If anyone tells you we are about to bid €7m on a guy who scored fewer league goals than Billy McKay last season, and who was signed for €500k last summer, don’t listen to them. Nonsense like this is 180 degrees away from strategy. Where would such a player’s sell-on value increase to? It’s just not going to happen, nor should it, it would be a vanity purchase, the likes of which old Zsa Zsa himself would consider.
The last season we have figures for (season 2011-12), when we had Europa League football, Celtic lost £7m. Since then three significant things have changed:
We’ve sold Wanyama and Hooper for over £17m (before deductions).
We got back into the Champions League and earned an additional £20m.
Season book sales dropped and this season cost £100 less than before.
Cutting £100 off the ticket price will bring in £4m less than last season. All other things being equal (which they will not be), this would give us an £11m deficit before Champions League income and any trading surplus. In short, to retain equilibrium, we need to reach the Champions League group stage more often than not. Money from Uefa is not so much a bonus, it is necessary to push us into the black.
I know we covered this last week, but £17m for Victor and Gary will not, on its own, equate to £17m for new players. Gary and Victor were both on their first Celtic contracts when they left, neither of which was near the top earning position (although both were offered top earning contracts).
We’re not going to spend £17m on transfers and be able to pay the new players from the money saved by not paying Victor and Gary. Instead, the boost to the football budget from these sales will almost certainly disproportionately increase wages, leaving a lesser amount for transfers (if we sign four players for £2.5m each, we’ll probably have to pay each more than the average of Victor and Gary’s wage).
Knowing where they came from, I reckon Victor and Gary cost approximately a combined total of £1m p.a. in wages, the bulk of which would have gone to Gary. If we bring in four players, each costing multiple millions, they could easily cost us an extra £2m per annum in wages, or £8m over their four year contracts.
In short, there is enough money available to buy several good players, for decent money, on high wages (for Celtic). This is a good, sustainable, place to be, but it is not transfer window nirvana. We have moved from a position of carrying a perpetual loss to being able to afford an increase in football budget without splurging into debt to fund it.
This isn’t a detailed budget analysis, there are lots of other variables (McCourt, Rogne etc off the wages, not Murphy, whose wages were off the books already), non-football budget cost inflation, considerable drop in one-off ticket sales (20k seats for £42 each at Rangers games twice a season) and commercial income from 2011-12, variations in season book sales (I hear they are marginally up on same time last year but still down on 2011-12).
The big challenge for the club is to ensure the playing squad is good enough to qualify for the Champions League group stage, and to compete when there, more often than not, without indulging in casino football every year.
We stick to plan, scout and recruit players within budget and with high potential sell-on values. €7m on a striker from Heerenveen? Better stick it on black.
The Kano Foundation have around 40 bucketeers for their annual drive at Celtic Park on Sunday. They could do with a few more. If you can do your bit, get in touch: contactus@thekanofoundation.com.
Check out the 1254125 Great Scottish Run page. I plan to keep this page updated with progress on the event and other resources. When you sign up, let me know and I’ll promote your donations page.
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Welcome to the new Dutch bhoy
Looks like a good player. Will fit in the left hand side in a 4 4 2
Lots of competition Forest won’t be able to play if Dutch bhoy is wide left
Commons can play inside with brown on right and Efe, kayal or Ledley for other position. Still no strikers though :(
Folly Folly 08:57 on 31 July, 2013
The fixture congestion for us came about because of the brutal winter – Celtic hardly played between the turn of the year and March and had about five or six league games in hand, with our former rivals looking like they were out of sight.
Celtic had to cram in the fixtures towards the end of the season and, after losing to the Huns at Hampden, we went on a terrific run which led us to the title.
medtim
08:50 on
31 July, 2013
This all needs looking at/exposing by someone in the media, someone furth of Scotland.
Their angle, to give the story traction down south, is that there is this wealth of sensational detail of all sorts of skulduggery and shenanigans in the public domain which the MSM won’t touch ‘because of Leveson’.
My preferred option would be Michael Crick of Channel 4, who could come at it from a different angle to that of his colleague Alex Thompson.
I wonder what OG Rafferty might think of the possibility of that happening?
