Celtic’s impending Frimpong windfall is another crushing blow to our rivals.

So today, even as we laugh at the shenanigans across the city and the goings-on in La-La Land, where they are doing their level best to push forward in their efforts to get the son of Carlo Ancelotti to come and manage their club, Celtic continues to do what Celtic does.

And in the background, a very interesting development is happening somewhere else which might—just might—help our club out quite significantly in the transfer market over the summer.

The news that Trent Alexander-Arnold is on his way to Real Madrid has opened the door for Jeremie Frimpong to finally make his big-money move away from Bayer Leverkusen. Word is that he’s attracting interest from Liverpool, but there are a couple of other clubs sniffing around too. It does seem as if this is the summer—finally—and we’ve been hearing this for a few years now, that he’s going to make the move.

Depending on the transfer fee, this could net Celtic somewhere in excess of £6 million. If we can also shift a couple of fringe players out the door, it’s not hard to see how you’d accumulate quite a nice transfer budget for the manager without having to part with a key player.

Celtic has plenty of money to spend. As I’ve said on repeated occasions, whatever transfer budget Brendan came in with in his first window—and in that first summer—he didn’t spend it. We posted a profit, a transfer trading surplus, at the end of that campaign. So there was no real money spent on transfers in terms of what went out as opposed to what came in.

Although last season’s spending was substantial—in fact, as I’ve said numerous times, we spent more than Leeds United did as they tried to get to the Premier League—almost all of it was brought in first, with the sale of Matt O’Riley. For the second year running, Rodgers did not spend any of the budget that was set aside for him.

That’s why I think the manager should have a certain amount of leeway this season to spend money—because he hasn’t really done it in the previous two. This has contributed to the club making massive profits. And while none of us objects to that, we do object to the fact that much of that money has gone back out of the club to pay HMRC. That is a shocking sign of inefficiency.

It’s not as if there aren’t areas of the club that need improvement. It’s not as if there aren’t areas of the team that need strengthening—a situation that got worse when we sold Kyogo and didn’t replace him, and brought in Jota, who’s now injured and won’t play for the bulk of next season. There’s clearly a lot of work to do.

But interesting little developments like this give you hope—and remind you that our transfer policy is actually pretty good, and that our transfer record has actually been pretty stellar. The club across the city must view developments like this with despair, especially when their accounts showed that they brought in a grand total of £800,000 last season from the sales of about five or six players.

This £6–7 million Frimpong sell-on clause is probably more money from a single deal than they’ll get from all their summer transfer sales combined.

And that is extraordinary to consider. It’s a clear sign of what they’re up against—a Celtic juggernaut that just doesn’t stop. A Celtic operation which continues to generate good returns. I mean, we already had a substantial transfer windfall from Frimpong—a guy we got for virtually nothing and sold for a fortune.

That we might be about to turn the trick again and get even more money for him is extraordinary. But it’s a triumph—for Celtic, and how we go about our business. It’s a sure sign that we are clear-eyed and know what we’re doing.

Hopefully this money will go straight into the transfer kitty—if the deal happens. Hopefully Rodgers will get every penny of it, and he’s entitled to expect every penny of it. We could do a lot worse than use this money—this unexpected windfall—to tie him up on a long-term deal, and to do the same for guys like Maeda and Hatate, who the manager wants to keep at the club.

What’s very clear here is that Celtic is in a very good and a very strong place. I still expect that some of the fringe players—like Lagerbielke and Palma—will also leave and net us a decent return. Maybe we won’t make big profits on them, but we’ll at least get our money back. And that’s money we never missed. Whatever we bring in for these guys goes straight into the transfer pot.

All in all, a big deal for Frimpong would be very good news for us. And that, coupled with another couple of sales from within the current squad, should give us a good foundation for the fighting fund Rodgers will get to spend.

Across the city, they can only look on with envy, despair, and frustration. But hey—they might soon have a famous name in the dugout. So there’s that, after all.