Goldilocks found?
Harry B on why spending more can quickly become unwise
When we talk about Celtic looking for a Goldilocks zone, it’s easy for that to sound vague or that your backing the boards conservative strategy but it’s more nuenced. Finding this G spot is not about a lack of ambition, it’s about finding that perfect point where the returns stop justifying the risk of increased spending. Despite the apparent certainty in the article of yesterday it’s not an exact science and as you will have seen from the graphs, there’s a % margin of +/-. It also doesn’t exist in isolation and it must constantly move based upon the actions of others.
Yesterday’s article was a snapshot of the position based on the numbers of today. Tomorrow will be different (probably not by much) - it could be less and will probably be more. Either way, those changes will be marginal but always moving and always need monitoring.
Start with Celtic’s reality
Celtic’s strongest recent financial year was the year ending 30 June 2025, when revenues came in at roughly £140–145m. That was driven by:
Champions League participation
Strong commercial performance
Player trading
A more typical Europa League year, however, looks closer to £95–105m in revenue. That gap matters because wages don’t flex down as easily as income - we have all seen the challenges created by fixed wages costs down in England with Leicester the most recent example.
As we highlighted in “Looking for Goldilocks”, Celtic’s total staff costs are about £75m, but when people discuss “football wages” they’re usually referring to the first-team player wage bill, which is widely estimated at around £25–30m. We set out the premise so let’s look at the detail.
