Mystery over Celtic’s £630,000 contract termination

Celtic’s Annual Report has announced a contract termination payment of £630,000.

There were no major player departures during the year to 30 June 2021 but Neil Lennon did resign on February 24 with the club announcing:

Celtic Football Club today announced that Neil Lennon has resigned from his position as football manager with immediate effect.

Neil has served the club with distinction as both player and manager, delivering numerous successes, most recently completing the Domestic Treble in December. In his second period as Celtic manager, he has achieved five trophy successes, to add to his three League titles and two Scottish Cup victories in his first period as manager.

It would seem very strange for someone resigning to be given a pay-off but football contracts can be a complex business with multiple built-in clauses.

Payment of £630,000 is a considerable sum and could easily fund the wages for a season of a first team player.

It took Celtic 106 days to find a replacement for Lennon with John Kennedy stepping up as caretaker from February until the end of the season.

Celtic posted a loss of £11.5m for the year which reflected turnover down from £70.2m to £60.8m with costly remaining fairly static.

The biggest growth in the accounts was from merchandise with the new Adidas deal triggering a 50% increase in income from £15m to £22.6m.

UPDATE: Olivier Ntcham announced his departure from Celtic on August 1 through his Instagram account.

CLICK HERE for the published Celtic report.