Economic expert Kris Boyd has cast his eye over Celtic’s accounts and told Brendan Rodgers that he doesn’t need any more signings!
The occasional Kilmarnock striker does have first hand experience of clubs with financial problems having picked up disguised remuneration of £215,000 in the form of a so-called EBT from the old Rangers club before they went into liquidation.
According to Boyd Celtic have hit a glass ceiling with dangerous signs that spending is close to getting out of control.
Where he gets his information from isn’t revealed but the veteran striker has decided to publish wage details of named Celtic players in his latest offering in The Sun.
For Boyd’s information Celtic’s audited accounts confirmed £30m sitting in the bank at the turn of the year with the success created by Rodgers in his first season raising turnover from £52m to £90m.
Bringing in two players on transfer fees of £4m with four year contracts paying each of them £6m a year is affordable. Very affordable and if a rainy day comes along there are a couple of players in the Celtic squad that could be sold for £20m to keep the lights on and upto date with payments to HMRC.
Explaining the spending curbs Boyd writes in The Sun: “Rodgers wants to push on and take his team to the next level and feels he’s entitled to get big money to spend given the cash he has helped bring in.
“But let’s be honest, Celtic have hit their glass ceiling.
“Domestically they have been brilliant but you’re a fool if you think they can have a major impact in Europe.
“But the problem he has is that Celtic are already spending more than they need to be spending.
“Their supporters should open their eyes to that, instead of blindly pointing fingers at the people in charge of the finances and blaming them for the lack of arrivals.
“Instead of bleating about the lack of transfer activity they should take a look at the amount of money that has been spent on players who were already at the club when Rodgers arrived.
“I’m talking about the likes of Kieran Tierney, Craig Gordon and Callum McGregor among others.
“Players who were on around £10,000-a-week under Ronny Deila but are now hitting the £15,000-a-week bracket.
“After them, the players who were on £15,000 now want £20,000. There are more than five players in that squad now on upwards of £30,000-a-week — a point which is often forgotten.
“From a player’s point of view that’s all very well and good but there’s no bottomless pit of money, which is why the Celtic board are right to stand their ground on this.”
If only Boyd had cast his eye over the Ibrox accounts under Dave Murray he could have saved 276 creditors from being left high and dry and dozens of his former team-mates from dreading brown envelopes hitting the doormat from HMRC.
