The press is almost orgasmic tonight with the idea that if Celtic fail to qualify for the Champions League Group Stages that Moussa Dembele might be sold to make up the numbers. He and others will be getting touted around by Celtic, desperate to recoup the lost revenues.
To the hacks this makes good sense. To those who actually look it’s revealed as nonsense.
Celtic made so much money from their qualifying last season, on top of bumper gate receipts and a treble, that there is simply no financial case to make for selling any top player in the first team regardless of whether we qualify for the Groups or not.
Celtic is a business. But one that runs a football club. The days when we were a football club that runs a business are gone. Brendan Rodgers would never allow it. If he was told to sell players in the event we failed to qualify I think he’d stand his ground on it.
The justification for it does not exist. We would not go out of business for keeping our squad intact.
Celtic, unlike the Rangers team that was a hair’s breadth from death the second they were knocked out of the UEFA Cup in 2011, is run on a sustainable basis. We have never over-extended to the point where our financial survival hinged on a Champions League run.
The numbers add up at Celtic Park. We know not every club can say the same.
I know there are people amongst our support who do not believe that our club will act appropriately to back the manager; I think this is the window that will convince them they are wrong. The media will not stop trying to sell our top players, but in this case they are barking up the wrong tree. When Brendan said today that Moussa will not be sold before the qualifiers are done this has been interpreted as a sign that he could be sold; it’s plain what Brendan was saying in this case.
If Moussa wants to leave, at some point, there’s nothing the club can do to stop him. We will never stand in the way of a player who wants to go off and better his career elsewhere. It’s as simple as that. If we’re not in the Groups and Moussa feels that he’s not sufficiently challenged by the Europa League and the SPL then there will come a time when a decision will have to be made … but it will be made for those reasons and not because we have to.
This is a fixation with some people in the media, a kind of half-wish, a sentiment I know exists in some empty heads that we are a few bad results away from a catastrophe. There are people who think us going out of Europe early would precipitate at full-scale crisis, one that might even have Brendan himself heading for the exit door.
It’s all bollocks. Even in seasons where we didn’t lose a key player of the squad, the finances have held up because our wage bill is never too high and thus the loss of European football is never too severe. As I said in an earlier piece, we’ve not had a sub £50 million season in nearly 20 years; we can cope with a lean year, perhaps even a few.
The money will be there, on the day Moussa does leave. We’re in no rush for it.
I expect all of it to be academic. I wholly expect our club to get through those qualifiers.
It won’t stop the speculation, but it will shut down this particular stupid avenue of debate for another year at least. The job of qualifying is harder than it’s ever been, but we’ve got the tools to do it this season, even without a big signing, which we all still expect.
Our house is built on good, solid foundations. It is not built on sand. We do not take punts. We do not bet everything on European qualification. Only crazy clubs do that. The kind that ban green boots and daub a sectarian slogan on the walls.