The media seem to be giving us the impression that there’s a few quid in the coffers at Celtic Park after the most recent financial figures were released. It must have hurt them to say so, and no doubt we can look forward to praise for a well run club, and perhaps even a multi page spread to show others how it can be done.
Or, of course, it could all be just luck.
That the impression given by this splash in the Record, although surely the hard work in getting to the lucrative group stages should be emphasised, and not portraying the proze money as a lucky spin of the reels.
Underneath, of course, there’s the dark side to all of this, as the paper asked where it leaves the rest of our game, a spectacular misspelling of “rangers “, although they did try to spread the pain.
The paper sems quite pleased with its picture, and the witty headline, and one wonders if someone in the office this morning is walking around with a smug grin on his face, even if , on eamination, the headline completely misses the point of the story.
For those who want to know, this is the real story, from Sports business Daily ..
Involvement in the Champions League group stages boosted Scottish Premiership side Celtic’s revenue by almost 95% and “underlined the financial gulf which the rest of Scottish football is struggling to bridge,” according to Greig Cameron of the LONDON TIMES. The club brought in £61.2M ($76.6M) during the six-month period to the end of December, an increase from the £31.4M during the same part of ’15. In contrast, the combined annual turnover for Aberdeen (£13.4M/$16.8M), Rangers (£22.2M/$27.8M) and Heart of Midlothian (£10M/$12.5M) is around £45.6M ($57.1M), according to the most recently available figures for each club. In a release to the stock exchange, the Parkhead club said that it made a pre-tax profit of £18.6M ($23.3M) between July and the end of the year, up from £11.9M. On “an underlying basis, stripping out the impact of transfer fees paid and received,” the profit was £21.4M ($26.8M) compared to £1.6M. The “bumper revenue in the half-year was primarily driven by money from” TV, multimedia and other commercial activities which “trebled” to £29.9M ($37.4M). Home games against Man City, Barcelona and Bundesliga side Borussia Mönchengladbach “helped to lift match day and stadium revenue” 52% from £14.8M to £22.6M ($28.3M). Merchandising was up 16% to £8.7M ($10.9M) (LONDON TIMES, 2/7). The BBC reported Celtic recouped £2M ($2.5M) from Stefan Johansen’s move to League Championship side Fulham, while £9.5M ($11.9M) was spent on summer transfers, with Manager Brendan Rodgers bringing in Moussa Dembele, Scott Sinclair, Cristian Gamboa and Dorus de Vries. The “latest figure is higher than group revenue for the whole of last season,” £52M (BBC, 2/6).
The extra £6m isn;t really extra, as the club knew that they’d get this all along. It just seems to have surprised our “experts”
No wonder Brendan Rodgers speaks of hanging around for a few years yet He’ll be looking for a heated driveway if he’s on commission.
Curiously, the club spent nearly ten million pounds on players, and no one went in the other direction. Maybe they just didn’t trust Ronny with the chequebook, and decided to save the funds for the next guy, who hasn’t done badly with them.
But with all this money comes a sting in the tail
There’s little anyone can add to that.
Though Neil Patey, the Records go to guy about finance from Ernst and Young , is in the same league..
“The Champions League has always been vital in terms of revenue but we have seen in the last few years the money has gone up and up.
“It’s an even bigger positive impact now and more of a windfall. Celtic are now on a virtuous upwards circle.
“It’s the opposite when you don’t qualify for the Champions League. You don’t get the money, you can’t afford to keep your best players and it makes it more difficult to qualify next time.
“It can be a never-ending downward spiral.
Er, but it isn’t.
“It’s still a lottery trying to qualify. It’s never guaranteed because you can never know what will happen in the draw or what happens in the games.
For a financial expert, he hasn’t grasped the difference between “lotteries and windfalls” and the result of hard work, planning and skill.
You’d think the media would be happy that at least one club is doing well, but this is Scotland, and after squabbling with Andy Walker over the soup, it appears Davie Provan emerged the winner, and between mouthfuls, he warned..
“There’s no doubt he’ll ( Rodgers ) want another go at the Premier League in England,”
“The trick for Celtic is finding the means of keeping him here and keeping him motivated which might be the more difficult of the two.
“I’d love to think they could keep him for four years but there has to be doubt about that. I’m not sure he’ll see 10-in-a-row as the big picture. He’ll see restoring Celtic’s credibility in Europe as the number one priority. He’ll want to make Celtic regular Champions League participants.
“Under Brendan, if he’s given the backing from the board, and it would seem at the moment that they are buying into him, I don’t see why Celtic can’t be regulars.
“But I would think Brendan would be on the short-list of most clubs down there. I don’t think he would take a lower Premier League job. It would take something special to attract him. That would be the worry for Celtic.
“The two performances and results against Manchester City didn’t go unnoticed down south. Those are the ones people in England would have been looking for.”
Hang on, what was it Brendan and Chris Davies said ?
From the Sun…
As Rodgers arrives in the Celtic Park tunnel during a matchday, ( a young supporter )Jude asks: “Are you going to be here for 10 in a row Brendan?”
Grinning Rodgers replies: “Do you want me to be?”
As star-struck Judge ( I think they mean Jude ) immediately answers “yes”,
Rodgers vows: “I’ll do my best.”
