In a statement, printed below, chief executive Ian McLeod outlined the need for another rise in the season books.
"Our view is very much that the SPL discussions would have been
better had behind closed doors but it is an indication of the extent
to which all clubs are feeling the pinch financially," he
said. "Given that circumstance, everyone has to see where their
future is going, so while I understand where the 10 are coming from,
we also have to recognise that we want to try and maintain some
degree of success as well."
"These are the things we're all here for, to try and bring as much
success as possible to Celtic Football Club," he said. "Certainly,
last season was one of the best we've ever seen at Celtic Park and
the European nights were terrific. The game against Juventus will
stay in my mind forever.
"The games against Rosenborg, Porto and Valencia were equally
exciting and what we want to do here is try and bring similar
European nights back to Celtic Park again. But it's a fact of
football life that the price of bringing that success is continuing
to grow and the challenges we face is to look as ways in which we can
deliver the level of income that's required in order to re-invest
that back in the squad.
That's what we're trying to do and season ticket prices are a very
important part of that."
And it is in consideration of the rising costs to help finance on-
field success that Celtic season ticket prices will be increased for
next season by about 10%.
"We recognise that, last season, the fans had to dig deep into their pockets for a very significant rise, but despite the fact that our costs have actually gone up even further this year than they had the previous year, I didn't feel it
was fair that we should be applying a similar sort of price this year
as we had last year."
For a number of reasons, many clubs in Scotland and beyond are
operating in a financially challenging environment. Celtic fans don't
have to cast their eyes too far from Celtic Park to see the reality
of a club struggling with multi-million pound debts
For Celtic, the interim results showed a 42% increase in costs, most
of that coming in players' wages, either in wages paid to new players
or for extending the contracts and giving pay rises to existing
members of the squad to keep them at cp.
"What's been very clear in football recently is that players wages
are very important factor in rising costs for a club," expalined
McLeod. "It's not all about transfer fees., In fact, wages are
becoming even more important than that these days.
"We'd love to be in a position where we could freeze prices but,
unfortunately, we're not and, therefore, this year what we're looking
to do is put a price increase of about 10%, which would be half the
level if increase we had last year.
"We do appreciate that it's difficult for fans to find any kind of
increase but we believe that's a fair reflection of our price rise,
given the cost rises that we've had to make sure we've got an
exciting team to put on the park.
"This is always a difficult decision to make but, hopefully we've
struck the right balance."
" We're not looking for the fans to pay because we haven't go a TV
deal, and it might well be that we do end up with a TV deal because
there are deals on the table. It's just that we haven't e;ected to
accept them yet," he explained. "We spoke about SPL TV and didn't
believe that that would fly. If it didn't fly there was very serious
financial risks attached to it. It could have put the club even
heavier in debt and that's really why we were reluctant to support
it, though it would have been great if it had worked.
"So not having a TV deal on the table at the moment hasn't affected
our decision on this at all. There's a 10% rise against a 40% cost
rise so we've got to find the gap in the money in other ways.
"We have to look at all ways in which we can raise income and look
at what we can do now. We want to continue to ensure that we can
deliver the best available squad for Martin to take forward next year.
"We want to deliver the best that we can on the field and the fans'
contribution through season tickets is a very, very important part of
that, which is not taken for granted."
"We recognise it's difficult for people to find the money. We want
the best that we can afford and in order to do that we have to look
at every way in which we can raise income to have another go at
Europe next season and this is very much part of it."