Celtic Transfer Turnover

It was a welcome sight for all Celtic supporters to see such healthy annual results for the year ended 30 June.

This clearly showed the strength of position which the club find themselves in with the leadership of Ange Postecoglou as manager.

Celtic received high transfer fees last summer as they were able to move on the likes of Kristoffer Ajer, Odsonne Edouard and Ryan Christie who all wanted to leave the club and who now all find themselves playing in the top tier of English football.

Added on to the large sums was also small fees for players such as Jack Hendry which all counted towards the end result which was displayed in Celtic’s figures yesterday.

Ange Postecoglou’s arrival had been dubbed as a rebuild due to the volume of players who were ready to leave and what he needed to bring in.

This is something which can take time meaning that patience was going to have to be key, but Postecoglou very quickly got to work bringing in new players.

In the space of a year Celtic spent nearly £40 million on new players with the arrivals of Carl Starfelt, Kyogo Furuhashi, Josip Juranovic, Liel Abada, Joe Hart and Giorgos Giakoumakis coming in last summer for fees.

Postecoglou had cast the net far and wide which has ultimately had it’s rewards. The former Socceroos boss also used the loan market well last summer bringing in Cameron Carter-Vickers and Jota who would eventually become permanent signings for the club.

Celtic sharply returned to the transfer market in January and were very swift with their business bringing in Reo Hatate, Matt O’Riley and Yosuke Ideguchi on permanent deals as well as Daizen Maeda on loan.

The J-League was somewhere that Ange knew where the talent lay and he precisely picked who he’d think would suit best at Celtic with recruitment being such a big part of his success. It can be extremely difficult for players to adjust with a host of international stars arriving at Celtic but one thing the manager has consistently preached about is finding the right individuals.

All these incomings over the two windows have been covered by the £29 million brought in on transfers which shows to the extent of how well Postecoglou’s recruitment has been.

To compete at the highest level of European club competition is challenging but recruitment goes a long way in getting to the point of competing.

When Edouard left the club, it looked as though the side had very little assets left which completely tore up Celtic’s business model. For many years, the operating model has been to rely on players sales to cover operating losses.

Once again Celtic find themselves in a position of strength with the robustness of the current squad and did not sell any players this summer with the added bonus of Champions League football being secured through winning the league title.

Majority of Celtic’s revenue is made up from the matchday which begs the question that if the SPFL could negotiate a better TV deal for all clubs in Scotland then it would only increase Celtic’s position.