smile.
Real Madrid would be nice. I would rather avoid Chelsea, but not for footballing reasons, but because a lot of my mates would be making the trip and I’d spend the day of the game worrying about them.
This is one of thse days on which I’m torn … do we want the easiest possible group, the one which gives us the best chance to go through, or do we want the glamour group, the one which will have Europe talking about us?
Something in between perhaps.
I heard a rumour today that this qualification has increased the coefficient to the point we might be in the groups next season automatically.
Can anyone confirm that? I don’t think it sounds accurate.
Awe Naw
Our coefficient will take a bit of a hike next year as long as we perform well in the group stages
We will replace 7.3750 points with whatever we accrue this season so if we perform similarly to last season we will have a co-efficient of 47 points which based on this years group stage participants is good for Pot 4 still.
Scotland’s Country ranking will likely slip as all of the participating teams co-efficient points gained are added together and then divided by the number of participants so the performances of Hibs and Motherwell in gaining nil points has not been especially helpful.
If Celtic have 16 points and you add St Johnstones 1.555 you get 17.555 / 4 = 4.38875 add that to the last 4 seasons you get a score of about 17.450 which will see Scotland slide down the country rankings even more.
Celtic need to do something similar to Benfica to improve the Scottish ranking significantly, right now we are projected to slide from 18th to 23rd in the rankings, our only hope is teams representing the teams from15-23 have shockers in the remaining qualifiers, group games etc.
Unless other Scottish teams start to help we will face multiple qualifiers for the foreseeable future. Granted if we won the Champions league a few years in a row that would change! ;-)
I don’t like Motherwell but would have been delighted if they could have at least got a draw or a win in one of their games! Along with Hibs they contributed nothing to the Scottish ranking other than making it worse.
The reality is we need Scottish clubs to do better in Europe or we will have the same problems with multiple qualifiers year on year.
TTTT
No they wont but they will. :)
I’m hoping a wee article called Crystal Myth will be in the next issue of The CQN magazine.
Canalamar’s resolution is stuck around the 60 sig mark but I’m hoping the latest on CO’s knowledge of the DOS scheme used to illegally dodge the tax De Boer, Flo and Moore should have paid plus Phil Mac’s questions to the SFA will have created wider interest.
The CST have certainly noted it all.
I would put the package to the SPFL clubs a bit more in their kitty for a professional SFA carrying out its duties in a transparent accountable manner.
LuxCelt
I agree…I would like the top team to be one of the big three of Bayern, Barca or Real Madrid. From pot two and three I would want teams that we know we can stand our ground with home and away.
wider interest AND awareness.
scottishleaf:
There you are. If only I’d waited five more minutes the question would have been answered for me!
Great post
TTTT
I suspect we will still be a Pot 4 team next season but if some non-seeded teams pull some shocks in the qualifiers we may squeak into Pot 3!
Don’t worry – we are a long way from 4 qualifiers, that’s for Champions from countries ranked 48th and below
The fact that our nfirst choice right-back was playing centre half last night tells us one thing – Kelvin Wilson has (as most of us realise) not been replaced. Mikael did well, but any team with serious CL aspirations needs a top quality, experienced centre half. Virgil and Steven Mouyokolo have replaced (and improved on) Rogne and Gershon, but our first pick starting CB now needs to be replaced urgently, before Saturday night.
Anything else represents an acceptance of mediocrity and a failure to support our manager. 30M in the bank – please spend 3M of that on a quality, experienced, physically dominant stopper CB.
We know we need a striker as well, but ‘Defense wins championships’.
back the Manager please Peter. Give him the tools he needs.
Watched Celtic match against Moscow last year live on Turkish TV. Sat in Hilton, watching ships passing, overlooking the Bosphorus Bridge, eating room service with an absolutely outstanding Turkish commentary. Didn’t understand a word but so much better then BBC, SKY or ESPN.
I was listening to Talksport earlier, and Tony Adams was on. (As was Neil)
I think big Tony had some issues to deal with, namely alcoholism, a few years back. Fairly well documented at the time. All credit to the guy as he seems to have worked hard and came out the other side and of course set up his rehab clinic to assist others.
What interested me was his chatting about Arsenal’s weak defensive play, and he said that when he was under Wenger, there was no defensive coaching, yet under George Graham, they worked hard on their defensive strategy daily. He spoke of the “imaginary rope” whereby when one full back was moving in a particular direction, the central defenders and other full back were “pulled” along to keep the shape. The holding midfield player was dictated to by the centre half, basically told to saty close and offer protection.
Sounded like he’d be a good asset to a team looking for a defensive coach.
Awe Naw@14.08
“Ten years at the same level ”
Not so sure about that??
I am cursed with a memory for certain things and what I recall is this
1995- Fergus’s regime makes us the 2nd force in Scotland after a 10 year gap where we were not in the top 2.
1997- Broke the magic spell of Rangers dominance but only brought us level with them rather than breaking the pattern
2000- MON propels us forward by more than two jumps by making us the number 1 team in Scotland AND competitive at European elite level
2003- An emotional pinnacle though not a sporting achievement high. We had a great year but lost the league.
post-2003- The Celtic blogosphere was awash with “we must kick on from Seville- it’s all very well doing it at Uefa Cup level but we need to get back in the CL groups and qualify- last 16 would be a much bigger achievment than a UEFA final” That was the dominant view then, no matter what revision is applied to it now.
2007 & 2008- Not only do we better the Seville achievement but we do it twice only to be met with ‘This team is boring”, “Strachan’s a hun”, and All round “this is rubbish- we should be doing better than this- Seville was much better”
2008-11- Our fractious club cedes supremacy back to Rangers and, yes, while there were lots of shenanigans around it, we contributed to our hindrance of the club’s progress by being somewhat spoiled and demanding. We were beginning to behave like the Deid club fans of the late 80s early 90s who thought they had outgrown all this and were better than their record showed.
2013- Another CL last 16 place, our third in the last 8 seasons. We are not at 66 to 74 standards but we are miles ahead of our European achievements in the late 70s, the 80s, the 90s and, dare I speak the heresy?- the MON era.
This not progressing in the past 10 years is actually an achievement of being able to punch above our weight consistently, not as a one off. We are living in the 2nd most successful spell of my lifetime.
As a 62nd ranked club we are in the top 32 again. No amount of £5m spend , even on 2 players, would propel us into the stratosphere of the top 20 big league clubs, whose benches are littered with players more expensive than our top buys.
I am not preaching despair and saying we have reached our ceiling. I am saying that there should be a lot more rejoicing and gratitude that we are doing better than we have any right to expect at present.
Unless our restrictions change or there is an implosion amongst top clubs and leagues, we should concentrate on staying as good as we are. That, in itself, would be an achievement.
LuxCelt
14:44 on
29 August, 2013
Virgil was signed as a first choice centre back. Lenny said him and Wilson would have been his first choice pairing. His pre-season injury and lack of time to settle has meant he isn’t in situ yet. After watching Lustig last night makes you wonder if it should be him and VVD in central defence with Ambrose & Mulgrew as back up.