We are rolling in Champions League Money

good. we dont need to invest hugely into the squad. sell wanyama at the end of the season for over 10 million. bring in another promising youngster for 2-3 million. repeat as necessary. we need to realise we arent Man United or even Wigan in financial terms and follow the Ajax model

 

transfer sales this summer actually pretty much took care of the debt, and with Wanyama and Hooper in the Shop window we can probably expect alot more investment in the team, It will still be more careful now that we have more time and John park can do some serious traveling

 

The future is bright.

 

Of course you do. But the method of strengthening that we are currently utilizing seems to be working. Speculating on young raw talent and investing in their/our future.

The days of us spending big money on our first team are a distant memory. All this extra money is just a bonus that will not directly effect the first team this year or even next year never mind January.

 

I reckon, it's essential to go out and sign more players, that nobody has ever heard of, but will scare the bejesus outta teams in the last 16. We still go young, playing in a * league, but doing well. Eastern block, we've not tapped that market yet under Lenny and i think we'll go shopping for midfielders their. They always produce good midfielders.

Mainly a couple of offensive all rounders, shouldn't be that hard to find, here's one:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvxvbtK6J_c"]HBR sport ORŠIĆ MISLAV NK"INTER" CROATIAN NATIONAL PLAYER U 20 - YouTube[/ame]

 

Probably the only non German side in the round of 16 right now not in debt :smiley-laughing002:
Hopefully we see alot of it put back into the team, would love if this money helped us do the same next year

 

How can players that nobody has heard of, scare the bejesus out of them. I don't get it !!!!

 

ILTC is correct, we will have made even if we go out after the 2 last 16 games, over 30 million pounds all in from Uefa money, t.v money and ticket sales.

So i don't know where people learnt maths but if we are only to get 10-12 million overall when taking into account costs etc... then im not sure how costs are going to be around 20 million pounds?

Overall i reckon we will profit from the champions league a sum of around 20 million pounds maybe even more and thats with costs taken into account.

It could well be our largest revenue to date, i can see us making over 80 million pounds in revenue this year which could put us back into the worlds top 20 richest clubs.

 

I was just joking, but their are other players out their for a million quid that could do damage in the Champions League.

I don't reckon Mascherano knew what to expect from Tony Watt, Mascherano got shredded. We don't have to go for a big name signing to strengthen the team and maybe cause some more upsets. The whole team is filled with players nobody had heard of, so we just keep doing it.

What i'm saying is, Mislav Orsic, is 19, already in his 3rd season in a kinda hard as nails league, he's rapid, plays both sides of the pitch and through the middle, he's scoring with both feet, but he's also coming in with a lot of assists. Shields the ball really well for a boy his age. We'll probably not sign him, but i'm saying, we only need 3 players and he weighs in at 600k.

So it's irrelevant how much we make, we want to bank as much as we can and still turn over better players super cheap, with a ridiculous markup value.

We could go and spend 20 million, but man utd might still beat us. But we could go and sign a guy for someone who man utd would want to buy for 10. That markup can bring in just as much as the Champions League money....and if you add the two together you double your cash.

 

That be a good one ! Mabye even the whole 6 CL Matches!

 

I would like to see us commit to increased spending on our youth programme, to continue the great work already been done. I remember when lennoxtown was completed lawell said it didn't have all the facilities tommy burns wanted and would be expanded gradually in time, maybe spend a few quid more doing that then?

I dont think we should fritter cl money away chasing overpriced players, we should improve from the ground up as much as we can and plan for the future at a higher level, such as dortmund have done.

I think we will receive offers for wanyama, hooper and big fraser in the summer, i would be happy to sell if the price is right and that all player trading income is invested into the team, we would get 25 to 30m easy for those 3 and could use that money to take the first team squad up a level.

My basic point is player trading should be used to gradually up the squad quality, and the cl money should be used for structure and legacy!

