VisitScotland Hit Back at Celtic Over ‘Inaccurate’ Financial Claims

Bunkered.com have provided a rebuttal to Celtic’s claim they are worth more to the Scottish economy than golf and have highlighted comments by senior golf manager, Alan Grant who is from VisitScotland.

Celtic commissioned a study into the club’s economic impact on the country as they feel they are undervalued in bringing money and tourists into Scotland.

The study concluded the bhoys bring in around £165million per year for the country and usurped the likes of Golf and even the Commonwealth Games.

This has been refuted very strongly by Visit Scotland:

Our industry is continuing to work hard towards achieving an industry ambition of growing the value of golf tourism to Scotland to more than £300m by 2020, and with great collaboration and significant highlights in the coming years, including next year’s Solheim Cup at Gleneagles, we are confident of reaching this ambitious target,” said Alan Grant.

“The figures produced by Celtic are certainly encouraging for growing tourism to Scotland and highlights that the impact of tourism spreads far and wide.

“However, the figures quoted in the press activity over recent days in relation to golf tourism are inaccurate.

“In its widest sense, the golf industry in Scotland is worth in excess of £1.1bn annually, supporting more than 20,000 jobs. This underlines Scotland’s position as the Home of Golf and outlines the key contribution the industry makes to the Scottish economy.”

The independent study claimed golf was only directly responsible for £157m each year coming into the Scottish economy so the figures between both sets are way out.

Here are some things the report claimed:

• Celtic and their supporters contributed £165m in 2016-17 to the Scottish economy
• The spending helped support the equivalent of 2,820 full-time equivalent jobs
• Celtic Park is the seventh most popular visitor destination in Scotland
• Celtic FC is the 25th strongest brand in world football
• Celtic’s club website ranks 23rd in world football for “hits”, with more than one third coming from outside Scotland
• Almost two million fans attended matches involving Celtic during the 2016-17 season
• More than 40% of Celtic’s day-to-day spending was with Scottish firms

Visit Scotland must have felt very strongly about the figures quoted to make a statement.

We’re sure in the coming days there will be more information available and everything will be put under the microscope.

What is certain, Celtic are undervalued by the Government and their local council as an asset to Glasgow and the wider country.