Yorkbhoy, brilliant, so true.
sydneytim- Beware- some happy clapper has hacked your account! :-)
Good positive post for a fine CL morning (over here)
HH
RhebelRhebel @RhebelRhebel
The game is not on TV in the UK tonight! Tickets still available! You might even see a new player!
goldstar10 09:04 on 31 July, 2013
“For anyone remotely interested old Blotto has started his blog up, the first offering has some rather undignified “he said she said” name calling, you will not be surprised to learn that Charles Green is once again a snake oil salesman.
“Laughable trash.”
Charlotte has provided proof that Jack Irvine’s tea boy writes most of the Legless blog.
I was shattered when I discovered the news.
ernie lynch,
Agree it looks unlikely any msm in Scotland are going to run with this.
Also would be interesting if OG Rafferty had a view.
I don’t know any posters on here personally but kind of had the idea that eg PFAyr had some involvement in the legal profession.
If he (or anyone else with a legal background) would be good enough to comment on Irvine’s email it would be interesting.
From a layman’s point of view,I would think it strange if this sort of thing was considered ok.
medtim
Robin Buchanan @rbuchanan1964
Weather forecast for Celtic Park: Dry throughtout the day. Chance of a small shower during the match.15 Celsius at kick off . #Hailhail
Brogan Rogan Trevino and Hogan supports Kano 1000
23:42 on 30 July, 2013
Leftclicktic
To donate to mackenzie’s appeal by phone text MACK83 and the amount to 70070
Cheers
_______________________
Done, thank you sir :))
At first it couldn’t process it then I realised I had a space between MACK83 and amount
it processed it when I text MACK83£??
If I,m not being a total numpty I hope this helps someone
Big day today. Hopefully our new bhoy can come on and make an immediate impact. I call it “doing a Cadete”,
This is the last day of ESPN Classic. They have shown some great sporting memories the last couple of years.
For tonight The Last Olympian will lead the Celtonauts to defeat the many headed Viking Titan to keep the Celtic Quest for the Golden Fleece on track. (Enough pash Greek mythology)
The Ghod Like Genius of Georgios Samaras CSC.
Aby closer to new striker ?
Must have been wrong about 2 having medical.. Id like to see sammi play just behind main stiker. Linking up with our new left winger. Big sammi excellat at holding ball up at times and flick ons.
Excited by the new winger.
Well done celtic
Steinreignedsupreme
In the words of Max Boyce: ‘I was there’ …
Indeed, the league fixture pile up almost certainly worked in Celtic’s favour, since we had a remarkable title-winning run-in.
A deliciously ironic side to this is that the congestion was in part due the Huns themselves.
In particular, I remember the penultimate OF game of that season (scheduled to be played [on 25 March?] at Hampden because of the recevelopment work Ibrox) being postponed, apparently due to snow on the terracing: ‘safety concerns’.
I recall a press pic of a cearly furious Billy McNeill (scornful of the reasons for the postponement) on the pitch at Hampden remonstrating with a budding young football administrator (then a Rangers club official) who was keen to have the match postponed because it came just a few days after his team got dumped out of the European Cup following an energy sapping home tie against FC Koln.
As it turns out, the Huns won the re-scheduled match, but the burden of fixtures was to prove too much for them …
FF
DBBIA –
Great story about Stokes and our new signing and his mother. She was very fortunate oor Tony was in the right place at the right time. What a guy Stokesy is. A man of many talents.
Welcome Derk
Hope you get to wear white socks tonight!
Goldstar. Morning/ evening to you to
Never complained about our midfield. We have a lot of good players
But zero goals scoring strikers is my concern
Good Morning.
It is hard to set out in in coherent and reasonably lengthed ( even for me ) statement the full impact of the Charlotte Fakes releases. Further, the documents cover many areas and have many nuances.
However, let me try and set out what appears to be entirely possible, entirely plausible and even likely.
For years now — possibly decades– Scottish Football has been tilted.
Tilted in the sense whereby the Court of Public opinion has in all probability been rigged by those who would write, talk, lobby, insinuate and where necessary just blurt out the desired message of those who would control affairs at Ibrox.
These messages come by way of “friendly editors”, paid employees who also have columns in national newspapers, similar broadcast journalists and sports commentators on TV and Radio, Police Officers and so on.
I will refrain from going further but I suspect I can extend that list into other areas of life without too much difficulty.
