Sporting ambition versus Cash in the bank?

I think if you are sitting with money in the bank, and not dominating the domestic scene thats one thing. But we other than the Covid year we have been winning the league consistently. So we have been beating Rangers on and off the park for years. The money in the bank is a good thing. Its a sign our business model is working. That is backed up by trophies in the cabinet.

Europe has been a bit of a trap because we have been getting into a competition directly that banks us a lot of money which spending wont really make much of a difference in what we can achieve in.

Theres no doubt we could spend more money and if its spent well improve our team. Under the old champions league format, Im not sure additional spending would have solved much. The additional spending vs the calibre of player needed would not have bridged the gap. We would have been chasing something out of reach.

I think with the new champions league format there is more scope for setting achievable targets as theres a larger spread of games and easier pathway to knock out football. So maybe that will prove the tonic in striking the balance between keeping domestic dominance going but also having an achievable target of knock out football to aim at.

 

I understand the principle of what you are saying. However, holding £100m of cash receives a very poor return (c3% of cash interest I recall reading in the AAs. Not even pushing the boat on a Money Markets facility paying close to SONIA!). The cash is not working hard for shareholder or fan return. The biggest return we can attain is buying a good quality player and then selling for a 100-200% gain. This is such a fantastic return on investment - almost unmatchable in any field.

However, another pertinent point is that we are not maximising performance on ‘off the pitch’ matters either. I’m thinking the lack of a digital marketplace for tickets; stadium experience including food; lack of commercialisation focussed on growing the global brand.

It all feels very conservative at Celtic with lack of ambition across the board. Nobody at the club pushes us to meet our full potential - whatever that looks like.

In their defence, they do run the club well from an accounting standpoint. We should demand more though.

 

The Celtic board will always be the Celtic board while we have business men first in their thinking rather also being a supporter with ambition for the club .
The only thing so far I agree with the board it's no point bringing in 8 or 9 million pound players if Rogers won't sign a extension to his contract and we bring in a new manager next season with new formations and tactics and probably will want quality players brought in next season so I don't expect any big signings this season if Rogers is leaving.

 

This argument about not spending money on players because we are already winning everything domestically and don’t have any more ceiling in the CL is really a red herring.

From a purely commercial standpoint, we should be purchasing good quality assets (I.e. players) and seek a 100-500% return on investment. This makes much better commercial sense than sitting on cash attaining 3% interest. This even gives an abundance of headroom for some of those assets turning out to be garbage!

We should also be open to utilising instruments that enhance cash flow I.e. receivables purchase etc if it is problematic for us to spend our cash (for whatever that reason is). I just cannot accept the principle of we can’t spend until we have the CL. Literally no successful organisation in the world operates in this manner - ambition and growth requires speculating to accumulate

 

It's a difficult one, I've always leaned on the side we should be doing a bit more, but domestically you couldn't ask for much more.

Europe is a different story, we've had 3, maybe 4 good seasons in Europe in the last 15 years, and 2 of those years were in the Europa League and one was under the new format. That's not acceptable.

I don't think things will ever fully change whilst Desmond and Lawwell are still at the club, for better or for worse.

 

To me, this window so far sort of sums it up.

Looks like we're waiting to lose a player for decent money (Kuhn), before the club starts spending a bit of the tens of millions of cash we already have in the bank.

I know it's early-ish blah blah blah...but that's how it looks. And most of the names being linked seem to be more £3-5m types. Of course there's good players to be signed for those fees, but as has been said, you tend to get better quality when you are willing to spend more on fees and wages.

We should have a team full of players in the same bracket as CCV, Maeda, Jota etc. But we always end up carrying 3 or 4 regular first team players who fall well short of that level. There's no excuse for it.

 

Don't think anyone seriously believes that but if we were to spend more bciz let's face it we can afford to we would be far more competitive in Europe.

Managers leave bcoz after a couple of years they get fed up operating with 1 hand ties behind there back at elite level.

We haven't won a single knockout tie in Europe in any competition in 20 years, while that * basket case and laughing stock of a club across the city has reached a uefa cup final, died, * about playing lower league football for 4 years and then reached another European final.

