Celtic: How a record £30m summer transfer spend and highest-ever £100m-plus revenue could be in the pipeline

Celtic’s current moves to tool-up for next season would appear to carry a hefty price.

It is believed that the moves to sign permanent deals for last season’s successful loanees centre-back Cameron Carter-Vickers and winger Jota are now firmly gathering pace. Assuming these are successfully concluded, they will commit Celtic to an outlay of £16m - Carter-Vickers cost from Tottenham Hotspur placed at £6m plus a further £4m on add-ons, while the purchase clause previously agreed with Benfica for Jota is understood to be £6.5m. Coupled with this week’s activation of the £2m loan-to-buy option that covered Daizen Maeda’s January switch from Yokahama F Marinos, it could be that, merely by the end of this month, Celtic will have essentially invested £18m in preparation for the forthcoming campaign. As a starting point.

The fiscal comforts that allow Celtic to plan in such fashion highlight the wriggle-room provided by two factors: direct entry to the Champions League and the player trading model that has been a cornerstone of the club’s operations for the best part of two decades. An often grumbled-about cornerstone for the board-bashers among the Celtic support, it must be acknowledged. Perhaps they will have cause to reflect on such exasperations when considering how the policy could underpin almost £42m worth of transfer fees paid out since Ange Postecoglou was appointed 11 months ago - the figure that would be reached with the various elements of the permanent deals for Carter-Vickers and Jota.

Even with such considerable forking out on transfer fees, Celtic would not require to dip into their £20m bank reserve for a straightforward reason. Since last April, when Patryk Klimala was moved on to New York Red Bulls in a deal