The Audience — who were meant to hear these messages included — The genral public, The Rangers Support, Other Football Clubs and their officials, the Governing bodies and officials, UEFA and so on.
Those who were meant to react to all this spin include all of the above plus the support and those in charge of every other football club in Scotland. Boards of Directors of other clubs — those who may have been friendly towards Ibrox and those who might not — had to go to any meeting at the SFA in the knowledge of and under the shadow of whatever was the barely hidden agenda.
Now– I know others are big enough and bad enough to look after themselves, but when it comes to any kind of vote or discussion you only have one voice and one vote.
Other fans are now waking up to the years of spin.
Dundee Utd fans suddenly questioning all the negative publicity in the press ( as they see it ) concerning their club’s role re matters at Ibrox and the huge campaign that appeared to have David Goodwillie sign for them.
Aberdeen fans, who recall the pages and pages of script given over to the challenge on Iain Durrant and how it miraculously reappeared in the press before games with Rangers even a decade later together with the allegation that Aberdeen as a team really only try against Rangers.
There are more examples but only so much space.
However, the point is there has been repeated spin, innuendo and hiding the truth.
The fianances at Ibrox were never as they seemed. They were hidden from tax man, shareholder, season ticket buyer, The SFA and everyone else. Financially it was a great big bluff — an empire built on sand.
The conduct of many on the board can now be questioned openly as examination of accounts and press statements just don’t tally.
Now all of this is only important from Celtic’s point of view today for one reason– and that reason is that you have to plan going forward.
As things stand, I think everyone in Scottish Football would expect to crowned champions next May. That is not unreasonable.
Celtic have to plan however on the basis of their position in Europe. This year there are three qualifiers. As the co-efficient improves with each prolonged stay in European competition, the need for qualifiers diminishes. Further, co-efficients above us start to drop off in a year or so.
Repeated European participation means greater money each year, greater prestige, greater advertising and revenue, greater reputation on the European stage and greater ability to attract players who want to play champions league.
Without going into any detail, that run at Europe may well last for a substantial number of years and all sorts of possibilities may well flow from that situation.
This is a good time to be a Celtic Fan — if we win tonight and progress then it will be even better.
There will be more new faces at Celtic park before long I suspect and we have a team that can negotiate this hurdle.
Great that Jobo and others have signed up in the name of Celtic for the Great Scottish Run — I am going to do the Green Mile the day before and I would encourage as many of you to join me. Bring the kids and your mammy or whoever else and raise some money for 1254125 — show the press an army of Green and White and force them to report on it!
And Please remember McKenzie Furniss whose plight I have written about here http://wp.me/p1G95H-Xe— Anyone wanting to donate to Mckenzie’s appeal by text then send text MACK83 £x to 70070 or donate here http://wp.me/p1G95H-Xe .
I have set a challenge on twitter called the McKenzie Challenge asking who is willing to donate £5 for every goal we score tonight? I will, if you can then thanks — but in the absence of being able to give please read the story and contact your MP or MSP as this is a disgrace and a scandal.
Cheers
BRTH
All of this Charlotte tapes and letters is jaw dropping stuff, I mean surely it just can not be ignored by all the SMSM, this man Jack Irvine seems to be untouchable I for one would like to know why? For a man who to me is a nobody to have all that power sends a bad message it’s kind of like the SS in WW11, a man with that much power should be looked into and stopped in his tracks and at least be held accountable for the stuff he is being accused of, as for no law involvement it makes it even more curious, I mean this Charlotte stuff (if true ) is very powerfully stuff, I am just astonished and grinning at the SMSM, do they know how stupid they are being made to look? Thing is do they care would be a better question I suppose
I think one of the classic MSM items was the amazing find at the died club of a world class full back. Reading the press reports it was like a Brazilian was playing at IPox
Then spurs signed Mutton and the rest is history
if i post in future about the
scumbags i will be calling them
Rulebenders
Just watched Football’s Secret which was on BBC 3 a few weeks back.It’s about how football deals with depression.Presented by PFA Chairman Clarke Carlisle,who has suffered for a long time,he is superbly articulate and tries to open the condition up for all to try and understand it.Very emotional insight,might still be on the I Player,highly recommended.
585 Minutes to kick off….
drummingfingersCSC
Apologies if I’ve missed it but is any explanation being given why there is no UK tv coverage of tonight’s game?
