The Offical Glasgow Celtic thread

[ned]

Hard one to call. On one hand we all want better player that can go into Europe and be much more competitive...because we all believe Celtic are big enough to do that - but on the other hand, whilst we know Lawell will not do that, we do know he will keep the club very financially sound, whilst Sevco run from one financial crisis to the next. His salary is high but much of that is linked to financial performance bonuses.

Having said that he got very lucky when Rodgers felt the need to do a midnight flit, in my opinion he looked at the remaining schedule with a few very tough looking away games, and was not convinced the treble was on. (Leicester had a very easy run in with all bottom 6 teams to play so he went there for his bonus instead) but then Lenny came in out of nowhere and secured the treble after all.

Had this not happened I think there would have been a lot more heat on Lawell and a massive push to strengthen the squad and deliver a big name manager. He got very lucky the way it all panned out.

Keeping the club financially sound is one thing but it's the money he is taking out of the club personally that is absolutely disgraceful.

He took home £3.5m in the 2018/2019 season. His salary for that year accounted for 6% of the total wage bill

He is up there with the highest earners at the club on the basis of his salary nevermind his bonuses.

How many other football clubs in Europe have their Chief Executive as one of the highest paid employees at the club?

https://videocelts.com/2020/01/blogs/latest-news/report-in-the-times-makes-peter-lawwell-the-highest-paid-football-director-in-britain/

Lawwell is the highest paid football director in the whole of Britain yet Celtic fall further and further behind English clubs every year in terms of spending. Can some of ye not see how absurd this is. The only one benefiting from this is Lawwell, the squad is consistently downsized. We sell a star talent like Tierney for less than he's worth, our wage bill probably reduces, we only reinvest half of that in the playing squad but Lawwell's earnings keep going up and up. The people who back Lawwell are as fickle as they come.

Valid points except the bit about falling further behind Englush clubs. FFS, Bournemouth are just relegated and are guaranteed 160m for doing f**k all.
They spent tens of millions on a few players. Ryan Fraser has just left them as s free agent and appeared be on 60k plus per week. We cannot compete with that, that is not Lawwell's fault. What is his fault is missing out on players by trying to hardball. Below is direct quote from McGinn;

"It was important to weigh up everything and not just go with my heart because I had basically made up my mind I wanted to join Celtic.
But I also had to weigh up in my mind how strong Celtic's midfield had been for a long time.
I remember speaking to Brendan Rodgers and he said the important thing I would take from it was I would play games.
But Steve Bruce said I would play every game.
I was used to playing week in week out at Hibs and it was so important to me that that carried on.
A lot was made of it but I have spoken to Peter Lawwell since and I have huge respect for how he operates."

[Angelo]

Hard one to call. On one hand we all want better player that can go into Europe and be much more competitive...because we all believe Celtic are big enough to do that - but on the other hand, whilst we know Lawell will not do that, we do know he will keep the club very financially sound, whilst Sevco run from one financial crisis to the next. His salary is high but much of that is linked to financial performance bonuses.

Having said that he got very lucky when Rodgers felt the need to do a midnight flit, in my opinion he looked at the remaining schedule with a few very tough looking away games, and was not convinced the treble was on. (Leicester had a very easy run in with all bottom 6 teams to play so he went there for his bonus instead) but then Lenny came in out of nowhere and secured the treble after all.

Had this not happened I think there would have been a lot more heat on Lawell and a massive push to strengthen the squad and deliver a big name manager. He got very lucky the way it all panned out.

Keeping the club financially sound is one thing but it's the money he is taking out of the club personally that is absolutely disgraceful.

He took home £3.5m in the 2018/2019 season. His salary for that year accounted for 6% of the total wage bill

He is up there with the highest earners at the club on the basis of his salary nevermind his bonuses.

How many other football clubs in Europe have their Chief Executive as one of the highest paid employees at the club?

https://videocelts.com/2020/01/blogs/latest-news/report-in-the-times-makes-peter-lawwell-the-highest-paid-football-director-in-britain/

Lawwell is the highest paid football director in the whole of Britain yet Celtic fall further and further behind English clubs every year in terms of spending. Can some of ye not see how absurd this is. The only one benefiting from this is Lawwell, the squad is consistently downsized. We sell a star talent like Tierney for less than he's worth, our wage bill probably reduces, we only reinvest half of that in the playing squad but Lawwell's earnings keep going up and up. The people who back Lawwell are as fickle as they come.

