What does the future hold?I have been having a think about where our great club will be in say 10-15 years time.
Of course, the answer is that I don’t know but there is nothing wrong with a hypothetical question to get people talking, or typing in this case.
I know that to start with that we are not strictly a selling club but I wonder how long we can keep that up for ?
Off the top of my head, I have saw reports linking about half of our squad with other teams since the end of the season, including Izaguirre, Big Dan, Ki, Brown, Kayal & Hooper being linked with various other clubs.
Most of these guys are fairly young players and I think they are going to get to a point where they feel that they have outgrown the SPL and at the risk of being pessimistic, what if we fail to qualify for Europe again? Will guys like Izzy and Kayal want to hang around playing the same teams at least four times per season.
If that does happen, can we really do much to persuade them to stay? And secondly how are we going to replace them?
Financially, we are probably going to struggle with the wages that mid to lower level Premiership clubs can afford for their players.
Part of me thinks that if a player were to choose, for example, Bolton over us you have to question their ambitions. I’m not having a go at Bolton specifically, but that type of club who are never going to win the premiership, are unlikely to qualify for Europe and are unlikely to win many trophies.
My big worry is not so much where are we going to find new players but how do we attract them to Celtic in the first place ?
A few answers to that will be playing in front of close to 60,000 folk, European football, challenging for leagues and cups most seasons.
On it’s own that sounds pretty appealing but a few years of struggling against teams in European football will quickly lose it’s appeal. Winning the SPL, Scottish Cup or League cup in Scotland isn’t a particularly big thing really is it? Yes, for fans of Celtic it is, but for outsiders is it really?
Look at this way, do you know or care who won the Latvian league this year? Most folk probably won´t so if you were in a position as a footballer would you be particularly interested in going to play in a league that not very many folk know very much about?
I’m not comparing the Latvian league with the SPL but I am sure for a Spanish, French, South American or whatever other country you care to choose, there may not be that much of a difference.
Over the past few years, there was the chance of a decent run in Europe but that seems a distant memory now.
Please make sure there are no woman and kids around as I am about to use a horrible word but look at ‘Porto’ and look at the directions that us and they have gone since the UEFA final in 2003.
A discussion that often comes up is Celtic and Rangers moving to the Premiership, as far as I am concerned, Rangers can stay here. The same goes for the rest of the Scottish clubs, I want to see Celtic move to a bigger and better league but don’t care one bit about the rest of Scottish football really.
So far, it’s safe to say that the English don’t want us, if we don’t end up being able to move and the lack of money in the Scottish game continues to hamper us, the very real prospect of us being stuck in the SPL without European football and with decreasing funds remain a very real prospect.
As I mentioned above, I hate to be so pessimistic, but I really do worry about what will happen to Celtic if we continue to move backwards at the same pace we have done since Seville.
PS. If anyone wants to know, it was Skonto FC who won the Latvian league in 2010
Celtic have struggled to attract bigger, well known players for years now, we simply don’t have the financial clout to compete or the league to entice such players, for me this is one of the main reasons why Neil Lennon has become so well liked and backed by our fans, he has spent little money and uncovered some fantastic players, Kayal, Commons and Izzy being obvious examples, yes we may struggle to hold on to such quality players, but the point is each of those players could be sold at a very healthy profit if Celtic were to have their hands forced.
Lennon has, in his 1st ever season as a manager brought in some real quality at low prices AND got lesser players to play at a higher level whilst playing some entertaining football, Celtic supporters know the situation we are in, we know for the foreseeable future we are stuck, that is why playing exciting, attacking football is ever more important, that is why Strachan struggled to be a favourite despite winning us 3IAR.
Moving to the Premiership or lower leagues is a must for Celtic and hate the way English are trying to block us yet they are freely willing to let all the Welsh clubs in and last time time I heard Wales is another country from England so come on England get off your high horses and let us in or are you too afraid
Unfortunately they are afraid to let in the “Old Firm”, the fact especially Celtic are a global brand who would attract huge support world wide is 1 reason, the other reason they are afraid and rightly so, although it being a different kind of fear is simply 1 word = Rangers. Would you let that mob anywhere near your stadium, your city/town, your home if you didn’t have to? Can’t say i blame them, Barcelona said it all after Rangers last visit “PLEASE DONT COME BACK!” Unfortunately if drawn together in Europe they will be obliged to have them back.
Also Neil Lennon can be trusted when dealing with players, for instance, if for example Kayal was to force a move i would feel 100% confidant that no other manager around would have been able to make him stay under any circumstances, if Lennon can’t convince a player than nobody else would have a better chance of doing so.
I think a possible European League would be our only chance of a get out, involving teams from europes lesser league’s, Portugal, Holland, Switzerland etc, our biggest problem of getting out of the SPL if a chance arose is our forced association with Rangers, our fans are the polar opposite to them but will continuously be tarred with the same brush, this is 1 of the reasons we are FORCED by many in Scotland to be perceived as “as bad as each other”. If the truth was known outside Scotland i believe we would have a better chance of playing in the EPL if we went it alone, unfortunately we are forever guilty by association. I for 1 have not used the term “Old Firm” for about 2 years.
