Just how much money have the Celtic board wasted on projects, flops and loans in recent years? Lets take a look
Eric Knott 
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In November 2023, I wrote the below article highlighted how much money Celtic had wasted on projects, flops and loans since Brendan Rodgers’ first tenure at the club in 2016.
The number up to that point was pretty staggering.
£51 million.
Since then, you can add about another £30 million+ onto that figure.
In November of 2023, we were in the middle of the 10 signings for £20 million which began Rodgers’ second stint at Celtic.
One of those ten signings still remains at the club.
Hyun-Jun Yang.
Not one of the rest of them had any meaningful impact.
I’m not going to name them, you know who they are.
We significantly improved our summer signings in the 2024 summer window, but let’s face it, the minute the realisation hit the board that any of these players were of value, they were sold off.
It’s now safe to say that both Tounekti and Blikwisha were flops to the value of £10 million.
Finally, we have paid wages for 9 loan signings in 2026, none of which have had any significant impact.
I don’t know what the valuation of their wages is, but I’m sure it’s a pretty significant number.
So, in summation, in addition to the £51 million I deduced we has wasted in my November 2023 article, I think it’s fair to say that this figure is closer to around £82 million in November 2026.
£82 million spent and wasted since 2016.
Don’t forget I haven’t included the cost of the 9 loan signings in 2026.
I’ll do a deeper dive on that later.
Good business from our world class board?
I’ll let you be the judge of that….
Last night’s article, as I thought it would, drew a lot of debate.
I would say 90% of the people who commented on it, and there were hundreds, were in agreement with what I said.
In hindsight, I should have added a poll to it, which would have given a real reflection of the mood amongst the fanbase.
The other 10%, the Lawwell lovers, spouted on about the article being rubbish, and me not doing my homework, and us not being able to compete, and on, and on.
Reading some of those comments has inspired me to write this article.
To do my homework, so to speak.
And I’ve put a lot of time, effort and research into it.
What I’ve found is not open to dispute, these are facts that cannot be debated.
As the title of this article suggests, I’ve looked at the money wasted by the current Celtic board, most notably by Peter Lawwell, in recent years.
They’ve done this in the pursuit of that one rare gem, amongst multiple player purchases, that might land them a windfall.
Their transfer model, while sometimes delivering that rare gem, is exactly the reason our club remains in stasis.
Never moving forward.
People tend to focus more on the big money the board has made from selling those rare gems.
Like the £18.5 million for Moussa Dembele, or the £25 million received for Kieran Tierney, or the £25 million received for Felipe Jota.
Yes, big money for just three players, but how many millions have been pissed down the toilet on projects who have failed to make the grade?
I decided to look at Brendan Rodgers’ first stint at the club, Lennon’s time, Ange’s time, and then back to where we are today.
I have selected all of the projects, loans, and flops that have walked through the doors of Celtic Park, never to make an impact, and then walk out the door for a pittance, or nothing.
I have only looked at at what they cost us in transfer fees.
People tend to forget what they cost the club in wages, which also amounts to millions.
So let’s take a look.
Brendan Rodgers first stint:
Rodgers ultimately left the club for Leicester City due to constant interference from the de facto director of football.
You all know who he is.
Here is an example of some of the players who were literally foisted on Brendan Rodgers, costing millions and contributing nothing:
Eboue Kouassi £3 million
Christian Gamboa £1.5 million
Marvin Compper £1 million
Jack Hendry £1.2 million
Charly Musonda £2.5 million (loan cost)
Vakoun Bayo £2 million
Maryan Shved £2 million
Oliver Burke £1.5 million (loan cost)
Jeremy Toljan £500k (loan cost for half a season)
Timo Weah £500k (loan cost for half a season)
Total expenditure on projects, flops and loans during Rodgers’ first stint at Celtic:
£15.7 million
Now, the mere mention of Marvin Compper causes me to grind my teeth.
It sort of pulls at my brain stem and makes me really mad.
But that aside, £15.7 million was wasted on projects, flops and loans during Brendan’s first tenure at the club.
That’s not even mentioning Daniel Arzani, Andrew Gutman and Manny Perez.
Charly Musonda cost us £2.5 million for 4 appearances.
No goals, no impact, no contribution.
Indeed.
Money well spent.
I think not.
Lennon’s return:
Neil Lennon returned to the club mid-season when Brendan Rodgers left for Leicester City, so he didn’t have any impact on transfers during that season.
But in the 2019/20 and 20/21 seasons he did.
This is where it gets interesting, lets have a look at Lennon’s projects, flops and loans:
Boli Bolingoli £3 million
Patryk Klimala £3.5 million
Ismail Soro £2 million
Albian Ajeti £5 million
Vasilios Barkas £4.5 million
Shane Duffy £2 million (loan cost)
Diego Laxalt £1.5 million (loan cost)
Jonjoe Kenny £500k (loan cost for half a season)
Total expenditure on projects, flops and loans during Lennon’s second stint at Celtic:
£22 million
Then came Ange Postecoglou.