Valid points except the bit about falling further behind Englush clubs. FFS, Bournemouth are just relegated and are guaranteed 160m for doing f**k all.
They spent tens of millions on a few players. Ryan Fraser has just left them as s free agent and appeared be on 60k plus per week. We cannot compete with that, that is not Lawwell's fault. What is his fault is missing out on players by trying to hardball. Below is direct quote from McGinn;

"It was important to weigh up everything and not just go with my heart because I had basically made up my mind I wanted to join Celtic.
But I also had to weigh up in my mind how strong Celtic's midfield had been for a long time.
I remember speaking to Brendan Rodgers and he said the important thing I would take from it was I would play games.
But Steve Bruce said I would play every game.
I was used to playing week in week out at Hibs and it was so important to me that that carried on.
A lot was made of it but I have spoken to Peter Lawwell since and I have huge respect for how he operates."

Yes that's true.

But contrast what Lawwell takes out of our wage bill (6% of our total wage bill in 2018/19). If you look at this base salary it is 2% of our total wage bill a season (on avg, it could be more now).

The next highest paid director in British football in 2018/19 was Ed Woodward, his salary of £3.16m was <1% of Man Utd's total wage bill.

Lawwell is acting in his own self interest and not in the best interests of the club.

[dublin7]

This Scottish league thing and the standard is wearing thin too BTW, some people need to wise up. All the English supporters keep coming up with this crap every year yet 90% of players that are moved on from Celtic to other clubs seem to do rightly in the so called top English league...the same league that would put you to sleep watching a live game (majority of matches), the "Match of the day" does a wonderful job of cramming in 90 sec of action from a 90 min games to show us how wonderful it is.

There's probably double the amount of money spent in England than any other league but the Champions league winner in more likely to come from a different Country than England...funny that as it's the best league in the world.

Who exactly are all these players Celtic moved on in recent seasons to the Premier League?

Tierney is fair enough as he's a quality player who has been unlucky with injuries. Dembele went to France. After that who else is there? Van Dijk was years ago when that Celtic team was far superior to the current one

VVD left Celtic in 2015. Five years ago!
Fraser Forster, Victor Wanyama. Not a lot of players but not a bad hit rate.
You obviously don't watch much of Celtic if you think VVD's Celtic team was "far superior" to this years.

Celtic used to be competitive in the CL.  These days they struggle to even get through the qualification rounds and the
the Europa League just getting out of their group is an achievement.

The problem for Celtic is attracting quality players. The lack of quality and money in the league means players wont move there for lower wages compared to even decent championship level clubs in England. They can sweep up the best of SPL, but beyond that their only option is signing you unproven talent and hoping they turn into quality players and sell them on for a profit when a bigger club comes in for them

[Angelo]

This Scottish league thing and the standard is wearing thin too BTW, some people need to wise up. All the English supporters keep coming up with this crap every year yet 90% of players that are moved on from Celtic to other clubs seem to do rightly in the so called top English league...the same league that would put you to sleep watching a live game (majority of matches), the "Match of the day" does a wonderful job of cramming in 90 sec of action from a 90 min games to show us how wonderful it is.

There's probably double the amount of money spent in England than any other league but the Champions league winner in more likely to come from a different Country than England...funny that as it's the best league in the world.

Who exactly are all these players Celtic moved on in recent seasons to the Premier League?

Tierney is fair enough as he's a quality player who has been unlucky with injuries. Dembele went to France. After that who else is there? Van Dijk was years ago when that Celtic team was far superior to the current one

VVD left Celtic in 2015. Five years ago!
Fraser Forster, Victor Wanyama. Not a lot of players but not a bad hit rate.
You obviously don't watch much of Celtic if you think VVD's Celtic team was "far superior" to this years.

Celtic used to be competitive in the CL.  These days they struggle to even get through the qualification rounds and the
the Europa League just getting out of their group is an achievement.

The problem for Celtic is attracting quality players. The lack of quality and money in the league means players wont move there for lower wages compared to even decent championship level clubs in England. They can sweep up the best of SPL, but beyond that their only option is signing you unproven talent and hoping they turn into quality players and sell them on for a profit when a bigger club comes in for them

They topped their group in the Europa League last year.

The problem isn't attracting top players, the problem is the board's reluctance to invest in the first team.

Between Rodger's compensation package, Van Dijk's sell on fee, deals for Dembele, Tierney and Armstrong etc, Celtic have recouped upward of £70m in the past 2 and a half seasons. They have barely spent about half of that while posting consistent profits and Lawwell's salary consistently rising.

