Celtic post massive half-year profit despite decline in revenue

Celtic have revealed a pre-tax profit of £18.8 million as the club announced their half-year report to the London Stock Exchange.

This was despite revenue decreasing from £71.5m to £50m for the period up to 31 December, 2018.

This was largely down to failure of Brendan Rodgers’ side to make it to the Champions League group stages for a third consecutive season.

Celtic saw profits go up despite revenue coming down. Picture: John Devlin

A net profit of £17.6m has been made from player transfers, which is up from just £0.5m in 2017. The most significant contribution to this was the sale of Moussa Dembele to Lyon, reported to be worth close to £20m.

Chairman Ian Bankier’s statement read: “I am pleased to report on our interim results for the period ended 31 December 2018. These show revenue of £50.0m (2017: £71.5m) and a profit from trading of £6.2m (2017: £23.7m). Overall, this resulted in a profit before taxation of £18.8m (2017: £19.5m) and a period end net cash at bank of £38.6m (2017: £30.9m). The introductory page to these interim results summarises the main highlights.

“The club has continued to build on its historic “Double Treble” achieved last year by adding the League Cup trophy in December 2018, the seventh consecutive trophy lifted since Brendan Rodgers joined us, continuing our domestic clean sweep of trophies.

“At the time of writing, we remain unbeaten at home in domestic competitions this season and sit six points clear at the top of the Scottish Premiership. We have also made it to the quarter finals of the Scottish Cup.

“We were very disappointed not to qualify for the group stages of the UEFA Champions League (a task that continues to be challenging) but qualification from a very difficult group in the UEFA Europa League was a great achievement.

“These results reflect the absence of substantial UEFA Champions League revenues in comparison to the same period last year. But they are counter-balanced by the benefit of player trading, significantly by the permanent transfer of the registration of Moussa Dembele to Olympique Lyonnais. The profit on disposals of intangible assets of £17.6m (2017: £0.5m) largely represents this sale.

“Our financial commitment to the playing squad, including transfer fees and first team salaries, and the coaching, technical and performance departments is at an all-time high.”