Last night, 67HailHail did a good piece on the Celtic accounts, which drew attention, in particular, to the merchandising income for last year.
The number is staggering. A £4.2 increase from last season – an increase of over 16% – put us a merchandising take of £29.1 million. For a single year. That is an outstanding result, and is clearly one of the drivers of our strength.
For years we have heard how good Castore’s deal with Ibrox is. It’s nowhere near as good as that. We have a world class partner in Adidas, and before that our shirts were made by New Balance and it was Nike before them.
We are innovative, but we’re also good enough to attract the best. That is borne out in the professionalism right across the merchandising arm of the club. That’s almost one third of revenue right there, and that’s astonishing.
The people who run Celtic are used to getting some stick over certain things. I give them stick only for the transfer policy overall and the way it sometimes fails to deliver. But these people are geniuses at the business of running our club in a profitable, and sustainable, way.
Ibrox and its media acolytes have been lying about their merchandising prowess for a long time now. They make excuses which don’t stand up at all, like about how their revenues are calculated “differently” to ours.
What a joke. But it’s one the media accepts and doesn’t contradict. Look at our figures though. They don’t lie. We’re killing them.
We have just topped £100 million in earnings. That’s incredible on its own, but that a whole third of it has come from this one area of the operation shows you just how well we’re currently doing off the field.
The cash is rolling in. The money is piling up. And yes, we need to use this advantage or it’s for nothing, but you look at Ibrox right now and their need to rebuild the squad again and you realise what they wouldn’t give to be in our shoes.
What’s hilarious is that the media keeps on pretending that they are. That one figure in the accounts makes liars and fools out of them and all those who bang their drum.
Ubiquitous obsequiousness among the superheroes on the sportsdesks….
I was actually thinking about the sustainability of Celtic’s success this morning, James. Whilst the figures you have highlighted are remarkable – the health of Celtic’s account is largely dependent on qualification to the group stage of the Champions League.
I think we all can see now that Celtic aren’t prepared to take the risk of investing in the squad to the extent it gives us a chance of making it to the knockout stages. We don’t even seem to be capable of making it to 3rd spot to get into the Europa League knockouts.
As such, our coefficient takes a battering and automatic qualification to the CL Group Stage is no longer guaranteed.
To be honest. I don’t really care how much Celtic have in the bank. I have no interest in the Lawwell’s giving themselves a nice Christmas bonus at the end of the year.
My preference would be to see Celtic challenging in Europe at a level they can compete at. Look at West Ham. Do you think their fans would trade last year’s Conference Cup win with last place in the CL group stage if it meant more money in the bank?
Since merchandising is seen as part of football earnings in UEFA FSR which determines how much can spent on the playing squad, these figures are a significant part of the player affordability gap which in turn means Celtic can sign better quality players that earn CL income.
A truly virtuous circle.
Can be spent in previous.
It is a great piece James- It encourages fans to look at the clubs balance sheet and accounts – and see how much fans contribute financially to the club. And as such I believe that fans should be included in the conversation about how that 100million should be invested – and that means one thing -a representative of the fans appointed to the board, as a full board member. Celtic should recognise that stakeholders [ie fans] should be on the board as well as shareholders [ but no – not the Green Brigade]
Great figures of which I’ve contributed a fair bit to – ( A substantial bit of what I used to shell out on a season ticket)…
But at least I get value for money on the walkout jackets, presentation jackets and strips –
I certainly wasn’t getting it on the field of play…
Due to bent Scottish men with whistle, flags and monitors that are Cheats to the core –
Maybe time to try the women…
But if it’s The SFA employing them they’ll be just as corrupt !
And we dont need to ask board members for a tap and give them some shares confetti.
what i cant understand james is how they haven’t gone bust again wheres all the money coming from surely their a sinking ship again?
ps:i love this blog james cant get enough of it some very great and interesting articles written by yourself keep it up ?
Agree with ‘robb bhoy’ in his compliments.
It’s a shame about the adverts.
My iPad is virtually unreadable with the constant stream and background ads.
Give us a break James.
Further comment, why ask me to ‘tick’ the box to save my name, email etc when I still have to input my details everyday anyway?
Their EL Final run 2years ago earned them a small fortune and they were in the CL last season like us (so earnt nearly the same in media income as we did). Furthermore they managed to sell Patterson for north of £11m and unbelievably Bassey for north of £16m (did you see how bad he was last night against Spurs) so they’ve actually managed to keep themselves afloat on the back of that BUT this season’s figures will be miles behind us and next season’s (if we make the CL and they don’t) will see them left behind for years if our Board (and Brendan!) get the right players in.
Speaking of the transfer policy. I can’t believe the manager doesn’t pick the players he wants and then the board attempt to sign them.
I am reminded of what the great Ronnie Simpson said about eventually realising Stein sold him to Celtic knowing he was going there. Big Jock was “buying” players and he wasn’t even at the club yet.