[ned]

This Scottish league thing and the standard is wearing thin too BTW, some people need to wise up. All the English supporters keep coming up with this crap every year yet 90% of players that are moved on from Celtic to other clubs seem to do rightly in the so called top English league...the same league that would put you to sleep watching a live game (majority of matches), the "Match of the day" does a wonderful job of cramming in 90 sec of action from a 90 min games to show us how wonderful it is.

There's probably double the amount of money spent in England than any other league but the Champions league winner in more likely to come from a different Country than England...funny that as it's the best league in the world.

Who exactly are all these players Celtic moved on in recent seasons to the Premier League?

Tierney is fair enough as he's a quality player who has been unlucky with injuries. Dembele went to France. After that who else is there? Van Dijk was years ago when that Celtic team was far superior to the current one

VVD left Celtic in 2015. Five years ago!
Fraser Forster, Victor Wanyama. Not a lot of players but not a bad hit rate.
You obviously don't watch much of Celtic if you think VVD's Celtic team was "far superior" to this years.

Celtic used to be competitive in the CL.  These days they struggle to even get through the qualification rounds and the
the Europa League just getting out of their group is an achievement.

The problem for Celtic is attracting quality players. The lack of quality and money in the league means players wont move there for lower wages compared to even decent championship level clubs in England. They can sweep up the best of SPL, but beyond that their only option is signing you unproven talent and hoping they turn into quality players and sell them on for a profit when a bigger club comes in for them

Celtic have never been competitive in the CL. How many times have we got out of the group stages?
The same clubs reach the QFs year after year with the odd anomaly. We should be striving for last 16 in CL or QF or beyond in EL. We are hampered mainly by our lack of competition domestically and poor investment in players. I hope we are starting to address that with the money spent on Edouard,  Jullien and now Barkas in the last three years. Lawwell doesn't help but he's doing exactly as wished for by the big shareholder(s).

[dublin7]

Goood player's won't leave the Premier League in England to move to Scotland to play in the SPL for less money.

Even the top championship clubs In England can offer better wages. Your directors realise this and that's why Celtics policy is to buy young unproven talent mixed with best of Scotland. Anything else is pie in the sky stuff

[Angelo]

Goood player's won't leave the Premier League in England to move to Scotland to play in the SPL for less money.

Even the top championship clubs In England can offer better wages. Your directors realise this and that's why Celtics policy is to buy young unproven talent mixed with best of Scotland. Anything else is pie in the sky stuff

Why should Celtic be targeting the EPL for players? Most European clubs will only look to cast offs fro the EPL as they cannot afford to compete financially with them.

Money is a big factor but Celtic will always be a bigger draw than teams like West Ham, Everton etc if finances are not everything.

[marty34]

This Scottish league thing and the standard is wearing thin too BTW, some people need to wise up. All the English supporters keep coming up with this crap every year yet 90% of players that are moved on from Celtic to other clubs seem to do rightly in the so called top English league...the same league that would put you to sleep watching a live game (majority of matches), the "Match of the day" does a wonderful job of cramming in 90 sec of action from a 90 min games to show us how wonderful it is.

There's probably double the amount of money spent in England than any other league but the Champions league winner in more likely to come from a different Country than England...funny that as it's the best league in the world.

Who exactly are all these players Celtic moved on in recent seasons to the Premier League?

Tierney is fair enough as he's a quality player who has been unlucky with injuries. Dembele went to France. After that who else is there? Van Dijk was years ago when that Celtic team was far superior to the current one

VVD left Celtic in 2015. Five years ago!
Fraser Forster, Victor Wanyama. Not a lot of players but not a bad hit rate.
You obviously don't watch much of Celtic if you think VVD's Celtic team was "far superior" to this years.

Celtic used to be competitive in the CL.  These days they struggle to even get through the qualification rounds and the
the Europa League just getting out of their group is an achievement.

The problem for Celtic is attracting quality players. The lack of quality and money in the league means players wont move there for lower wages compared to even decent championship level clubs in England. They can sweep up the best of SPL, but beyond that their only option is signing you unproven talent and hoping they turn into quality players and sell them on for a profit when a bigger club comes in for them

They topped their group in the Europa League last year.

The problem isn't attracting top players, the problem is the board's reluctance to invest in the first team.