BTW Welcome big Dirk.
Tony D67-Irvine is the puppetmaster,not as i read on here earlier “a puppet” IMO.He is the Fat Controller and probably has dirt on every hack,editor,Chief Exec etc involved in Scottish Football,and uses this power to influence and corrupt…allegedly.
I assume its not on TV because its not a sell out, I think it is only in Scotland it is not being showed, I think?
tonydonnelly67
Why are the not showing the Champions of Scotland’s big game in Europe??
I guess we know the answer to that question, jealousy is a terrible thing, it eats you up from inside.
No BBC or STV coverage is a total disgrace, no doubt Sevco’s wonder run in the Ramsdens Tinfoil Trophy will receive full coverage..
If nothing changes, nothing changes!!
Hail Hail
skyisalandfill- Not on TV to get more guys in to CP to support the team live.This has happened regularly over last few years.If it was live locally, a lot would not bother to go to the game.As we all know a big CP crowd can be of amazing assistance to the team.It might not suit everyone,but i support this measure.HH
Bada Bing………. Well you normally find with people like that, that they also have a few we dodgy things going on them selves, …Ergo, why Charlotte is exposing him, BUT everyone else backing off, there is a blockbuster story there for someone willing to grow a pair time will tell I suppose.
Bada Bing.
I see what you are saying but it’s difficult to get to midweek games for ghuys who live a bit further away from CP. Bet you, as Starry Plough suggests, if it was the sevvies the game would be on both BBC HD and STV.
HH
Good morning all
For anyone interested, my son has the back page of the Celtic View to himself today. :)
Weefra HH
Tonight might be a bit too soon for the new bhoy. Subs spot me thinks and a possible introduction if were 2-0 up. I digress from what I wanted to mention though. Seeing as Derk has been signed primarily as a left sided winger how is this going to impact big Sammi?
He does most of his damage coming in from the left wing so I’m curious as to what NL has planned for him. A more central attacking role behind a main striker? or one half of an out and out strike partnership?
It’s quite possible that Sammi could be used on a rotational basis for 3 differing positions. Striker, left sided midfielder & attacking central midfield. A great option for the team to have.
I have seen absolutely nothing of Elfsborg so far and to be honest I’m still extremely nervous about tonight’s tie. It’s the Champions League qualifier’s though, nervous anxiety is the norm. The squeaky bum rounds, hopefully, will be something we avoid in the coming years if we can maintain solid performances in the next 3 seasons and can improve our own and Scotland’s co-efficient’s.
Tonight at 7.45 the roar will be back and the real stuff begins.
I’m not going to moan today Bhoys and Ghirls, I finished the job I was on a full day before the deadline which means I can kick back and watch the game on Celtic TV without having a deadline stress in the back of my head!! Really looking forward to tonight now, is the Dutch Bhoy in the squad??
Bring on the Swedes…
Fans advised to collect tickets early for Elfsborg game
By: Newsroom Staff on 31 Jul, 2013 07:36
AS the anticipation builds ahead of tonight’s crucial UEFA Champions League qualifying tie against IF Elfsborg, supporters who have pre-booked match tickets, or who are looking to purchase match tickets, are encouraged to do so as early as possible at the Celtic Park Ticket Office in advance of the 7.45pm kick off.
Demand has been high for such a vital fixture, with large queues expected at the Celtic Park Ticket Office ahead of the game, and fans are advised to get to there as soon as possible today to avoid any delays in the approach to kick-off.
Supporters looking to buy tickets can also do so ONLINE and on 0871 226 1888*
Tickets are also available from the following Celtic retail stores: Argyle Street, Sauchiehall Street, Clydebank, Coatbridge, East Kilbride, Livingston.
Willie Pettigrew would have scored goals for fun at Celtic.
I was another who couldn’t get rid of his Willie Pettigrew doublers *for love nor money*.
In fact, I think I’ve still got some.
BBC Scotland’s budget only extends to live coverage of Sevco matches – despite the fact they have been banned (again) by the third-tier outfit.
They have several season books at Ibrox too boot – Dougie Donnelly always gets first pick for the seat that seat faces the river.
He’s a big Clyde fan after all.
I was just a bairn when Willie Pettigrew was playing for D Utd. Used to scared the s*!t out of me when I saw him on Scotsport.