Villa’s import of Celtic commercial success

Our trip to Birmingham this week is thankfully less crucial than it may have been.  Celtic (12 points) will not reach the top eight, even with a win, Aston Villa (13 points) are likely to make the cut with a win, not a draw.  That puts all the pressure onto the home side, allowing Celtic a free hit.

Villa also have everything to play for at home.  They are eight in the table, four points off an automatic Champions League spot, but that could change if Manchester City’s legal challenges crystalise before the end of the season, and English clubs earn a fifth spot, which looks likely.

The Birmingham club have a mix of American and Egyptian billionaire owners who bought into what was a sleeping giant and set about a restoration project.  Interestingly, they came to Celtic for their commercial head.

Last year they employed Celtic’s then commercial director, Adrian Filby.  Adrian joined Celtic in 2008 and transformed our commercial operation and income over 16 years.  This culminated in the club’s current relationship with Adidas and retail partner, JD Sports.   Commercial deals fall into the category of ‘you don’t want to see how the sausage is made’, but suffice to say that collaborative deals with Adidas and JD leveraged a lot more money for Celtic than would otherwise have been possible.

Every time our financials are released you and I discuss the importance of commercial income to our strategic planning.  Ticket sales are more or less steady, European income varies widely, but commercial contracts allows the club to budget with some certainty for years ahead.  For many years these deals brought in the equivalent of a Champions League qualification (although this year’s CL is likely to blow that equivalence out of the water).

Filby led what was by far the most experienced and successful commercial team in Scottish football.  It is often a thankless task.  No one really likes sponsor’s names on their shirt, but they put players on the field, just as our season ticket money does.  He also took over the women’s team, concluding with their first league title.

Forget all of that, though.  If any of you bump into him in Birmingham this week, the anecdote you probably want to ask him about is the Sydney Tournament.  He was the man who declined the offer Newco’s James Bisgrove signed up for, eventually agreeing to a payment four times more than Newco.  Bisgrove was soon promoted to Newco chief exec, causing much hilarity elsewhere in Glasgow.

There is now a Celtic commercial team band reunion underway at Villa.  Kerry Keenan, our former marketing head who left in 2022, has joined Filby as VP of Marketing.  The story of Celtic’s business and operational excellence seldom grabs the headlines, but it has been genuinely exceptional for a long time now.  It is no surprise that aspirational English clubs want a piece of it.