Sporting ambition versus Cash in the bank?

It's become a really interesting dynamic amongst Celtic fans on recent years, that we we debate the relative value of players, when to sell, what to spend, who's worth what etc.
I do it myself, so can't talk about anyone.

But should we really be worried about all that stuff and be happy when we get a big fee - even when we lose a top player, almost celebrating it like victory - especially when doing so much better than Rangers on a spreadsheet when the gap on the pitch is nowhere near as large as it should be when comparing financial resources - all predominantly funded by the fans remember.
It means nothing if it's just stashed in a bank vault and not effectively utilised.

This plays into big Peter and the blazers narrative to keep the fans just happy enough to stave of revolution and equally stay just ahead of Rangers on the pitch too.
Yes, but look at our big amazing balance sheet they say - at stage managed AGM's.
We the fans even start to say after another European exit or old firm defeat - yes. but look how well run we are.

If we continue with our self imposed limited ambition on the pitch over multiple seasons and windows, you could argue CFC's main goal appears to be recruiting promising young players, giving them a platform on the pitch - but primarily with a view to enable revenue and profit
so running purely as any other business and not a top class sporting club.

I am personally sick of the lack of sporting ambition, especially given the A+ finances.
The stewards of our great football club should think about what the purpose of our club is (or should be) to put the best team possible on the pitch, entertain the fans and deliver best possible opportunity to be successful at home and in Europe.

With approaching £100M in the bank, can they honestly say we are as ambitious as we should be on the pitch?

 

We don't have any sporting ambition. It's that simple really. We're limited by the league we play in, but they don't do anywhere near enough to maximise our potential.

They rinse the fans for cash and flip a few players for decent money; then proceed with the chortling and back slapping. It's a bit of a myth that we're this well run club. Well run clubs don't go over two decades without winning a knockout tie in Europe.

Qualify for Europe and finish above Rangers = job done in the eyes of the board (and sadly many of the fans). They know this and that's why they never show any proper ambition to improve, there's no pressure to.

 

Intuitively I agree with the thrust of what you are saying. Playing the argument out in my head though, if I am on the Celtic board, I would ask the following: "What would spending an extra say net £35m (half our cash reserves) on players buy us in terms of success or in terms of financial return?"

We win the league almost every season and we win the double or treble almost every season. Do we need to spend an extra £35m to beat Aberdeen in a Cup Final when weve already spent more on one player than they have on their entire squad? We dont. So from a domestic perspective, at least until Rangers are competent, we spend enough to be absolutely dominant.

Last season, would an extra £35m have won us the champions league? No. Semis? No. Quarters, doubt in. Would it even make us favourites to beat Bayern over two legs? No. So, why spend more for no return. Now I would argue that merely to match what we achieved last season we should be spending much more. Then it becomes a judgement call - spending that much just to hold our own rather than actually progress or to make a greater financial return. We are dialling up financial risk marginally in order to make marginal improvments to our standing in a champions league we wont win.

So I can see why its a difficult call. Its hard because we do need to find a reason to improve from somewhere but given the pretty unique postion Celtic find themsleves in, it is a tricky balancing act.

(The general fleecing of fans is a seperate thing but Id add that I hate that about how Celtic is managed, and generally I think fans would tolerate less spending from the board if they didnt feel like they were being rinsed all the time).

 

As a football club I have no idea why we have so much cash in the bank. Actions to do up boxes in the main stand suggest there is no near term plans to make some major infrastructure investment there.

We invested over £20m in Barrowfield and Lennoxtown over the last two years and given the profits made during that time the cash in bank has barely been impacted if at all.

At the same time we continue to fail in our own player development no one has been a first team regular since KT in 2017 and no one has even really broken into the squad even briefly since Welsh in 2020, even he is being moved on now.

It’s too early in this window to be losing the head and bringing back Tierney and taking advantage of Nygren’s contract situation are good bits of business but some of the links beyond that seem a bit uninspiring. As mentioned in other threads hopefully getting Nawrocki, Lagerbielke and Kuhn out the door allows us to bring some more players in.

Fingers crossed Kwon, Yang, Welsh, Tilio, Kenny and Palma etc are next and we start to fill some of the gaps we have in the first team and squad.