Between Rodger's compensation package, Van Dijk's sell on fee, deals for Dembele, Tierney and Armstrong etc, Celtic have recouped upward of £70m in the past 2 and a half seasons. They have barely spent about half of that while posting consistent profits and Lawwell's salary consistently rising.

As I say, Lawell's objective is to win the league, and win the cups etc. with spending as little money as possible.  Lawell knows he can do this - win a few trophies and keep the majority of fans happy.

As an added bonus, a run in Europe keeps the fans happy also  and brings 8n a few pounds!

[dublin7]

This Scottish league thing and the standard is wearing thin too BTW, some people need to wise up. All the English supporters keep coming up with this crap every year yet 90% of players that are moved on from Celtic to other clubs seem to do rightly in the so called top English league...the same league that would put you to sleep watching a live game (majority of matches), the "Match of the day" does a wonderful job of cramming in 90 sec of action from a 90 min games to show us how wonderful it is.

There's probably double the amount of money spent in England than any other league but the Champions league winner in more likely to come from a different Country than England...funny that as it's the best league in the world.

Who exactly are all these players Celtic moved on in recent seasons to the Premier League?

Tierney is fair enough as he's a quality player who has been unlucky with injuries. Dembele went to France. After that who else is there? Van Dijk was years ago when that Celtic team was far superior to the current one

VVD left Celtic in 2015. Five years ago!
Fraser Forster, Victor Wanyama. Not a lot of players but not a bad hit rate.
You obviously don't watch much of Celtic if you think VVD's Celtic team was "far superior" to this years.

Celtic used to be competitive in the CL.  These days they struggle to even get through the qualification rounds and the
the Europa League just getting out of their group is an achievement.

The problem for Celtic is attracting quality players. The lack of quality and money in the league means players wont move there for lower wages compared to even decent championship level clubs in England. They can sweep up the best of SPL, but beyond that their only option is signing you unproven talent and hoping they turn into quality players and sell them on for a profit when a bigger club comes in for them

They topped their group in the Europa League last year.

The problem isn't attracting top players, the problem is the board's reluctance to invest in the first team.

Between Rodger's compensation package, Van Dijk's sell on fee, deals for Dembele, Tierney and Armstrong etc, Celtic have recouped upward of £70m in the past 2 and a half seasons. They have barely spent about half of that while posting consistent profits and Lawwell's salary consistently rising.

As I say, Lawell's objective is to win the league, and win the cups etc. with spending as little money as possible.  Lawell knows he can do this - win a few trophies and keep the majority of fans happy.

As an added bonus, a run in Europe keeps the fans happy also  and brings 8n a few pounds!

That is Celtic's level now. What else can their owners be expected to do?They can't compete in Europe so just dominate domestically and try to find a few hidden gems around Europe they can sell on for a nice profit in a few years time.

You only have to look at what happened to Rangers to see what happens if they started spending beyond their means

[Angelo]

This Scottish league thing and the standard is wearing thin too BTW, some people need to wise up. All the English supporters keep coming up with this crap every year yet 90% of players that are moved on from Celtic to other clubs seem to do rightly in the so called top English league...the same league that would put you to sleep watching a live game (majority of matches), the "Match of the day" does a wonderful job of cramming in 90 sec of action from a 90 min games to show us how wonderful it is.

There's probably double the amount of money spent in England than any other league but the Champions league winner in more likely to come from a different Country than England...funny that as it's the best league in the world.

Who exactly are all these players Celtic moved on in recent seasons to the Premier League?

Tierney is fair enough as he's a quality player who has been unlucky with injuries. Dembele went to France. After that who else is there? Van Dijk was years ago when that Celtic team was far superior to the current one

VVD left Celtic in 2015. Five years ago!
Fraser Forster, Victor Wanyama. Not a lot of players but not a bad hit rate.
You obviously don't watch much of Celtic if you think VVD's Celtic team was "far superior" to this years.

Celtic used to be competitive in the CL.  These days they struggle to even get through the qualification rounds and the
the Europa League just getting out of their group is an achievement.

The problem for Celtic is attracting quality players. The lack of quality and money in the league means players wont move there for lower wages compared to even decent championship level clubs in England. They can sweep up the best of SPL, but beyond that their only option is signing you unproven talent and hoping they turn into quality players and sell them on for a profit when a bigger club comes in for them

They topped their group in the Europa League last year.

The problem isn't attracting top players, the problem is the board's reluctance to invest in the first team.

