Celtic achieves its goal

Celtic got its priorities right in its full-year results statement, listing the football club's achievements on the pitch before moving on to the financial highlights.

Mind you, the club seems to have done rather better on the footie pitch than in the market place. Despite winning the Scottish Premier League, losing in the final of the League Cup and hosting four European home ties - twice the number it hosted the year before - it still slipped into the red.

Loss before tax in the year ended June 30th was £7.37m, versus a profit the year before of £0.10m. This was despite investment in football personnel virtually halving to £5.24m from £10.29m in the previous year.

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Group revenue eased to £51.34m from £52.56m the previous year. 2011/12 was hailed as a successful season for ticket sales with over 42,500 standard season tickets sold with a value of more than £13.8m. Home match tickets sales of over 220,000 generated an income of more than £4.5m, which included the club's Europa League Play Off and Group Stage matches.

Year-end net debt widened to £2.77m from £0.53m, but it does not look like the club's supporters need to worry at the moment about the prospect of following its Glasgow rival, Rangers, into administration.

"Our primary objective for the financial year to 30th June 2012 was to win the Scottish Premier League title and provide a route to the Group Stages of the UEFA Champions League," declared club Chairman Ian Bankier.

"I am delighted to be in a position to report that this objective was fulfilled. Having recovered the SPL title in May, we then qualified for the Group Stages of the European Champions League after defeating Helsinki and Helsingborgs in the third qualifying round and play-offs. Our reward is participation in the highest echelons of European football for the first time since season 2008/09," he said, adding that the financial benefits of getting beyond the European qualifying rounds are "material".

JH