If Maeda was to decide to go just now we would have some rebuild job on our hands.

 

There’s a fine line between running the club as a business and maximising profit to running a successful club that will guarantee trophies and money long term.

The wage bill largely holds us back for the players we can realistically get and hold onto while keeping a big enough squad to rotate quality in with the domestic and European games plus International for many.

Big thing that changed this season is no guaranteed CL money as we’ve seen before means we leave the needed additions till later in the window.

We should be far ahead of the game though as we don’t have replacements for CCV, AJ, Hatate and Maeda. Losing any of them in the next 2 months we’ll be scrambling for a replacement then try to get them settled in quickly.

The other thing that’s annoying as * is the club ripping the * out of the fans every chance for money while having that stash in the bank, a bit of appreciation to ST holders and fans would go a long way. Like the Newcastle friendly being charged and no ticket swaps for non ST holders.

 

Thing is you say what more would spending and extra 35mil have got us. That 35mil is not dead money even if we get no further in Europe. Spend that 35mil wisely and it becomes 70mil in player sales.

Thats not always guaranteed but if you have a good system in place you can at least look at not losing money.

Our board are absolutely petrified of losing any money.

Its bounces back to why Rodgers left the first time round and why Big Ange had a dig at the board in a spurs press conference when he said its ok looking to qualify for the CL but if you're never looking to improve then what's the point.

 

We have one but not the other.

Developing long term should be our model, we don't really have anywhere to go in terms of domestically so needs to target progression in Europe.

Becoming a hub for up and coming talent is really what we should be aiming for but the national setup stops that too.

Spending more money unless we can get it back is the issue.

Having written that not sure what our avenue to bigger success could be.

 

That is a very logical argument, the counter to that is would spending an extra even £10-15m last summer have given us a better chance at a higher finish in the league phase and potentially a more winnable tie to get to the last 16?

We went into the season a centre midfielder, winger and left back (we got Valle on loan but Taylor still played the majority of the CL games) short even filling two of those positions may have given us a better chance.

In addition, is it acceptable having such a high bank balance uninvested and you end up finishing a cup final with Liam Scales at centre back, Greg Taylor and Luke McCowan in midfield and two of our front 3 as Kenny and Yang?

Yes some of that is down to signings not working out in Trusty so Rodgers played Scales but we basically got our only two creative players injured in Jota and Hatate and were left massively short.

 

The likes of Ajax need to be our target model.

Dutch football league is * as well. But players know they will compete for domestic trophies and get a chance to showcase their talents in Europe every season.

It's not long before you become well known for developing talent and you can command higher fees for your players.

 

The only thing that would change our whole landscape in that respect is better competition or a better league, or our main competition bettering themselves which can slowly push us to improve. Personally i'm happy to see us moving forward in all aspects and in my opinion there is every reason to assume our success can continue. The Champions league, i assume we should enjoy it while it lasts because apparently our co efficients are * for the foreseeable future anyway because of the new changes.
So decisions get made and risks are assessed for the next five years and that makes sense.

 

Players will go to where they are paid the most money, the league we play in is no longer a relevant argument imo, * went to China and Saudi simply because they were offered the most money.

Now I'm not suggesting we can afford those kinds of wages, but we certainly can pay for a higher calibre of player than we already have, if we tweaked our wage structure we could attract players from the next level up from where we are.

Added to the fact we have guaranteed European football in some capacity, the opportunity for silverware and yes then a platform to a higher league eventually. But like I've said for years, make the player an attractive pay offer and he'll come no matter what league the team is in.

The club are the only ones holding back on ambition, as others have said, qualify for Europe and finish above the huns is the boards ambition.

The board don't care if we get pumped in the CL as long as we get the money from playing in it. Until we have a board with ambition thebsame cycles will keep happening.

 

Sporting ambition is in the dugout and dressing room.
However those higher up don't share the vision and are running us almost like a bank that plays football games.

It's the reason managers and players don't stay too long.

Those upstairs have held us back for years happy to earn bonuses for themselves yet if they shared the ambition of others they would quadruple their bonuses.

