Scott McCorry

In May we published The Celtic Paradox. Finding one said Celtic's revenue swings by £30m to £50m a year on the Champions League alone, and that the board had built nothing to absorb it. This week @CelticFC plc published its accounts. - Revenue: £111.0m, down from £143.6m. A fall of £32.6m. - Result: a £4.8m loss after tax, from a £33.9m profit a year earlier. - Cash: £66.4m, down £10.9m. - Player trading profit: £16.0m, down from £31.5m. The fall landed inside the range we set out five months ago. That was not foresight. It was arithmetic anyone with an annual report could do. Which is the point: if supporters could see it coming, the board could too. A board that knows a £30m swing arrives every year has two jobs. Reduce the dependence on one competition, and publish a plan that shows shareholders how. Celtic plc has never published a multi-year strategic plan. Not once in its life as a public company. The chair is interim. Several non-executives have served far beyond the nine years the UK Corporate Governance Code treats as the limit of independence. A title was won. This is not about the dressing room. It is about how the company is run. The brand is European. The revenue rides on one draw. The boardroom does not change. That is the Celtic Paradox, and this year's accounts are it in numbers. At the AGM, shareholders are entitled to ask: What is the plan to earn money that does not depend on the Champions League? When will the board publish it, and who is accountable for delivering it? If you hold Celtic shares, you can ask too. celticsupporters.net/members… Aggregate. Accumulate. Activate.