23 Nov 2025 12:20:39
In MONs first time around, when he just joined, can anyone remember what we paid for the Suttons, Hartsons, Lennons etc - pretty much the whole squad for us to go to the final of the UEFA cup? Who was Chairman then - Fergus left in 1999 - and how much would we need to have now to buy players of that ilk? I know that DD was the major shareholder after Fergus sold his shares to him.
{Ed007's Note - Brian Quinn was Chairman 2000 - 2007
23 Nov 2025 12:50:18
Stengo,
approx £6M per head (give or take) .
☘️ ☘️ ☘️.
23 Nov 2025 12:54:52
Think in the region of £6m each.
23 Nov 2025 13:01:59
Stengo,
I did some quick arithmetic, without checking, and estimate that the starting 11 players for Celtic at the 2003 UEFA Cup Final cost around £26M.
Douglas
Mjallby Balde Valgaren
Thompson Lennon Lambert Petrov Agathe
Sutton Larsson
☘️ ☘️ ☘️.
23 Nov 2025 13:07:19
At the time I seem to remember the price quoted for Lennon and Sutton was around £6m each and when you compare that to us paying nearly double for Adam Idah and Arne Engels respectively it shows how the market has escalated.
I still believe we can sign real quality within our budget if the scouting and recruitment was better. Celtic need to move away from bargain bulk buys and concentrate on maybe one or two star players each window. Easy said I suppose.
23 Nov 2025 13:14:41
I believe Hartson and Sutton were gambles. Larsson was a phenom and seen as a legend in the footballing world. Hard to compare then and now when football is a completely different game.
23 Nov 2025 13:43:05
£6M in 2001 is worth about £11M in today's money.
23 Nov 2025 13:49:31
Problem is, you certainly got a lot more for your money back then, money has killed the game.
23 Nov 2025 13:51:04
O'Reilly was a star player but a bargain buy? Price is irrelevant. We need a manager who can see a quality player when he sees one!
23 Nov 2025 14:00:08
Cheers for all of the above.
If we take Pedro's figure of £26m for example, a figure like that now would not get us the standard of player we need to make any dent in Europe. Brian Quinn may have sanctioned those amounts but I can't see DD doing that as he wouldn't want to see PL and MN having heart attacks on his watch. DD wasn't as prominent in BQs time and maybe it's because of that he's not sanctioning PL to sign off on a player.
23 Nov 2025 14:04:32
Celtic Mad - that should have happened after the Bayern games and we probably wouldn't be in the position we are at now. Buying a couple of decent players in each window now, would the fans allow that to happen given the amount of players we need? Would we give any new manager the time to do it in?
23 Nov 2025 14:21:03
We always try to buy decent players every window, it's just some manager's definition of decent differs somewhat from others!