Celtic are expected to make major moves in this January’s transfer window.
Ange Postecoglou himself has stated that he expects business to be done quickly and efficiently this winter to avoid the chaos he experienced when he took the reigns in June this year.
But just how much will Celtic spend? Or the pertinent question should be,’How much can they spend?’
That is what respected sports researcher Dr Daniel Plumley has been discussing with Football Insider.
Dr Plumley is a Senior Lecturer at the Sheffield Hallam University and an experienced researcher for the Sport Industry Research Centre where he specialises mainly on football finances when he made this startling revelation, “I’ve crunched the numbers on this to give some context.
“This is based on UEFA’s FFP model. FFP has been paused and there is a review in the works. But at the moment, you can lose £30m over a three-year period.
“If you look at the pre-pandemic era in 2017 to 2019, they made small profits of approximately £7m, £15m, £9m. That totals £31m profit.
“They had a combined loss of £13m in 2020 and 2021. We need to average that out because of UEFA relaxing FFP and rolling two years into one.
“So that’s an average loss of £6.5m over those two seasons.
“Then if we look at the three-year cumulative numbers, we have an approximate profit of £2.5m.
“That is the figure which you can then offset against the £30m UEFA acceptable loss limit.
“There are other exemptions in terms of FFP, but let’s avoid them to simplify the argument a little. They could spend £32.5m quite comfortably.
“The problem with that is that you can overstretch to reach the Champions League group stage.
“So they have got flex within FFP but the gamble is overstretching. That is the gamble the boardroom, I imagine, will be looking at.”
Would the board take that gamble? Recent history says they possibly could but it’s not about how much money the club can spend. It’s also about how they spend it.
Last summer the board and Neil Lennon spent fortunes on trying to secure ten in a row, but as was proven, it was money wasted on players that didn’t have what it takes to play for Glasgow Celtic.
Money, largely, wasted.
What you can bet on is that if Ange is given that kind of money, it would be spent wisely.
The board should take that gamble.