This has become an annual exercise in order to keep tabs on how the club’s player trading has performed relative to a European peer group, while also placing Scottish peers into context. Last season’s analysis can be seen here.
Some contextual factors to consider for this analysis:
I use some comparative metrics between the 2012-2013 to 2015-2016 and then 2016-2017 to 2025-2026 periods. The logic behind those periods are to examine what Celtic were doing in the transfer market for the period after Rangers’ liquidation but before the analytics revolution kicked off, and then the season I use as the starting point when data and analytics began to become materially impact player trading across the industry in 2016-2017. That is my discretionary call, which is why this entire analysis is characterized as an “exercise.”
The football industry experienced severe inflation over this period. I attempt to capture that factor to an extent, but there is not singular calculation that can quantify “inflation” in a uniform way.
I use Transfermkt as my source for data. It is not 100% reliable. As we often say, data is often imperfect, all models are flawed, and our goal is accuracy over precision. The euro is used as the base currency.
The ratios I generate are generated as part of my analytical process and are not intended to reflect or align with player trading data reported within official club financial reports. This is not an exercise in financial reporting using IFRS or UEFA’s regulatory regime via FSR, etc.
On to the first graphic, which given the nature of the past 6 months and the contentiousness between the Celtic board and many supporters, is what I call the Board to Supporters Ratio:
The formula I used to generate the ratio is shown at the bottom of the image, with stadium capacity data taken from Transfermkt under each club’s home page on the site.
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