Last night’s article – and kudos again to Phil for this one – on the interest in Celtic from the oil rich United Arab Emirates got me thinking! I bet it got a few people thinking! Whilst I think a mega-money investment is unlikely it does no harm to speculate on what form that investment could take. As people have pointed out, investment in players would literally be money thrown away unless there was a subsequent rise in revenues.
So with that in mind, let’s take a look at five possible uses for such obscene amounts of cash that would actually allow the investors the chance of seeing a return.
Players To Reach The Champions League / European Super League
Let’s do the obvious one first; spending some of it on players with the objective of going further in the big competition than we have since the format changed. With mega-money behind Celtic who could realistically argue we wouldn’t be well placed to reach the Groups at least, every single year?
Furthermore, this would raise our profile through the roof.
This kind of investment would make sense if a European League of some kind was in the offing, and if that European League was going to involve us. Greater quantities of cash would come in than ever before and whilst we don’t command the TV market share of England a European League would remove that handicap at a stroke. A club like ours, with friends around the world, would be watched by many millions and ensure a return on their investment.
The bounty for reaching the latter stages of the Champions League is also going to go up and up every single year … and so a little “speculate to accumulate” wouldn’t be so completely off-base, especially when you consider the next big change ….
Completing Celtic Park As An 80,000 All Seater Arena
Adding a potential 20,000 to every gate would be a monumental money-maker over the long haul, especially if we were playing in the sort of games that would fill the ground.
Bear in mind that a three match Champions League package at £100 would bring more than £7 million in, just via ticket sales, after segregation and other aspects were taken into account. Sell 70,000 season tickets and the bounty would be over £30 million in direct sales there alone. Add to that merchandising and match-day income, all of which would go up on the back of such a move …. You can see how it all starts to add up. Celtic Park would become a cash generating machine.
Yes, such a deal would involve naming rights, a touchy subject to be sure … but all of us would still call it Paradise or Parkhead or Celtic Park regardless.
Remember, it was the construction of Parkhead as a 60,000 all seater stadium – bigger than Ibrox by 10,000 seats – that gave us a long term financial advantage over Rangers, as Fergus knew that it would. They’ve been playing catch-up ever since and this season they have the most expensive season tickets in the country as a consequence.
It’s still not bridged the gap.
And whilst we’re at it, could we throw in a floating pitch and retractable roof?
And all of this is nothing compared to what could happen outside the ground ….
Spending The Money Finishing The Celtic Village
Spend the money on the Celtic Village, on a series of hotels, bars and shops for the fans, bring those supporters to the ground for the whole of the match-day and match-night experience and boy oh boy how the money will roll in.
This has been the long-term goal of the club since Fergus was here, and when you see the incredible transformation of Celtic Park and the surrounding area you can’t help but notice that the moment’s ripe for such a project.
The costs would be huge, at least from the perspective of a Scottish football team, but backed by billionaire oil wealth, well anything’s possible.
How about an Emirates Hotel, right beside the ground? You want to fill the ground every week? Get your Australian and American fans on board with Emirates flights and hotel packages. Tap the international Celtic Family vein harder than it’s ever been done. These people are out there, we know they are.
Which is to say nothing of our English and Irish based fans who would certainly be willing to fill the hotel every other week and for business in Glasgow on the non-football days. Who would visit this city to spend a night in a Travel Lodge when they could be booking in to a hotel next to Celtic Park with restaurants and bars around it, where you’d always be amongst friends?
There’s a reason this has been the Grand Ambition all along you know …
The Celtic Emirates Casino. Well, Why Not?
Just for giggles, let’s throw this one in there. This was promoted so many times as the answer to Rangers’ financial problems, it just makes good sense that it should be promoted as the way to take us further away from them than ever before.
Gambling is forbidden in the UAE, but there’s no law against turning a profit and these boys know that few things make more money than a casino. A joint venture with Celtic and one of our betting sponsors would make even this a viable project.
Of course, we’d eat no end of criticism for it – unlike when Rangers were looking at the idea – but on the day planning permission was granted it would really be something to be sitting in the vicinity of David “Moonbeams” Murray, just to see the look on his face.
Setting Up FansTV On The Grandest Possible Scale
A dream. But not unrealisable with the right financial backing.
You want to increase the Celtic Brand throughout the world?
Then at some point the SFA and the SPFL are going to have to dump their ridiculous rules and regulations about television contracts and get real about some form of TV contract reform, and I can’t think of a better way than to resurrect FansTV – the SPL proposal put together by Rob Petrie – and market it to Asia in a big, big way.
And the best way to do that would be to let us develop our part of the brand first, which would involve giving us some control over our own international rights.
This has long been a bug-bear of our board, but if the benefits were that we could better market Scottish football abroad – as well as our club making a substantial contribution to the FansTV set up costs (lets face it, a certain other Glasgow team isn’t going to contribute much, and I don’t mean Thistle, who I fully believe could contribute their share without hassle) – then our “governing bodies” would be absolute mugs for not letting it happen.
Everyone’s a winner, as they say.
So We’re Not Going To Be Manchester City, Then?
I wouldn’t expect or want Celtic to spend a huge cash bounty on a one-off transfer splurge, unless there was a European League around the corner and ways that cash could be used to build something sustainable.
The best way to do that, actually, isn’t to spend it on football players at all, but to construct an infrastructure that makes us money indefinitely and raises our profile through the roof. This is how you turn a Scottish football club into a global brand with genuine weight, one a future European League simply cannot ignore … and it’s how you demonstrate to serious investors that you can get a return on their colossal initial outlay.
Celtic are a massive club, of course, with worldwide appeal. As I said in a previous article Friends All Over The World But None In This Country we already have a global profile and a wide circle of alliances and friendships.
That’s begging to be tapped into properly and some structure put in place that can actually accomplish that.
If Phil has this right, one of the richest dynasties in the world has taken a serious interest in our football club and our fans.
He says we would be “pushing on an open door.”
I have no doubt that he’s right, and whilst a certain other Glasgow club might be more inclined to push on that door to get a short term fix our club has always looked further and deeper than that.
If we were talking to them about an investment I would expect it to be exactly that; something mutually profitable, something that would give them a return. Something that would let Celtic grow in a way no future European League could ignore.
At that point, yes, we can become Manchester City … only bigger.
Much, much bigger.