If we had a bit more ambition managers and players would likely hang around a bit longer if they were reaching quarter finals or semi finals of European competitions and experiencing everything that goes along with it.

It most be * demoralising having your own board holding you back bciz they only see Europe as an easy pay day

 

We are at the stage, money in the bank, that we could literally strengthen the first 11 with 5 players for a few of 5-8m each on 30k a week each and still have money in the bank.

That squad, in theory, would then have no problem getting in to the PlayOff positions of UCL and have a fair crack at the Last 16 by finishing top 8 with a decent draw to us.
From the knockout stage, a team that had investment of 5 players worth 5-8m each would do fairly well and could get through a round or two.

After that, those players start to sell for more than we currently sell players for. And so the cycle could continue. But that's a risk per se and sporting ambition to speculate to accumulate. Something Scottish football higher ups seldom care to do. Why risk what's already easy earnings?

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would an abitious club sell their no. 1 striker mid season and not bother their * replacing them ,that totally * us in europe last season.there was no thought given to beating aston villa to try and get ourselves more points ,an easier fixture and mo' money had we got a round further .we need a top striker in before champions league qualifiers not after ,the automatic entry the past couple of seasons have distorted what can be viewed as ambition but its right back in focus now

 

It’s a difficult one.

Firstly, the idea that we aren’t a well run club is for the birds. We are the best run football club in the UK, backed up by multiple outlets, including the ‘Fair Game Index’ which specifically measures everything. Some fans just seem to look at the cash we use on players as a stick to beat the club with but the reality is that there are multiple different elements of running the club. The things we do well, we tend to do very well. Many fans seem to take these sort of things for granted but the excellent one-off infrastructure projects and our impeccable sponsorship and retail deals don’t happen by chance. They’re carefully and strategically planned and worked on to maximise our clubs growth and that’s extremely consistent year on year.

There is definitely issues when it comes to the footballing department and the word
I’d use to sum that up is chaotic. Short term signings, promising academy players walking out the door for buttons, missing out on the pick of top Scottish talents etc etc. These sort of issues represent a clear lack of direction that should be coming from the very top, be it the board or Desmond himself.

It’s quite clear that the board prefer to run us as risk averse. There’s very little debate in that from the majority of the fanbase.
I think we all want to see a bit more but the dispute seems to be how far we go. We have to realise that the club is a business and the board will want a return on that additional investment, be it from progress in Europe, which brings more prize money or from higher player sales, which we seem to be pretty effective at for now.

I think the big problem we have and it’s one I’ve touched on before is the lack of seniority from a footballing perspective. Like a Sporting Director. Yes, Tisdale heads up the recruitment but is he the man setting the footballing objectives for the club? I highly doubt it. That comes from the board and that’s a problem. We require a footballing man to be on the board who discusses the footballing department but it seems to be Brendan Rodgers is that figurehead and he’s the manager, which causes additional problems. You need a sporting director in there to bridge the gap between manager/coach and the board.

We will have a finance director, a HR director, a Marketing director.. all with seats on the board and years of experience in their respective fields but we don’t seem to have a sporting director on the board that same level of experience. Nicholson and McKay seem to be the decision makers at the club and what experience do they have in running a successful football club? Likely, none. It’s a very strange way of dealing with the core part of your business. You’d expect there to be someone on the board who has hands on experience of the industry who can help make informed decisions. The Celtic board either don’t want that, or they believe they don’t need it, which I think we all disagree with. Domestic success has been despite of, not because of the footballing strategy.

 

If we spend like other teams in certain leagues wages wise that 100 m will soon deplete and for what and extra round in champions league cause that’s probs all it will get us to or do we up our spending gradually season to season which I think is what their trying to do


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yang and kenny coming on to try and win us a cup final!

 

Attractiveness and competitiveness of the league mean very little to the modern player; as others have said, players will flock to a bag of money no matter where it is, USA, Saudi, China etc; Jota being a prime example.

The calibre of the player we attract is intrinsically linked to our wage cap.

We only spend 65m a year on our playing wage, a paltry 5m more than those monkeys across the way.

