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.
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Paul67
What we have to get away from is the big wages and then be able to pay more for signings. If you look at Porto’s transfer and wage budget you’ll see that they spend a lot more on fees than us but have a far lower wage budget.
If there are players at the club earning £20k a week others will look for parity. If the top earner is on £10k then average players or un-proven players won’t be looking for £10k+. Obviously it’s different markets and the proximity to the EPL doesn’t help, neither does the unattractiveness of the league/weather/burds.
Still… signing unproven players who are maybe on £500 a week or £1000 a week – why should they jump to £10k or even £8k or £6k? I’m pretty sure they’d be delighted to double or triple their money although their agents will push for whatever they can get (and of course if other clubs are in for them this will push up their demands).
What I don’t get, and I love the guy, is Brown being on the salary he is on? What would he have been on at Hibs? £4-6k at the very most? Why is he suddenly on £20K a week? He’s improved a lot in the past year or two but he’s not the best player at the club so why should he be on the highest salary? And therein lies the problem…
Paul
i dont think we will spend anything near £7 million for any player, but how you arrive at those figures is bafelling. £4 million from £100 reduction on adult tickets, sure, if all our season ticket holders were full paying adults in 2012/13. They were not, i’d hazard a guess no more than 70% of season tickets are full adult.
Season tickets appear to be well up on last season so that deficit is wiped out, with the added bonus that more people in and around celtic park meaning more spending on other things = more imcome.
why have you not accounted for the gate from last qualifier game, C/L groups and last 16 against Juve. throw in merchandising etc… and your some way over the £10 million mark.
hooper and victor are 2 of 12 players who left celtic this season all of whom were on a good wage.
I’ am not saying we should have bags of cash to throw about. but i would be surprised if the existing wage structure had to be altered greatly to bring in and retain the current playing squad. no bad think in my books, but i would be a little p$$$$ if the 1st phase of the celtic triangle was not complete with the cash windful.
18 million for two player
20 million prise money for C/L
10 million from gate
2 million for merchandising
50 million before expenses
SydneyTim 12:35 on 30 July, 2013
Stokes has a good scoring record. Certainly not a bad buy.
WGS
IF we could get Shane Long for £2 million how could we compete with the EPL who can offer him more in actual wages?
Also heard that one player is getting a medical and another one is due one….
Re Finbogasson,
Paul is right….spending €7m on him a year after he transferred for €0.5m would be taking a huge risk.
What I’m most pissed off about is why we didn’t sign him for €0.5m last year!!
His record was much better than Bangura’s in Sweden and at €0.5m he was surely worth a punt!!
I guess he didn’t score against us…..but either did Cardoza last season for Benfica and Messi only got one in the last minute after 180 mins of football.
For all the good work the scouts do they missed out big time with this guy!!
We’re we not promised a Marquee signing each season .?
I think we must have a review of our striker scouting system. Get one of our former heros employed as a coach and scout
Something is going wrong there
Cqn and Paul has long had the name of being a pro board site.
This article confirms this imho..
Kayal33
11:57 on
30 July, 2013
WGS
11:54 on 30 July, 2013
Most likely a load of rubbish from Etims. What’s their rumours record like?
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I still get slagged for the Wiltord & Berkhamp rumours that Etims had in the past
HH
I’ve funny feeling that Gary Hooper’s replacement is going to be Pierre-Michel Lasogga from Hertha Berlin. Ticks all the right boxes.
Made up transfer rumour.
Salomon ( haven’t got a ) Kalou.
We got back into the Champions League and earned an additional £20m.
hahahahahahahhaha
hahahahahahahahaha
hahahahahahahahaha
hahahahahahahahaha
hahahahahahahahaha
Could well be right ST but didn’t Henrik himself have good things to say about Bangura who we appear to be writing/have written off?
Henrik Larsson apparently recommended Bangura???
Dia Daoibh
Have a problem refreshing the page,f5 button on new laptop doesn’t work,it’s used to freeze the touch pad.appreciate any help
Toshiba Satellite
And does this article mean we won’t pay €7m (which I think 90% agree with and 80% think is sensible) or that he won’t cost €7m?
I still think that a player like Charlie Austin (if we got £5m for Hooper) would be a almost guaranteed replacement for less and probably on affordable wages (although that’s maybe shot not he’s had offers from EPL clubs). It’s more that I think we’ll spend and maybe even more than I think we should be spending but I think he’s the type of player who would hit the ground running and wouldn’t be a gamble. We’d probably sell him in a couple of seasons for £7-10m.
