figures are out

Random Review · Sep 13, 2015

ILoveTheCeltic said: ↑

Thats always been the case, making big additions to the wage-bill and spending on transfer fees gambling on CL qualification has always been a massive gamble that could go pearshaped and cause 2/3/4 years of damage - hence why it's never been done.

Imagine for example this upcoming summer, if we kept all our players but spent £3million apeice on 3 new players on £18k a week each, thats us adding £12million to one years accounts and £3million more to another 3 years after say. If we failed to qualify for the Champions League we'd end up making a loss of £10million or so, meaning we'd probably need to use up £5million in overdraft and get a new bank loan of £5million or we'd need to sell £10million worth of players and lower the wage-bill by about £50k a week to get back to running as normal. If any or all 3 of those big signings turned out diddies it would probably damage us for atleast 3 years if not more, would really be massive damage, could be undone if we qualified for the Champions League the following year though but then the likes of Lawwell and the board would be sitting sweating * it through the qualifiers knowing that we must qualify - would be like you gambling half your yearly income to try and get a nice holiday for your family for free and * up then having to do it again the next year just to make up for the money you lost the year before - not the right way to survive.
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Very well explained.

Random Review · Sep 13, 2015

JC ANTON said: ↑

I beg to differ, we are a PLC at the moment but that could change, the Celtic Trust are shareholders with the overall goal of acquiring enough shares to take ownership of Celtic.

It will take time and persuasion but if you look at the work the trust has been involved in so far, surely it must be a good thing to have fans at the core of our club.

They have been instrumental in safe-standing, the Brother Walfrid Statue, arguing for the living wage, dividend reinvestment to spread ownership not to mention their work with FAC..

They too are organsised, elected etc.. Working selflessly for the good of the club..

This would make a huge difference to the club and doesn't need to affect us adversely financially.
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Great post.

Murph-E · Sep 13, 2015

So we either be extremely financially tight at all times, or we WILL fall into a pit of financial despair and head straight towards going out of business?

Seems like there might be somewhere in the middle we could try. Maybe show some ambition?

Random Review · Sep 13, 2015

JC ANTON said: ↑

Celtic have been around before it was a PLC..

Before you say birthday card pish... For me the club means more than just mere profit and loss, even CL cash..

It's about like minded people coming together, sharing enthusiasm and love for the club and showing solidarity with impoverished or politically oppressed peoples staying true to our original values.

Our match day experience should be better too.
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Sorry to do this, but that's also spot on.

Wicker Bhoy · Sep 13, 2015

og1 said: ↑

I am actually quite sensible and I have said numerous times that I am in favour of us having no/very low debt. I never called for us to spend more than what we have. I also support our strategy of buying young players and selling them on.

I would like to see more balance to this policy though as we seem to be married to this with little desire to supplement young players with experienced pros. Experienced pros have little future monetary value and their true value i.e. what they offer our team is not taken into account. This has to stop. Thinking of players only in terms of what we will receive for them is idiotic, I dont think i need to explain why.

I did see a lot of this coming in fairness but I was calling for the likes of Sammy and Ledley to get new contracts, getting Gudetti, and targeting a higher class of player rather than 2 or 3 projects.

The last two years with players sales and CL money we would have seen record turnover if we qualified. Failing to qualify since Lennon moved on has been disastrous for us.

Most posters know the craic. I said last week that Lennons last 16 team was the rock upon which he should have built his church, instead we destroyed that side and rebuilt. Mental.

When we accepted 600k for Ledley rather than use the remainder of his contract to try to get him to sign, I knew that finance was more important to the PLC than the health of our team. I have been saying for a good while that the tail is wagging the dog at our club. Our squad is used to finance the business not the other way around.

We need to get back into the habit of building a team not destroying it.
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Agree with the first half of this post but the second half I think is a bit idealised. The facts are that we can't exist in a climate where we refuse big money for our best players because we simply don't have the revenue from other areas to supplement it, even with the CL. And we are also hampered by the fact that our best players, Ledley included, want the move down south for the bigger cheque and the better league (it is a better league so no-one should get arseholey about it). It's a lose lose situation right now and our ability to build a steady team is suffering. In saying that, buying average SPFL players is not the answer. Armstrong is the only one I think is good enough of our recent Scottish team purchases (I like Griffiths too but technically he came from Wolves).

figures are out

Random Review

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Murph-E

Random Review

Wicker Bhoy