Raising the wage cap by even 10 percent is unlikely to cost us more than another 7m a year,and that would be a FULL 10% wage rise for all 32 first squad players. Something irrelevant.
It would only be applicable to new signings if a high pedigree, or existing players of the same.

It could also be offset by a small season ticket rise, or even limiting bonuses to execs on financial results and instead making bonuses applicable to on field successes, as that is the primary * fuction of the club.

I used to truly believe that Desmond was "risk averse" and no inclination to "gamble".

I now truly believe hes just a * a greedy *, who views the club as one of his businesses on a portfolio, and wants it to look like a well run financial entity.

Rodgers' comnents last week told the usual story for anyone paying attention.
Saying the kuhn deal was great as it was done early and allows the club to spend early is very telling; ie. He was clearly told we weren't spending anything like real money until CL football or a big sale was secured, despite the kyogo money still sitting there.

Desmond is a * dinosaur * who has held us back for decades now, especially when we had a free run at the league and only required a further push to make yearly CL football a reality, raising the coefficient etc etc.

And when hes dead and buried his shareholding passes to his * son, already being wheeled out as heir apparent.

Were *. We'll never even see what potential even looks like whilst he runs our club from the golf course.

 

I dont think raise our wage budget 10%/20%/30% is going to change our ability to attract or retain players. It wasnt going to stop MOR leaving for Brighton, Jota leaving for Saudi, Kyogo leaving for Rennes, Kuhn leaving etc It wasnt going to stop Rodgers or Ange leaving for the prem when they came calling.

Our best talent will inevitably look to move on from us. So all we can do is try to maximise on that financially.

Our cash reserves have been accumulated over a decade of implementing a successful player trading system and champions league money. If we adopted the strategy that for example Rangers have been using - spending every last penny in the bank, sticking players on bloated contracts instead of looking to sell them at peak value, buying players with limited sell on potential etc - our cash reserves would potentially be depleted in a matter of seasons.

I wouldnt argue there isnt scope to be less conservative in how the board have operated. There have been more than a few lacklustre transfer windows and Europe has been a source of disappointment for a long time. But big picture, I think the model they operate is pretty much the correct approach.

A lot of the frustrations that fans have felt I think is more down to the circumstances that we find ourselves in the modern football world. A huge club stuck in a weak, uncompetitive league. Financially priced out of success in Europe and an inability to retain top quality talent. I think this is far more to blame for the club not reaching its potential than how the board operate.

 

This.
We ultimately/gradually should be so full of top quality players we are starting to complain about todays better players like CCV, Calmac, Maeda and Hattate or Jota not being good enough.
When they leave, better comes in and vast majority of cash is spent on a replacement, in the same window.
The likes of Taylor, Yang, Palma, Oh, Holm, Scales or Welsh should not be anywhere near the first team.

That's the continuous improvement we can and should have. At a minimum.
The manager demands it, the board block it - they will cost us our elite manager too if we don't wake up.

 

Its not straightforward bringing in guaranteed quality though. Inevitably there will be misses.

We tried to replace Scales with better - we bought Trusty for close to the same amount we bought CCV for.

We brought in Idah for 9MM to strengthen and ultimately replace Kyogo.

There were multiple attempts to bring in competition for Taylor that didnt work out.

If we start saying the likes of Maeda and CCV arent good enough then we are looking at replacing the entire team every season.

 

Those examples are just perfect examples of our * scouting/recruitment.

Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knew paying £9m for Idah was * insanity. He was a £5m player at a push.

Trusty was seen as disposable by an almost record breaking pish Sheffield Utd team.

Taylor kept his place because we just refused to sign a relatively experienced left back with the necessary tools and style of play that suited us. There’s dozens of left backs across Europe who would have been in our price range and an upgrade on Taylor.

Of course there’s going to be misses occasionally. But our hit rate is absolutely abysmal. You’re lucky if 1 in every 4 signings we make goes on to be a good first team player.

 

Good first team player for what though? Most of our buys are more than good enough for domestic competition. Idah, Trusty and Taylor are fine for SPL level where we have been dominant.

If you are saying only 1 in 4 signings is good enough to compete in the Europe, then yes. But with the calibre of player we can afford and attract you will struggle to get a hit rate much better than that. And when you do those players wont be at the club long.