I think with strikers you get someone you know will do it in the SPL (exception of Killen) on the cheap, get someone who’s scoring for fun but at an obscure level or else you need to pay in the £2.5-5m range for someone scoring at a higher level (unless their contract dictates otherwise).
BIGbones8867
Toshiba? Pain in the erse!
Who’s the 7m euro striker who scored less league goals than Billy McKay last season?
Who’s the 7m euro striker who scored less league goals than Billy McKay last season?
Gary Hooper
I think the scouts are maybe hampered by their remit,get us a striker that will score 30 goals a season for 1/2m,or they are not very good at their job.
BIGbones8867
Just seen the last line… aye, thought so… definite pain in the erse!
@celticfc: NL on new signing: “Still doing a medical. Hoping to get that confirmed this afternoon. If everything goes ok, should be in the squad.”(MH)
Right we tried outspending them , they’re still here
we tried messing up their signings, they’re still here
we tried paying the meeja, they’re still here
we tried the weirdest and wildest of shi” that you wouldn’t believe in a month of sundays, they’re still here
we tried sabotaging journos who told the world what we did, they’re still here
we’ve nothing left , why don’t we just worry about ourselves
ha, when will the penny drop ?
Kayal33 13:17
Alfreð Finnbogason I presume.
Malone Bhoy
Ha! for me it’s like a rolls royce compared to the ancient Lada I had!
Malone Bhoy
“What I don’t get, and I love the guy, is Brown being on the salary he is on? What would he have been on at Hibs? £4-6k at the very most? Why is he suddenly on £20K a week? He’s improved a lot in the past year or two but he’s not the best player at the club so why should he be on the highest salary? And therein lies the problem…”
—————————————————–
While I understand why you are saying what you’re saying I don’t think he is suddenly on higher wages. He earned a new deal. After the first two years (& he had other issues of course) he has grown as a player & a Celtic captain (& person) to an extent that has surprised me by its complete unlikeliness!!
He has been, imo, our most consistent & influential player over the last two & arguably three seasons.
Paul,
Did Pedro write that article for you. Don’t have time or inclination to go thru the numbers as eat to pick holes.
Bottom line the manager is operating with his hands behind his back as the CEO has sold his best 2 players ( which he knew he would do ) without a replacement. Now one minute to midnight he wakens up and is scrambling to get someone in.
Part 2 of the CEO strategy is to get his excuses in early about this bundle of cash. Hence your article.
Yep, if we fail it’s lennys fault.
If the article is correct and I don’t really agree with the gist of it what’s the point of even buying a season ticket or a ticket for tomorrow( a game I really don’t expect us to win),If we don’t qualify for group stages over the next two years we will hardly be in a position to challenge the zombies when they return to the top flight,Losing top players and replacing them with inferior or even not replacing them at all will be a disaster ,looks great on the balance sheet but crap when it comes to results,if could spend all of the Mcgeady money on new players without going into free fall we should be able to spend a good bit of the kitty this time,and remember we had no CL MONEY BACK THEN,perhaps pirate pete doesn’t rate lennons attempts at bringing in strikers apart from hooper the rest have been tripe,makes you think hooper was a fluke
I think paul67 is referring to Icelandic striker Finnboggson (spelling?) that has been rumoured for new striker.
The orcs will not understand why Dunfermline bothered with a CVA.
Didn’t Van Nistelrooy start at Herenveen?
Well done to Dunfermline fans on saving their Club.
Posters swallowing the tabloid guff about pocketing £20M from UEFA for the CL games and completely ignoring the costs involved in staging these games. Only clubs in or just relegated from the EPL, get such huge net sums.
Previously on the blog, more knowledgable posters than me have explained all this in greater detail !
T4
my info on brown he is on approx. 30k pw.
Paul and BRTH
You two should be ashamed of yourselves, coming on here and expounding common sense when the rest of us are having a ball speculating and salivating about possible new signings. Your behaviour is positively anti-Celtic!
I’m away over to E-Tims for a while where they are obviously more in touch with my train of thought at the moment.
Harrumph. Flounce.
Pars creditors agree a CVA and maintain their history, lets watch the MSM spin this one.
You mean we are not going to sign Finbogasson.
How can WGS (of this parish )get it wrong so often?
(:-)
TT
galacelt
13:21 on 30 July, 2013
Haha. Meant the one Paul was alluding to, the one we are about to make (or not) a 7m bid for??
‘Scrambling about’ is the new ‘Black’.