Between Rodger's compensation package, Van Dijk's sell on fee, deals for Dembele, Tierney and Armstrong etc, Celtic have recouped upward of £70m in the past 2 and a half seasons. They have barely spent about half of that while posting consistent profits and Lawwell's salary consistently rising.

As I say, Lawell's objective is to win the league, and win the cups etc. with spending as little money as possible.  Lawell knows he can do this - win a few trophies and keep the majority of fans happy.

As an added bonus, a run in Europe keeps the fans happy also  and brings 8n a few pounds!

Lawwell's objective is to line his own pockets.

Celtic's objective should be to build and improve as a club but it's not happening under Lawwell's stewardhsip, the club is being run down and he is the guy who is profiteering from it.

[Angelo]

This Scottish league thing and the standard is wearing thin too BTW, some people need to wise up. All the English supporters keep coming up with this crap every year yet 90% of players that are moved on from Celtic to other clubs seem to do rightly in the so called top English league...the same league that would put you to sleep watching a live game (majority of matches), the "Match of the day" does a wonderful job of cramming in 90 sec of action from a 90 min games to show us how wonderful it is.

There's probably double the amount of money spent in England than any other league but the Champions league winner in more likely to come from a different Country than England...funny that as it's the best league in the world.

Who exactly are all these players Celtic moved on in recent seasons to the Premier League?

Tierney is fair enough as he's a quality player who has been unlucky with injuries. Dembele went to France. After that who else is there? Van Dijk was years ago when that Celtic team was far superior to the current one

VVD left Celtic in 2015. Five years ago!
Fraser Forster, Victor Wanyama. Not a lot of players but not a bad hit rate.
You obviously don't watch much of Celtic if you think VVD's Celtic team was "far superior" to this years.

Celtic used to be competitive in the CL.  These days they struggle to even get through the qualification rounds and the
the Europa League just getting out of their group is an achievement.

The problem for Celtic is attracting quality players. The lack of quality and money in the league means players wont move there for lower wages compared to even decent championship level clubs in England. They can sweep up the best of SPL, but beyond that their only option is signing you unproven talent and hoping they turn into quality players and sell them on for a profit when a bigger club comes in for them

They topped their group in the Europa League last year.

The problem isn't attracting top players, the problem is the board's reluctance to invest in the first team.

Between Rodger's compensation package, Van Dijk's sell on fee, deals for Dembele, Tierney and Armstrong etc, Celtic have recouped upward of £70m in the past 2 and a half seasons. They have barely spent about half of that while posting consistent profits and Lawwell's salary consistently rising.

As I say, Lawell's objective is to win the league, and win the cups etc. with spending as little money as possible.  Lawell knows he can do this - win a few trophies and keep the majority of fans happy.

As an added bonus, a run in Europe keeps the fans happy also  and brings 8n a few pounds!

That is Celtic's level now. What else can their owners be expected to do?They can't compete in Europe so just dominate domestically and try to find a few hidden gems around Europe they can sell on for a nice profit in a few years time.

You only have to look at what happened to Rangers to see what happens if they started spending beyond their means

Invest in the first team. A club like Ajax or Sevilla operate under similar financial restrictions as Celtic do, you look at their turnover levels, wage bill etc - it's not that different.

The issue is Celtic are a very cash rich club but the directive from the board is to sell their top players at the earliest opportunity and not reinvest what they get into the first team.

I've asked earlier, what other club in Europe has their chief executive as the top or one of the top earners at the football club? Celtic have a golden path to the CL every year but have been knocked out by teams like AEK Athens and Cluj in recent years. Lawwell's unwillingness to loosen the purse strings in those early stages of the season has certainly damaged Celtic's opportunites.

The John McGinn fiasco summed it up that season, it was the straw that broke the back for Rodgers, he was furious after the board dragged their heels on getting the deal done and lost out on him. He went public about it shortly after. Lawwell was trying to lowball Hibs to save a few 000k, the same man then goes and pockets a salary of £3.5m that season, it's simply indefensible.

[Capt Pat]

I only saw the second half but that was dire from Celtic against an ordinary team like Kilmarnock. the kilmarnock keeper could have put up a hammock between the posts for himself and he wouldn't have been troubled.

[JimStynes]

Pure shite

[illdecide]

Thats was pure dung alright, clueless altogether. They can be so frustrating and would drive you to drink, I don't think there is one player you could say was half decent.

[illdecide]

Ohh Angelo you forgot to mention Lawell's salary