Celtic's business model has been criticised as being "built on failure."
This statement was made by Charlie Methven, former Sunderland executive director, after the club's exit from the Champions League. Celtic lost 5-4 on aggregate to LASK in the qualifying play-off, continuing a poor record in recent years.
The Scottish champions have not reached the Champions League group stage through qualifiers since 2017. Speaking on the Business of Sport podcast, Methven said: "They’ve built an entire business model out of failure.
"In other words, they set out saying ‘We’re going to fail [to qualify for the Champions League], and how can we be profitable despite failing?'"
Methven believes the team's recruitment strategy leaves them underprepared for early-season European matches. He said: "What happens every single year is they go and sell three or four players in the relatively early stages of the transfer window.
"They then sit on that money to wait for bargains at the back end of the transfer window. The European qualifying games happen before the end of the transfer window.
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"So every single year they start European qualifying with a squad that is short on the basis of ‘We don’t want to overpay to bring players in before we play our European games'."
Methven also criticised Celtic's reported cash reserves, saying the club is too reluctant to use their financial strength to improve the squad and infrastructure. "They’re profitable even without going to Europe," he said.
"This money is just being piled up, and they’re now sat on about £90 million of cash in the bank. There’s a main stand at Celtic Park that is desperately in need of knocking down and turned into a massive cash machine that would then give them the revenues to go and be seriously competitive in Europe.
"But the board refuses to spend that money."
He also questioned the club's football structure, pointing to the absence of a formal sporting director or director of football.
The comments come amid renewed supporter anger towards the Celtic board after the LASK defeat, with banners aimed at the club’s hierarchy displayed during the Premiership win over Falkirk.