At first, everything in terms of transfers he brought in turned to gold.
However, as we’ve learned this season, quite a few of his player purchases have been flops.
We could say this is more down to Ange than the board, but they still cost us substantial amounts of money.
Lets take a look:
Alexandro Bernabei £4 million
Sead Hakšabanović £2 million
Oliver Abildgaard £1 million (loan cost)
Total expenditure on projects, flops and loans under Ange Postecoglou
£7 million
Ange, in fairness to him, cost us the least when it comes to money wasted.
Not surprising, considering the eye he has for players, but I guess you can’t get them all right.
Finally, I’m going to look a this season, and Rodgers second stint as manager.
I’m going to call this as I see it, because in reality, some of the signings made in the last window have had zero impact.
Therefore, they are a waste of money, and they fall into the same category as the rest of the players named in this article.
Tuesday night’s result is what brought us to here, and what I’m doing is showing all those who think this board is the bees knees, just how much money they’ve squandered on pish over the last 7 years or so.
Here are the players I rate as not good enough after last summer’s transfer window.
I can pretty much guarantee they won’t make the grade at Celtic.
Feel free to contradict me, but have a good reason as to why you are if you do:
Gustaf Lagerbielke £3 million
Marco Tilio £1.5 million
Hyeok-kyu Kwon £800k
Nathaniel Phillips £750k (loan cost)
Total expenditure:
£6.05 million
That’s being conservative.
There are others who may not yet make the grade at Celtic, but this exercise shows you just how much money our board has wasted on projects, flops and loans.
In reality, I haven’t really delved that deep on the loan side of things, and if I knew the wages these players have cost us, this could look a hell of a lot worse.
The harsh reality is that over the last 7 years, this amazing board we have has completely wasted just under £51 million on players who have had little or no impact on this club.
This does not include the wages wasted on these players.
Marvin Compper and James McCarthy are prime examples of that.
There are many more like that.
Can you really tell me that this is a good business model?
Granted, we’ve sold players on for big money, but on average, we’ve wasted £7.3 million in transfer money per year on duds over the last 7 seasons.
If we had bought one quality player for that £7.3 million wasted in each of those seasons, how would that look now?
Think of how much we might have sold 3 or 4 of those 7 purchases for?
Take Jota and Carter-Vickers as an example of what you get when you spend just that bit more on a quality player.
You see what I mean?
£51 million wasted.
Countless more millions wasted on wages.
The end result?
Nights like last Tuesday night.
I rest my case.
Key Takeaways
- Celtic wasted approximately £82 million on flops, projects, and loans since 2016, with £30 million added since November 2023.
- Notable failed signings under different managers include players like Eboue Kouassi and Albian Ajeti, contributing significantly to the losses.
- The current board’s strategy focuses on high-profile signings but often results in wasteful expenditure without meaningful impact.
- Despite selling a few players for big money, the average waste amounts to £7.3 million annually over the last seven years.
- The author argues that the inability to secure consistent quality players has left Celtic in a state of stagnation.
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They need quality loans, plus projects. Not 7 projects. 2 loans (tierney, mctom ilk – pay the money and 5 projects.
The current model is roulette. The alternative though – pay a bit more doesnt guarantee a good signing – say one player at 8 mill, I’d rather the punt on 3 at 2.7 mill. Ajeti, barkass defeats the pay a bit more and is case in point for continuing roulette.
How many 1st team games had CCV and Jota played? I think people are just ignorant to the fact that signing players is extremely difficult. Chelsea is the perfect example, spending millions on one player doesn’t guarantee success. If it was that easy every team would do it
I know the league is our bread and butter but let’s be honest, if it weren’t for the Ukraine war, Celtic wouldn’t be in Europe at all never mind the Champions League. Celtic ( for a host of reasons) are not a Conference League level club never mind a Champions League level club. With £72 million in the bank and F£%k knows how many millions more stashed all over the place, we still apparently don’t have to funds to spend to give the club a decent crack at any sort of European run within the three UEFA competitions and as the board have shown down through the years they are not willing to spend either, preferring to flush millions down the toilet on projects players and hit ‘n’ hope Loans in the hope of finding that hidden gem is all that they are interested in, as there’s is literally no financial creativity within the corridors of power within Celtic Park.
A Large section of our club’s fan base is complicate in our downfall on the European stage, as we are loaded with “Happy Clapper Lawellites” who will use every excuse to under the sun not to spend any money,with the usual BS of “We Don’t Want To End Up Like Rangers”as the brainwashing, hypnotic phrase to shut down any conversion of creative spending. These ” Happy Clapper” are quite content to neglect Europe to stay a hairs-breath ahead of the Huns the board know this and our are happy to comply.
The “Rebel Celtic Fans”, the European wannabes are just as much to bleam, for they cry their eye’s out EVERY YEAR about the state and direction of the club, they continually threaten the hold the board to account with a financial boycott but when their moment arrives, their balls drop off when that season ticket renewal email lands in their inbox.