 

I'm not sure about investing too heavily in our academy. Do we actually get any return on our youth players? I know McGeady and Forrest have come through the ranks (arguably Watt as well but he was playing at Airdrie) but a lot - in fact the majority of our youth players - will never play for Celtic and will end up at St Johnstone or Ross County, etc. on a free transfer. McGeouch and Watt aside, I can't see any of the youth team making the cut at Celtic Park -that's not to say their not good players, I just think we could find better elsewhere. Is it really worth going all out on the youth academy when our scouting network has the whole world at its feet to look for the best young talents to sell on for megabucks? We seem to have a much better record with signing the likes of Izzy, Wanyama, Hooper, etc. than youth players coming through. Wanyama and Hooper for instance will likely go for anything between £10-20m when they leave, will we get a similar price for Marcus Fraser? Obviously that's still a major part of the club and should be developed... just don't think it makes us much in the way of profit. It would be great to have our own La Masia churning out first team players but I just don't think we have an abundance of footballing talent here in Scotland like they do in Spain. I might be miles of the mark here, just a thought.

 

McGeady pretty much funded our entire team. So yes, yes we will get a return.

From another perspective you could say we are developing youth in the form of Wanyama, Matthews, Rogne etc. It depends on your definition of youth development. I think you have the belief that if we haven't discovered them by age 15 then we should take no responsibility for them.

Focussing more on what you are implying, with graduating through the ranks, then I can give you multiple examples prior to us building Lennoxtown. Maloney, McGeady, McManus, O'Dea, L.Miller, Wallace and Mulgrew have all contributed to varying degrees of success. Now if we had done what you mentioned and signed equal value players then you are talking literally millions, even if we got them very young. Right now Mulgrew is priceless. McGeady speaks for himself. Maloney was probably the most underrated player of the last decade and McManus was our captain.

Bringing us up to present day, Forrest is the first to graduate under the new development structure and i believe he was being touted for £8-10m last year and initiated our first ever away victory in the CL this year. He's been recognised by UEFA and teams in England as one of the most promising players in the world. Since him, both Watt and McGeouch have shown signs of world class potential. Marcus Fraser too showed he is more than capable of playing. Lets not forget they are all 18.

So lets re-evaluate in about 3 years and see if it is worth investing in youth. Barcelona could quite easily construct their team by buying players other teams have developed but, as with Celtic, they realise this a waste of money if you can pay nothing.

 

thats important. spl and sfl are talking about league restructuring to improve the game. adopt a germanic approach. safe standing, cheap tickets, matchday tickets allow you free bus and rail travel, good communication with fans etc. that'll get punters out to the smaller provincial teams.

 

We'll never get to that level without significant investment though, Barca didn't just magic up tonnes of quality players. They took years and spent millions, and sourced talent from all over like Messi and Iniesta. The media might lead us to believe there is something in the Catalan water but really it all just comes down to plain and simple cash.

The German teams are the best behind Barca now, why? Because 10 years ago they decided to put all their efforts into making great kids and going for the long rather than short term success.
We MUST continue investing now, whilst we're on a high. Seize the moment and in a decade we'll be like Barca or Dortmund.

 

Whatever happens we should definitely invest a lot of the prize earnings into the youth setup, i'd much rather a secure future with homegrown talent, than spend 5-10m on 1 player not to forget that these type of players command wages of 30-40k etc maybe even more.. which could easily add up to an extra 1.5M in wages a year alone.

 

You don't think of Celtic being a Scottish football academy, but an International one.

It's another positive to come out from having this success, it filters through the whole system. Lately, we've had McGeady, Forrest, Watt and McGeough and there are one or two others from this group, Twardzik and few boys who are out on loan.

So you add to the setup and go and sign young guys who have come through a good youth system abroad, come into the first team and done well.

As soon as a player plays in one of the big leagues, they are out of our reach, so we look to get them before that happens, before they get a taste for 50k a week.

Stewart Downing - 20 million, 70k-a-week, Raheem Sterling - youth academy, 2k-a-week.

 

I've no doubt that our academy produces excellent players like Maloney, Forrest and McGeady but for every one of them there's 10 players who don't make the cut and end up at other SPL clubs with the club receiving absolutely nothing. The money we've missed out on is far greater than the £10m or so McGeady went for. I think what I meant was that it's a really inefficient way of making money. Maybe investing money in the academy will improve its efficiency or maybe we just need to sell at the right time, I don't know.

Wanyama and Matthews are first team players, they walked straight into the starting XI and developed from there. We obviously are responsible for part of that but they can hardly be called academy graduates.

 

I forgot about Germany. Good point.

 

It's a nice amount of money, yes. However, you need to take into account running costs, cost of securing these games etc. If running Rangers is a £1m per calendar month issue, then a club like Celtic with a squad 3 times the size, with a much higher wage bill etc must be a lot pricier each month to sustain.