The clock continues to tick towards the opening day against St. Mirren and our Champions League qualifier. The Celtic board? Transfers? Nothing…
Eric Knott 
(Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
If you were to measure the temperature of the Celtic fans mood at the moment, tepid would probably be the word to aptly describe it.
Its not warm yet, and its certainly not hot.
But the mood temperature is rising, slowly but surely.
Fans are starting to wonder what the hell is really going on behind the scenes at Celtic.
Because there is zero communication from our board, all we’re left to do is speculate.
And the problem with speculation in a situation like this, is that you tend to think the worst.
You tend to wonder if there is some sort of power struggle going on within the walls of Celtic Park.
Are the board and the manager at odds with each other?
Brendan Rodgers, as always, plays it very cool.
He keeps reiterating what he needs and he keeps pushing the responsibility back to those who should provide him with it.
Because those at Celtic who should provide him with it do not communicate, we are therefore, none the wiser.
Left to speculate.
Left to wonder.
We are a club that is cash rich, with anywhere between £80 to £100 million sitting in the club’s bank account.
We have just banked a further £17 million for the sale of Nicolas Kuhn.
Yet transfer spending in this window still has not passed £2.7 million.
I’m not board bashing here.
In fact I’m worn out from it.
My attitude towards them has just become apathetic.
Nothing I do, or say, will change the way they behave, so what’s the point?
But none of this makes sense, other than it is simply gambling.
Last season, Celtic made £40 million in the Champions League.
Any club, especially a club in a league like ours, would bite your hand off for that kind of finance.
Our board, who seem to love a healthy bank balance, would surely want more of the same when it comes to this season?
To ensure this, it would not take breaking the bank.
All it would take is early preparation in the transfer window.
Targets identified, negotiations under way, and players secured in time for pre-season.
Ange Postecoglou proved that this is quite easy to do in his first two transfer windows at the club.
In fact, it is hard to fathom why his method of operating did not become the template for transfer dealings at the club thereafter.
Again, I fail to understand how the Celtic board did not see the advantages to this way of operating?
The results of those two windows have delivered the following:
Josip Juranovic – £10 million (Cost £2.5m)
Giorgos Giakoumakis – £7 million (Cost £2m)
Felipe Jota – £25 million (Cost £6m)
Carl Starfelt – £4.3 million (Cost £3m)
Liel Abada – £10 million (Cost £3.5m)
Matt O’Riley – £25 million (Cost £1.5m)
Kyogo Furuhashi – £10 million (Cost £4m)
We made a total of £91.3 million from the sales of Ange Postecoglou’s 2021/22 double winning squad.
Those players cost us a total of £22.5 million.
We made a profit of £68.8 million from their sales.
Their purchases were entirely funded by the sales of Odsonne Edouard and Kristoffer Ajer, who netted us £14 and £13.5 million respectively.
Fantastic business all around.
But why, considering this method of operating was highly successful, both from a footballing perspective and a player trading perspective, was it stopped dead in it’s tracks?
This is what I cannot wrap my head around.
The figures don’t lie.
The profits and benefits for the club are there for all to see.
Yet here we are in the summer window of 2025, and we find ourselves back to the way of operating which was the template of the previous CEO, Peter Lawwell.
Who, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with any of these kinds of dealings at the club any more.
He just divvies out the tea and biscuits at board meetings, nothing else.
I must admit, £120,000 per annum plus benefits, for such a mundane job is easy money if you can get it.
What baffles me is that a £68.8 million profit from the transfer windows of the 2021/22 season isn’t motovating anybody to try that way of operating again.
It kind of worked, didn’t it?
Yet here we are, four years later, wondering what the hell we’re actually doing in this transfer window?
Look, I understand that some of the acquisitions to date may turn out to be huge successes.
Benjamin Nygren certainly looks like one to watch, as does Hayato Inamura.
But its clearly evident to all of us that other than Nygren, the majority of these players are not Brendan Rodgers signings.
The manager has made it clear what he wants and what he needs.
We are woefully undermanned on the wings.
Yet the Michel-Ange Balikwisha saga rumbles on.