Sorry for the rant!
Talking about money. Does anyone know what the point of Dermot Desmond is ? If I was a billionaire, I wouldn’t mind spending a few million every year keeping Celtic competitive in Europe.
I wouldn’t even notice five or ten million out of my billions being written off every year. It’s peanuts to a billionaire. And I’d have the pleasure of seeing the team doing well.
I dont actually see what DD gets out of being involved in the club, if all he’s interested in is balancing the books. All he’s done is oversea one of the most barren spells in our history. Where’s the excitment in that for a supposed billionaire.
if a british football team competes at the london olympics then how can they justify keeping us out of the english leagues? i don’t know about anyone else i’d be happy even if we had to start at the lowest level.
“I have read reports linking about half of our squad with other teams since the end of the season, including Izaguirre, Big Dan, Ki, Brown, Kayal & Hooper being linked with various other clubs.”
You may very well have Stephen, but by whom?
The tabloids of course!
Not by Neil Lennon, in fact he’s said exactly the opposite.
I think too much has been made of comments from Lawwell and Reid that if the price and the time is right Celtic WOULD sell on players, but that’s true of every club including ManU who sold Ronaldo to Real Madrid for circa £70mill.
‘If the price is right’ comment was jumped on by the tabloid rags, but they ignored the bit about the time being right, and any reasonable person would take that to mean that we should get at least a couple of seasons from any successful signings before selling them on.
Ask yourself; how many of the new signings being touted as being sold on for millions have actually been sold?
None!
I think I’ve made my point.
Are Celtic a selling team? No, not by a long shot. Why does anyone think we are? We are playing the game within our means. We don’t need to sell anybody to balance the books, though a decent run in Europe would help us. We let Larsson, Sutton and Thompson leave for nothing and Hartson left for 500,000. Petrov signed a contract just so we would get money for him and sold him for 6.5mill. McGeady and Boruc wanted to leave and we got 12 mill for them.
Look at our spending
2010-11 Spent 9.7 (3 mill Juarez)
2010-11 Sold 16.85 (9.5 mill McGeady)
2009-10 Spent 9.4 (3.8 mill Fortune) Not inc loans
2009-10 Sold 10.3 (3.5 mill McDonald)
Lost Naka for free
2008-09 Spent 7.115 (2.5 mill Loovens)
2008-09 Sold 2.45 (1.25 mill Sno)
2007-08 Spent 11.8 (4.4 mill Brown)
2007-08 Sold 6.047 (2.25 mill Miller)
Lennon & Thompson left for free.
2006-07 Spent 8.3 (3.4 mill Hesselink)
2006-07 Sold 10.45 (6.5 mill Petrov)
2005-06 Spent 8.2 (2.5 mill Nakamura)
2005-06 Sold 0.0
Sutton, Lambert, Valgaeren, Hedman, Henchoz, Douglas, McNamara all let go for free
2004-05 Spent 0.0
2004-05 Sold 0.0
Larsson, Miller, Mjalby, Juninho, Petta frees
2003-04 Spent 0.4 (0.4 mill Pearson)
2003-04 Sold 1.3 (1.3 mill Crainey)
2002-03 Spent 2.5 (1.5 mill Laursen)
2002-03 Sold 0.7 (0.7 mill Tebily)
2001-02 Spent 7.1 (6 mill Hartson)
2001-02 Sold 2.5(1.5 mill Berkovic)
2000-01 Spent 19.45 (6 mill Sutton)
2000-01 Sold 6.975 (6 mill Viduka)
There is 10 years of transfer history. It shows we spend as much as we sell. We let a dearth of talent walk out the door for nothing. Petrov, McGeady, Miller, Viduka and maybe Boruc are the only players we have made a profit on. We spend 7.63 mill average per year. The last 2 years we spent close to 10 mill.
You can’t argue with the numbers. I think we will not be letting players walk for nothing anymore, but that does not make us a selling club. If someone offered 10 mill for Kayal, he is gone. That is more than we have ever received for a player and it covers our transfers for a year. Does that make us a selling club? No. That makes us prudent. Every man has a price.
The only difference for us is were we buy. We will not sign an EPL player again cause of the over inflated prices. If Sutton, Hartson, Lennon and Thompo were on the market today, we would not be able to afford them. Jimmy Bullard was getting 80k a week sitting on Hull’s bench in the championship. Good luck with that. Our scouts are proving very adept at spotting young talent. If we make a profit from them so be it, but we are not a selling club.
Comparing us to FC Porto is a bit unfair as well. They get 12million a year for winning the Primeira Liga. It is also the 6th strongest league in the world. They can sign Brazilians with no need for work permits. They won the Uefa Cup and the Champions League in 2 years, that has to have netted them about 70 million and set them up for years. They spent 29 million on players last year and recouped 38 million, does that make them a selling club?