Celtic have confirmed a total investment of £38.4million in the playing squad in their annual PLC results ending June 2022.
Ange Postecoglou landed the Scottish Premiership title back from rivals Rangers in his first season in charge and also lifted the Premier Sports Cup as part of a domestic double. That league triumph secured automatic Champions League qualification and allowed the club to add greater strength to the current squad due to the financial certainty of playing at Europe's top table.
Cameron Carter-Vickers and Jota impressed during loan spells from Tottenham and Benfica last season and Celtic made it a priority to get the duo over the line on permanent transfers in big money deals. Alexandro Bernabei and Benjamin Siegrist also arrived in June to take the investment in player registrations to just shy of £40m for the financial year. Player sales registrations netted the Scottish champions £29m over the same period - an increase of almost £20m from the £9.4m total in 2021.
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Club chairman Ian Bankier said in a statement on the Celtic website: "As reported in my interim statement, we acquired several excellent additions to our player squad over the January transfer window. We thus entered the second half of the financial year six points off the top of the Premiership leader board, but with some confidence that we had the manager and the squad to deliver our key objective of regaining the SPFL cinch Premiership title. We were delighted to win the title in May 2022 to add to the Premier Sports Cup won in December 2021.
"An extremely welcome added bonus has been that the winner of the SPFL Premiership gained automatic qualification for the 2022/23 UEFA Champions League. This is the first time the champions of Scotland have achieved this in 12 years, due to an increase in Scotland’s UEFA coefficient. Our Champions League draw has provided us with a suite of exciting ties involving Real Madrid, Shakhtar Donetsk and RB Leipzig.
"The benefit of automatic qualification has delivered certainty over the season ahead, allowing us to back our manager and build greater strength into the playing squad. Having signed Jota, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Alexandro Bernabei and Benjamin Siegrist in June 2022, we report a total investment in the player registrations of £38.4m for the financial year.
"Post year end, we completed the permanent signings of Sead Haksabanovic and Aaron Mooy alongside the temporary transfers of Moritz Jenz and Oliver Abildgaard. We continue to balance the benefits of investing in experienced players alongside younger talent with a view to developing all players’ performances on the pitch and trading when conditions are right. The successful execution of this model is a challenge but is vitally important for clubs such as Celtic."
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