Football finance expert Kieran Maguire has recently discussed the latest set of accounts which have been released by Celtic.
During the 2019/20 campaign, on the pitch, the Hoops enjoyed a successful year as they were named Premiership champions after it was seen as ‘unfeasible’ to resume the season (per BBC).
Of the 30 games which Celtic has played in the Scottish top flight, they won a whopping 26 of them, drawing two and losing two (per Sky Sports).
The title was their ninth consecutive Scottish top-flight championship, which has set the club up to win their tenth title in a row during the current season.
However, off the field, the Hoops were losing money weekly, and during the latest episode of The Price of Football podcast, Maguire discussed these losses.
He said: “Well, they lost £430,000 a week last season from their day-to-day activities. They did manage to offset those losses through selling Kieran Tierney to Arsenal.
“So they made a significant profit, and the Celtic business model is, every year, they normally manage to have one successful sale and that covers their day-to-day trading losses.
“However, this summer, nobody’s been sold and those losses, which were £430,000 a week, are likely to be far higher this season because Celtic generate around about 50% of their income through the turnstiles.
“And with no sign of fans returning to matches, in terms of paying to watch them from the stadium, it could be a tough year.
“So, one would have to presume, the club did have £20m cash in the bank at the end of June, but it will burn its way through that fairly quickly.
“If it’s not successful in getting out of the group games of the Europa League, that’s going to make things worse, I think [they] might have to go and turn to the owners to bail them out.”
TIF Thoughts on what Kieran Maguire said about Celtic’s latest accounts…
As can be seen in what the football finance expert had to say, he believes that if the Hoops struggle in the Europa League, there is a chance the owners may have to “bail them out”.
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With that in mind, it may be prudent if the Hoops ship out one of their big-name players during the January transfer window if they struggle in Group H of the Europa League.