Premiership champions Celtic have reported their finances are "significantly better than expected" after a 12-month period that saw them take home £30m in transfer fees.
The Parkhead side sold Jota to Saudi Arabia in a moneyspinning £25m move earlier this week and while a slice of that goes to Benfica, they still bank close to £19m - a major profit on the £6.5m they paid to sign him 12 months ago. They also sold Josip Juranovic and Giorgos Giakoumakis in January with the initial fees worth around £11m combined and it means they have banked £30m in total this year combined.
Add that to the cash that comes with automatic Champions League qualification and the bank balance is comfortably in the green. And in a letter to the London Stock Exchange, the club have confirmed their finances are looking better than projected as they get set to reveal their results for the financial year come September.
Celtic spent big last summer and already have Odin Thiago Holm and Marco Tilio in the door this term. But fees banked for outgoing players in the same period more than cover that and Rodgers is expected to have plenty more cash to splash this summer.
The last financial report in February saw Celtic bank £33m for the calendar year of 2022 while they reported a £6.1m profit for the last financial year, which didn't take Champions League group stage football into account. It's expected the reports will show vastly improved financial results when they are released in September 2023 and February 2024.
