Celtic have officially taken over from Rangers as Scotland’s most successful club.
On the park, Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers claimed the Parkhead club’s 119th trophy of their history after watching the Bhoys beat Rangers in the League Cup final back in December of last year.
Rodgers now has eight winners medals to his tally as he bids to ensure that the gap between Celtic and Rangers grows even further at the end of this season with another league title and, hopefully, a Scottish Cup win.
Off the park, the Hoops are in a strong financial position after Celtic posted post-tax profits of over £26m this month with over £65m swimming about the Celtic Park bank account.
Those profits have been aided by some shrewd sponsorship deals brokered by the Celtic hierarchy and a brilliant player-trading model which BBC pundit, Allan Preston, has sent Rangers boss Philippe Clement a stark warning about.
Philippe Clement told that Celtic’s recruitment has been ‘miles ahead’ of Rangers’ for ‘many years’
Preston said on BBC Radio Scotland, “I just think your manager dies by his recruitment, I’m afraid. Celtic have got miles better recruitment and they have done so for many, many years.
“I just look at my Maeda, £1.3 million, Hatate £2 million. Kyogo was £4.5m and sold for £10m.
“Matt O’Reilly was £800k, sold for £25m, Jota was £8m and sold for £25m. Go back. Go back years. When I was playing, they paid £50k for Didier Agathe, they paid £600k for Larsson, they paid £300k for Moravcik.
Their recruitment over the years has been miles ahead of Rangers and that’s their biggest problem and that’s the biggest hurdle that Phillippe Clement has got to overcome. He’s got to get better recruitment.”
Some of Preston’s figures are slightly out but Celtic fans know exactly the point the BBC man is making. The club have worked hard at their player-trading model for decades and Rangers are nowhere near that standard right now.
Celtic’s best-ever transfer sales
Celtic have made a number of huge transfer deals generating millions of pounds for the Parkhead coffers over the years.
So here are the best deals the club have made:
Fraser Forster sold to Southampton for £10m
Jeremie Frimpong sold to Bayer Leverkusen for £10m
Liel Abada sold to Charlotte FC for £10m
Kyogo Furuhashi sold to Rennes for £10m
Virgil van Dijk sold to Southampton for £11.5m
Victor Wanyama sold to Southampton for £12.5m
Kristoffer Ajer sold to Brentford for £13.5m
Odsonne Edouard sold to Crystal Palace for £14m
Kieran Tierney sold to Arsenal for £25m
Jota sold to Al-Ittihad for £25m
Matt O’Riley sold to Brighton for £26m (rising to potentially £30m)