Your article is what I’ve been talking about for a few years now.The amount of money that’s been spent on £2 to £3 million gambles which the vast majority of these players turn out to be underwhelmingly poor & not up to it & eventually get pushed out the door with a sackful of cash via their contracts.
I don’t expect Celtic to pay £30 or £40 million for a player or anything like that but what I do expect is for the club to have a higher calibre of professional footballer than what the club is currently providing.
The fact is we are still paying the likes of £2 million for players like when we did nearly 30 years ago with the likes of Andreas Thom & even then that fee was quite modest compared to most.
I think we should get involved in bidding wars instead of pulling out after low ball offers. We have missed out on real quality due to our meanfistedness, mcginn castsgne , Ivan Toney to name a few . Real match winners and the type of players who carry a team on off days or make the difference on big occasions.
If the manager / scouts recognise a real talent the board should find a way to finance it instead of ignoring it or giving lip service with a pathetic amount.
(The same board that pushes the boat out percentage wise come bonus time I might add.)
I love nothing better than being above the huns in all aspects but it’s not the be all and end all. There’s more to be had and staying just above a team that was in
Liquidation not that long ago is far too low a benchmark these days. They are a joke and we are happy to maintain a few points in the league lead over them but otherwise be basically in the same category as the joke??
We should have pushed on by now.
If the Belgian over there get a tune out of that mob he’s been left with and starts stringing together a few results against the rest of the league then it’s not inconceivable that the refs work their magic and we are back qualifying for Europe again.
I firmly believe we have been infiltrated at high level by the lodge and they wont allow us to make the next step.
For generations the gap was never so big as it has been recently between us and them and still we dont have a team that can be taken seriously in Europe. Despite all the songs.
It’s about time someone stood up and told the truth on who is ultimately responsible for the scouting,recommending and eventually buying players.
Don’t forget, a while back we missed out on Tore Andre Flo.
Celtic’s strategy is not one of buy low sell high its a stategy of throwing shite against a wall and see who sticks!!
We had 3 season tickets for well over a decade and binned them after the covid cup farce. Like most I was getting disillusioned with the way our money was being spent and the fact that year in year out we sacrificed European runs to buy into the keep a stable ship concentrate on domestic success……..
then when it really counted these f#cking robbing b#stards on the board let us lose the 10 I.A.R by basically taking on Brendan in a pissing contest over signings and forcing him out the door.
Completely in my opinion showing their hand .
They firmly believe Scotland is our level and we need the #ld f#rm.
I feel if the shoe was on the other foot we would NEVER have been given the chance to stop their 10 with our club being in the shape that they were in.Tommy burns nearly stopped their 9 but for so called lost signing papers????
But my point is we chucked our season books
A lot said they were doing the same.
5000 is all that never renewed.
The board win again.
Btw I’m as bad cos I still go to the games
We buy development players for £2m. Sell some of them for eg £20m. But then instead of buying a £5m player, we go and buy another £2m. Plus our wage limit must be raised. When Ange and Michael Nicholson were dealing with e the transfers, the players were brought in early. Since Lawwell came back it’s once again last minute shopping.Lawwell is ruining the club.
We might not need to spend a lot of money on loans if we brought in a top foreign coach for the “B” team. Someone who could get the best out of the players we have and good young prospects The players he coaches could be used in the 1st team or sold which would help to pay his wages. He is just sd important as the 1st team coach. Bill McAllister
The board and D.D. lost interest in competing in Europe around the time Ronny D became our big managerial signing.
Teams with lesser budgets than us are doing better than us in European competitions year in year out.
We have maybe 1 more year in Champions league before we are frozen out but if we even want to get out of Europa group stages, we need to build a solid defence.
Attackers win games, defence wins championships.
Us and the Ibrokes orks are the European whipping boys.
I love all the pain that you lot are going through. Maybe if the referees in Scotland applied the rules that the European refs do then that would make separate entity FC a better football club. You have had it too easy for far too long. Even your own players are admitting that its different standards in Europe as far as refereeing goes. Correct standards BTW. It looks like separate entity FC have the referees on their payroll in Scotland.
Genuinely Billy, do yourself a favour and step into the real world, please. John Beaton is Ibrox through and through, you know it, I know it, and the man with the dog passing your window there, well, his dog knows it too. I know you guys live in denial when it comes to everything to do with your club, we don’t. You take all the shite your board throws at you and accept being ripped off by them season after season, so you’re not one to lecture me or the club I support. I’m calling out the shite that our board is dealing out to our support, and I’ll continue to do so until change happens. I’ll refer to the game against Hearts, where Beaton was desperate to ensure you closed the gap on us, his penalty decision at the death was farcical, absolutely farcical. It wasn’t good enough that Tavpen had missed one already, he had to award another. Then he gave you an extra 9 minutes to get the winner. Only one club has referees on their payroll, and it ain’t Celtic mate.