 

The biggest problem I find with Celtic is over the last 20 years it always feels like we’re 2-3 first team players away from having a very respectable side in Europe. I just wish we’d show a bit more ambition. We should be looking to invest to build on our profits even more.

 

Then we sell 2 and buy a couple of projects and repeat the cycle.

We have been following this business model for nearly 20 years now yet still don't implement it properly

 

As others have said, even if the board only understand money - they surely also understand that guaranteed UCL football (driven by a better coefficient) will mean extra cash from UEFA but also higher income from player sales - if we recruit well.

A successful £2M to £5M player with the odd good performance in Europe might bring in £10M-£25M (as we know - Kuhn) - but that's the ceiling.

But if we bring in a £10-£15M player or three every season and we are regular UCL last 32/16 or get to the odd Europa semi or final, you are then at a different level on your maximum sale price and the number of high value sales.
You getting virtually guaranteed UCL revenue too, it really is win, win, win.

And the fans get what they want, amazing euro runs and nights and crushing the 49'ers into the dust before they get a chance to lift their head.

 

Are Ajax in a better place than Celtic though?

They havent won their league since 2022 and they havent won their cup since 2021. Last season they finished 12th in the europa league (below Rangers) then got beat home and away in the last 16 by Eintracht Frankfurt. Previous year they didnt get out their Europa group stage.

I dont know how Ajax's spending compares to ours, but based on return they dont look like they are doing any better than us. The days of small nation clubs competing at the top end of europe through a smart transfer policy have sadly gone.

 

I’m reserving judgment for now to be honest. I was pleased with the direction in the previous two windows. I’m a bit concerned we’re bringing in fringe players and prospects right now (based on rumours) but it’s early days still. Let’s see how the next 2 weeks go.

 

I think the overall model the board have adopted is correct for a club in our position and the league we play in. Which is it to try maximise on player trading revenues. How well they employ that strategy will be up for debate but I think they have accepted some of the harder realities we face:

Attractiveness of league
Competitiveness of league
Ability to retain our top talent
Ability to pay wages comparable to the bigger leagues
Calibre of player we can attract

There not really getting away from these limiting factors so we can only work within the confines of them.

If we accept that, then I think the question is what specifically should we be doing different? Ambition is difficult to define. If you benchmark yourself domestically, i.e against Rangers, then you risk stunting yourself. But at the same time its pointless to try and benchmark yourself against the Champions League because its way beyond our means. Theres a large middle ground there which is difficult to define because it cant be measures in trophies. I think this is where it become difficult to draw a line and strike a balance. Clearly the team can be strengthened further, but to what end. Not being in the champions league I think would actually make it easier to set measurable targets in Europe but at the cost of huge revenue.

I think the other aspect which is worth considering is how easy it can be to get wrong. If players arent moved on at the right time and if the squad isnt managed correctly. We caught a glimpse of that during the Covid year. The money in the bank can drain quickly if the squad isnt well managed.

As a case in point look at Rangers and the kind of mistakes they have been making for years. They frontloaded spending in desperation to win the league. When they finally did win it they didnt move any of their guys on. Doubled down and ended up having guys like Kent who they signed for 8M leaave for nothing, Morelos they could of got a fee for left for nothing. Barasic, Lundstram left for nothing etc etc. They saddled their squad with expensive duds with the wrong age profile on bloated contracts that they struggled to shift because no club would match their wages. Then their board was fooled into handing over the purse strings to a car salesman like Beale who filled the squad with more overpaid expensive duds. We have become accustomed to winning the league each year because of a lack of domestic competition. But certainly in the last 3 or 4 years much of that has been down to because we are better run upstairs.

 

The reason players and managers don’t stay long has little to do with sporting ambition and everything to do with the league we play in.

You very quickly hit a ceiling at this club beyond which there’s nothing else that can realistically be won. We’ve won 14 out of 15 league titles with numerous trebles.

Yes, I think we all want to see us make progress in Europe (and historically we should have been better) but let’s not kid ourselves that we’re just a bit more spending away from being heavyweights at that level. That’s not the reason that players leave us.

 

Ajax ironically started their downward spiral when they started spending larger fees on players and those signings didn’t pay off.

They’re still a well run club and make a healthy profit most seasons, but spending more doesn’t necessarily equate to more success or European progress.