Celtic Football Club, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, has announced that its earnings for the year will be “significantly higher than previous expectations”.
The club, where Irish businessman Dermot Desmond is the major shareholder, put the change in expectations partly down to its strong finish to the season, and partly down to gains from player disposals, which it said “can and often do materially influence Celtic’s financial performance in addition to trading revenue”.
The club’s stock exchange announcement gave no precise figures in relation to its likely revenue, noting that “the summer transfer window is under way and following the closure of the window and the finalisation of the year-end balance sheet review” it would be publishing its full end-of-year results in the middle of September.
Last year Celtic announced what it described as “a record set of financial results” for the club, with an increase in revenue to £119.9 million (€139.3m), compared to the previous year’s figure of £88.2 million. That gave it a corresponding pretax profit of £40.7 million, compared to £6.1 million the year before.
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That rise in revenue was down to its participation in the Champions League group stage that season, with higher ticket sales and media rights income, while it also made a profit that year from the sale of a number of players.
Its revenue also rose in the first half of its current financial years, revenue of £85.2 million for the six months to the end of December 2023, compared to £76.5 million in the previous first-half.
However, its profit for that period fell from £33.8 million to £28.5 million, the club noted in a statement at the time. It said that “a significant portion of this revenue increase was reinvested into football wages and salaries”. It also said that it had not benefited from “a significant non-recurring insurance receipt” from the previous year.
Dermot Desmond holds 34.7 per cent of the shares in Celtic and has a seat on the club’s board of directors.
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