Peter Lawwell has highlighted Celtic as being an established European participant in the club’s annual report.
The club recorded a bank balance of £77.2m at the end of June but there has been little in the way of progress in Europe which is the benchmark that many fans set on the back of winning 12 of the last 13 SPFL titles.
On Wednesday night a new look Champions League emerges offering the team eight different opponents bringing in greater revenue and a chance to turn around their form and push the co-efficient moving in the right direction.
This evening the club published their accounts for the year to 30 June 2024, in his statement Chairman Lawwell said:
We are also firmly established as a European club from a participation perspective. Over the same 25-year period we have participated in either knock-out round or group stage European competition in 23 seasons, 12 of which were in the Champions League.
As well as delivering domestic success, we are determined to progress as far as possible in European competition and improve upon our recent record. We cannot and must not be complacent and we must strive for progression as a club as the football industry evolves at a remarkable pace.
Over the last decade Celtic have won two matches in the group stage of the Champions League- away to Anderlecht in 2017 and last season’s dead rubber at home to Feyenoord.
In the previous decade they reached the last 16 of the competition three times which seems a fair benchmark of a successful period in the premier UEFA competition.
Malmo, Maribor, AEK Athens, Cluj, Ferencvaros and Midtjylland all knocked Celtic out in qualifiers with far lesser resources with that route avoided over the last three seasons by automatic group stage qualification.
If only big Peter was as good at criticising match officials and invisible VAR poodles as he is at boasting about loadsamoney in the bank ? Or spending money on proper new players early in the window rather than the last week of the thing ? Celtic could then come out with a new catchphrase…’ catch our dust ‘ !
And his job is to do what
Big Pete is the CEO. He oversees the progress of the PLC, which is measured by the quality of the team on the Park!
WE have got a fair draw in the UCL this season. So we will see how far we have come!
He is not the CEO, that was his former role; he is now chairman.
He runs the PLC, loser!
Lawwell doesn’t do progress, only stagnation. Get him tae eff.
You miss the point. See how he does this season in the UCL. You take domestic success for granted, what?!
Hollow words from a Hollow man. As usual, he is looking for success for the least amount of outlay. The only success he gets, is keeping the bank balance as high as possible. If you are not investing in the clubs success, don’t start looking to reap any rewards. They made money round, to go around, there are no pockets in a shroud, you have to enjoy the moment
CL football is the reason why Brendan Rodgers returned to Celtic. Its time for everyone involved at the club to show where Celtic’s true place is in the European arena. I for one believe that we are capable of competing along side the great clubs of Europe.