A football finance author has been talking about the financial situation at Celtic after today’s interim results were posted by the club.
Specifically, there comparisons being made between what’s going on at Celtic Park and across the city with Rangers at Ibrox.
As we know, they suffered a financial meltdown in 2012 and were liquidated, subsequently spending years moving through the lower leagues.
Celtic had no credible competition at that time and, amongst supporters as well as experts, there’s a growing narrative that the club could have done more to widen the gap on our rivals.
The Price of Football author Kieran Maguire was on the Go Radio Football Show earlier tonight and gave his summation of the situation.
He said: “I think Dermot Desmond, to a certain extent, missed a trick over the course of the last four to five years. With Rangers moving through the divisions to the Premiership, there was an opportunity to perhaps establish a significant investment in Celtic in terms of infrastructure, player recruitment and development to a greater extent.
“There was a chance to put clear water between Celtic and Rangers as Rangers were building up the club to make it competitive. If we take a look at the gap in revenue between the two clubs – it was £69m in 2018 and that had fallen to £11m by 2020.
“Looking at the balance sheets of both companies, Celtic’s balance sheet still looks stronger but there is the opportunity perhaps for more investment, to increase the equity investments from the major shareholders.
“I don’t think Celtic fans should be too concerned about the club’s short-term or long-term future from a financial perspective. At times of crisis, cash is king, and the balance sheet shows the club still had £23m of cash in its bank account at the end of 2020.”
Celtic finance still in a strong position
My main problem with the lack of financial progress at Celtic doesn’t come from a lack of more investment, but in our on the pitch failures that could have allowed us to bank tens of millions of pounds.
We’ve been one of the top seeds in Champions League qualifying for years, certainly for much of the last decade, yet have not made the groups nearly as often as we should have.
Had we, the gap between Celtic and Rangers right now would be far greater.
Ultimately, despite the difficulties of the pandemic, Celtic are still in a relatively strong position financially. As noted by Maguire, a cash cushion exists. While that will decrease further by June, we’re certainly not in a position to panic or be too concerned about the future of the club.
In other news, Paul Hartley is pretty excited about the potential of David Turnbull.
Receive a digest of our best Celtic content each week direct to your mailbox