I mean, is this guy really going to cost us an arm and a leg?
If there are negotiations ongoing, what the hell is the hold up?
Its not like we need any wingers or anything, is it?
As the start of the season draws ever closer, clubs will sniff out Celtic’s desperation to get deals over the line.
That is, if we’re actually desperate.
But if we are, then selling clubs know they can name their price.
All they have to do is look at last summer’s window.
This is why the way that Ange Postecoglou conducted his transfer business in that brief interregnum of 2021/22 should have been the textbook way of operating thereafter.
Yet it wasn’t, and has not been since.
And that just does not make sense.
The advantages are there for all to see.
As I said at the start of this article, the current mood of the fanbase is tepid.
A poor August, failure to qualify for the Champions League, and no significant transfer incomings?
Then that mood will tip from tepid into red hot rage.
The clock is ticking.
Will it be a ticking timebomb, or ticking towards what the manager needs and wants?
At the risk of being repetitive, the next 10 days are becoming critical.
But the board don’t seem to see it that way.
And you have to wonder why?
Celtic plc don’t give a damn about new players, going to hold onto the big fat bank balance and not risk spending. They clearly want rid of Rodgers itherwise they would back a successful manager.
The fans must know that money in the bank 100 million plus will benefit the board shareholders in an enormous dividend. What the fans do will dictate if the funds are made available for the manager or the dividend for the board shareholders it’s become pretty clear
Same old same old. We never learn. It’s been like this pretty much for 20 years or longer. I remember us losing a league when Strachan wanted Fletcher to get us the goals to win a title. And from memory he got nothing….and we lost the league. At that point I gave up on us ever changing whilst the CEO was in the building. And he still is….say no more
Frank
says:
23rd July 2025 at 2:11 pm
The fans must know that money in the bank 100 million plus will benefit the board shareholders in an enormous dividend. What the fans do will dictate if the funds are made available for the manager or the dividend for the board shareholders it’s become pretty clear
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Not true.
Preferrential shares pay 6% of a dividend (I had previously thought it was 3.6 but this was pointed ut to me as being incorrect.)
So, DD has 8 millions of these share, and his payout is fixed at £480k.
The cash reserves cannot be divvied up to anyone else.
Why is that meme continued on Tim blogs.
Why not just tell the facts.
Its called a Rodgers Lawwell mexican stand off with DD holding the jerseys trying to keep both men happy
Lawwell holds the aces as he controls the money and knows DD can’t and won’t fire him .
Rodgers getting fed minimum scraps until he pisses off … and if he moans here is the PL retort
“You get to keep hatate and maeda ..you got tierney and Kuhn was a disruptive pain in the ass ..what are you complaining about ?
Its been great window for you … get on with it and … oh by the way… if you fail to qualify for CL we will sell maeda the next day !
Same old, same old ?
Before the transfer window there were wide ranging commentary of who was the “deadwood” and “wage-theivies” at Celtic park, and statements of who we have to get off the books. Seen as bad-buys, it was kind of accepted moving squad players on frees up space for others to come in.
At this point we have 13 players out. and 7 in.
Seems to it is just business as usual.
Charlie
says:
23rd July 2025 at 2:44 pm
Its called a Rodgers Lawwell mexican stand off with DD holding the jerseys trying to keep both men happy
Lawwell holds the aces as he controls the money and knows DD can’t and won’t fire him .
————
I personally do not believe there is a stand off, maybe they actually work together and each knows the constraints of a transfer and its timing.
Neither do I belive that PL controls what the spending can be.
When are we going to learn with this board that nothing is ever easy. They don’t give a shit about our fans, just the bank balance. Someone needs to tell them bank balances are there to be spent on team.
Stivs
I have a greater dislike for green huns like yourself than blue huns.
Nobody swallows your bullshit apart from a wee clique of twats on Brennans CQN.
You are saying that you seem happy with all the transfer business so far. The manager isnt, hes already said numerous times that he needs players in.
When you defended the board when nobody replaced Kyogo last January it shows you up as not having the slightest bit of backbone as hell would freeze over before you would criticise your precious board.