To be honest, he was hardly likely to say anything else, but its not the only time it’s been mentioned. Imagine if he’d said;
” No way. The “rangers ” are coming and I’m getting out of here before they do. ”
Chris Davies was a little more blatant..despite looking a little too much like fuckwitted former chancellor George Osborne
It’s not just about this season but the foreseeable future, seasons ahead. There’s a focus on now but with an attitude we want to build something here for a longer period as well.
“We create that environment in which the players actually enjoy coming in and we’re developing them and we’re relentless. That’s a word Brendan uses a lot and that sums it up.”
Mind you, if one plan doesn’t work, Provan can always try to unsettle the players…
“It would be difficult if Celtic got a daft offer for Dembele and the player wanted to go,”
. “In those circumstances you can’t keep him. I thought it was refreshing that when the Chelsea interest surfaced that Dembele didn’t throw the toys out of the pram and do a Dimitri Payet which he could have done.
“He got his head down and committed himself to the end of the season but if they were to get a daft offer for him or a daft offer for Kieran Tierney then very often it is up to the player. That would be the difficulty that Brendan would have; trying to build a team and keep his best players because some players would see Scottish football as the bridge towards the Premier League.
“Players can earn four or five times their salary down south and it is very tempting. It can be difficult for Brendan to keep the team together.
“The tough thing for Brendan is in keeping players happy in Scotland, even although they are dominant in Scotland, I think there is always an attraction to go and play at the top level down south.”
*Davie Provan was speaking at a William Hill media event. William Hill is the proud sponsor of the Scottish Cup.
And presumably, those sponsor really don;y want to see Celtic take their trophy/
What seems to have escaped the media is that Brendan might actually be enjoying himself, and the only person that can relate to that in the media is Chris Sutton, who thinks soup is for throwing at his fellow presenters.
He’s on Record as saying he thinks that Rodgers will be around for a while, and maybe he understands why.
Back at the ranch, and Celtic are to seek an audience with the police after some enthusiastic supervision by the boys in blue at the St. Johnstone game.
We’ll let you know how it goes, but if you have anything to add to an increasing dossier, let us know.
In the meantime, don’t let the bastards wind you up.
The Scottish cup returns this weekend, and Celtic host Inverness , still the only team to have taken a point off the hoops.
Well, we want it back, so to speak, and with the players on a high after a magnificent performance and result in Perth, the Caley jags could be in for a hiding.
Or perhaps they should just go into hiding.
Their captain, Gary Warren thinks they have a chance…
“It gives us a chance to go and have a little run in the cup. It’s a big test for us again but if you’re going to go and win trophies you’ve got to beat the best.
“There’s no reason why we can’t do it. We have a break from the league now which gives us an opportunity to go and test ourselves against the best. We’re always prepared to go and win a game of football.”
The league table suggests otherwise, as the highland side have only three wins in twenty four games, which is unlikely to frighten Celtic.
Early prediction-its time for a 7-0.
Over on the south side, theres a few stories circulating that suggest things aren;t going to well over there.
Rob Keirnan, their Irish centre half is probably questioning his decision to go undercover as we hear that he had to have a minder by his side to discourage some constructive criticism from fans,
Duff and Duffer, the men who caused Craig whyte to pace up and down his office until it was confirmed they’d be in charge of the assett stripping of Rangers during their administration are to be sued for £28.9m by liquidators BDO, which should add a few quid to the creditors pot.
questions are also being asked as to how Charles Green got his big hands on the assets-especially the ground and land -fpr so little. With police charges previously being dropped against Duff and Duffers two main men, one winders if they have anything to add to the upcoming cases that they had forgotten to mention that they feel the prosecution would find useful now.
It would also mean that the old club, having finally got someone in who can raise money and not just spend it, will be better off than the new one, despite the latter raising £70m or thereabouts in a share issue.
Any money raised, of course, will be swallowed up by the tax man and others, although BDO might be looking at heated car parks for their offices as well.
Another scenario that might emerge is the new club facing an insolvency event. We hear that things are even worse over there than other articles may suggest on other sites, and with the Ibrox club putting out false information to some to try to establish the identity of leaks, there’s a bit of digging to be done before you get to the truth.
Hah. I said digging. Thats quite a coincidence
I would like to venture that they won;t be around at the end of the season, based on some pointless tittle tattle I picked up.
That could lead to three versions of the same entity being in existence simultaneously…with about thruppence ha’penny between them…
Oh, by the way, if you are going to put a shiny pound on Celtic to win 7-0, you might want to double it upo with a draw between “rangers 2 and morton in the same competition, as Matthew Lindsay, Ibrox cheerleader at the Herald Group, seems to know the score.
Poor sod. He obviously can’t see his keyboard for the tears in his eyes.
Theres a lot of pressure on Mark Warburton going into that game, so it should be a laugh.
On Monday-no Diary yesterday as I had to walk about ten miles to pick my car up after a particularly intense Lennon CSC meeting-we had one of those “fill yer boots ” pictures..
Brendan ‘ …and then he said that if we had lost 3 games and they had won more we would only be 13 points clear…’
Brendan: So did McCann say anything intelligent on Sunday Lenny?
I couldn’t split these two, so i didn’t.
Today…