Neil Lennon has demolished the transfer market myth that Celtic can’t compete with teams in the English Championship.
Tommy Smith’s likely transfer from Huddersfield to Stoke had one fake Twitter account claiming that Celtic had agreed a transfer fee but were unable to match the wages offered by Stoke.
Financial Fair Play is starting to impact on English clubs with Birmingham City deducted nine points last season for failing to live within their means.
Today it was revealed that Sheffield Wednesday, with Gary Hooper, Steven Fletcher and Barry Bannon on the wage bill were heading for a loss of £35.4m for the 2017/18 season. To get around FFP their owner, Dejphon Chansiri paid £38m to buy Hillsborough Stadium to create a profit of £2.5m. You can only apply that accountancy trick once.
Lennon was asked today about Celtic being unable to compete financially with Championship clubs and was emphatic with his reply.
We can offer as much as any Championship club, so that’s not an issue and transfer fees aren’t an issue either.
Rather than throwing their parachute payments at trying to get a quick return to the EPL Stoke and Swansea indulged in massive cost cutting in terms of wages to ensure that they remain solvent. Neither was in contention for a play off place.
Without the income from the sale of their stadium Sheffield Wednesday had an income of £23m. Even with parachute payments no Championship club can get close to Celtic’s turnover which was £101.6m for the year to 30 June 2018.