If someone kicked Lawwell on the arse your tongue would hurt like fuck.
The biggest waste of money in the history of Scottish football – Peter Lawwell for the ill-informed – had spent the better part of 2 decades telling anyone that would listen (and plenty who didn’t want to) that his way of operating a transfer window was only way it could be done. He left the club, Ange came in, and spent two transfer windows proving he was wrong. In a nutshell, just leave it to the football people to sort!
The response from the Board of Zeroes? Get PL’s son on board to implement his daddy’s blueprint. Follow that up with bringing the moron himself back to the club to oversee it.
The rest, as they say, is history.
The Club is going nowhere with a Board as inept as this. So much so that if all of the Board positions were put in the hands of a top tier recruitment agency to source the best available, it’s doubtful any of the current incumbents would even get an interview…go figure.
For a Club with a support as diverse as we are, we have a Board of old, tired, passionless, ambitionless grey men……and we wonder they have trouble connecting with us!
what age are you 6 ?
i dislike the board, i dont like PL. I beleive they all get paid too much. I dont know Paul Brennan.
but you believe what you want.
I can make up my own mind from what I see happening. I diagree with manys hyperbole and hysterical reactions to anything to do with Celtic.
Especially on the internet.
Keep the name calling coming, its seems to suit your bully boy persona.
stivs
Boy oh boy if BR and PL are besties then they are together making a real Roger Hunt of this (and the previous) window
PL I would bet is still micromanaging every penny of spend that BR gets for the team
Although I had hoped we would have signed more by now I still believe it deliver for the manager by the deadline.
In terms of Ange windows it was easier to hit the Japanese markets and we brought in Hatate,Maeda,ideguchi and Matt ORiley from the lower reaches of English football.
We have matched that with Inamura,Yamada and bringing in Nygren and Tierney.
In Ange first window only Kyogo was brought in very early while Jota,ccv,juranovic,GG were in the last few days.
Clubs and players are hanging it out waiting for the best offers and as frustrating as it for fans it is what it is.
If they don’t back BR he will leave and the fault for that will be very clear with no degree of ambiguity.
I believe that DD will support Brendan.
Charlie
says:
23rd July 2025 at 3:56 pm
stivs
Boy oh boy if BR and PL are besties then they are together making a real Roger Hunt of this (and the previous) window
PL I would bet is still micromanaging every penny of spend that BR gets for the team
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Just experience of business, but I have worked in really big organisations where the executives despised each other, and would really express this to anyone who would listen. Just the egos of those involved, but non so brave to fall on their swords if the owners make a decision.
Maybe PL hates DD and vice versa. Maybe there are factions amongst the board members, maybe they brief against the manager. Maybe they squeal to DD, but it doesnt keep us just ahead of the rangers, or indeed make us fail in europe, or stop us spending records on transfers, or doing the biggest infrastructure projects in 30 years,
Maybe they all dislike each other, but at the end of the day, losing that 1st position , like the covid year, means they WILL EMPLOY the best manager available, and at this moment it is Brendan.
Sometimes, for the most part, you have to put differences aside to keep the business on top.
That is my expereince.
Keep it up Eric with the board . I do think it makes a difference when sites like yours constantly question their reluctance to spend money .
They don’t give a f*ck
But I guarantee you they’ll be giving lots of f*cks about lapping up the luxury and sun and having a good old time over in Como for the next few days
Stivs
I hope you are right but i fear the worst and sadly seen many examples of organisations failing due to personality clashes in vital positions at the top
“A house divided against itself cannot stand “ famously said Abraham Lincoln… and he would know !
DD will know whether there is the division we all fear … if there is he better fix it and fast as this will only go one way … pissing away our leadership and domination Scottish football and all for personal egos
PLC first FC second as long as our current board remains in place. We are a football club generating revenue for a PLC. Nothing changes at Celtic FC until the board does.
There was deffo bad blood between BR and PL during managers first time at club.Why would anyone think that enmity has gone away?You have two narcissistic men with huge egos,who clearly on a personal level don’t get on.And because of this high noon pish the club will suffer.