Celtic’s start to the season on the field has been an ominous enough sign of intent that the champions’ grip on the domestic game is only tightening before their latest set of accounts laid bare £77 million reasons why they are only becoming harder to catch for their supposed competitors in the small pond of the Scottish Premiership.

The headline figures saw revenue soar to a record £124.5 million and cash reserves swell to £77 million for the period to June 30 this year. After months of waiting and much angst from both supporters and manager over not investing that financial clout into quality signings, since then Celtic have strengthened the squad that won a league and Scottish Cup double last season to the tune of £31 million, breaking the club’s transfer record twice in a matter of weeks for Arne Engels and Adam Idah.

Yet, that splurge was more than covered by a Scottish record sale of Matt O’Riley for a fee that could reach £30 million alone plus a further estimated £10 million on trimming the fat of a bloated squad with the departures of Hyeon-gyu Oh, Sead Haksabanovic, Mikey Johnston, Yuki Kobayashi, Bosun Lawal, Ben Siegrist and Tomoki Iwata.

Add in more television, matchday and prize money from an expanded Champions League format and Celtic’s revenue for the current season will almost certainly smash the Scottish record again in 12 months’ time.

The fear for those playing catch up - most notably across the city – is that Celtic are just beginning to flex their financial muscle at the same time Rangers sought to slash their wage bill over the summer window. After much bargaining over his two spells in charge, Brendan Rodgers appears to have won his battle with the Celtic board to raise the ceiling of what the club are willing to pay both in wages and transfer fees.

Total operating expenses were up 10 per cent to break the £100 million barrier for the first time at £105.4 million.

The exact figure for wages will not be released until the club publishes their full annual report later in the year but will have risen significantly from the £61 million in 2022/23.

Rodgers himself was lured back to Glasgow on a highly lucrative deal, while the club made a concerted effort in the early part of last season to plough some reserves into tying down a number of key assets to longer contracts. Callum McGregor, Kyogo Furuhashi, Daizen Maeda, Reo Hatate, Cameron Carter-Vickers and O’Riley were among those to sign new deals between July 2023 and January this year.

That policy has already paid dividends as Celtic were in a strong bargaining position when it came to demanding top dollar for O’Riley, who still had three years to run on his contract before joining Brighton. However, carrying a more expensive wage bill does put pressure on Rodgers to continue delivering Champions League revenue.

UEFA’s new cost control rules limit spending on transfer fees, wages and agents’ fees to 70 per cent of revenue. As it stands the Hoops were well within that cap but would likely need to rely on player sales to meet it if they dropped from the Champions League to Europa League for a season.

After enjoying three consecutive seasons of direct entry, the champions of Scotland will have to qualify once more from next season. That nagging doubt has been the source of the board’s fiscal caution in the face of fans’ frustration to push onto the next level.

“Notwithstanding the domestic success we have enjoyed and the establishment of Celtic as a regular European football participant, it is important that we do not deviate from our strategy, which has been successful over many years, based on maintaining a self-sustaining financial model,” said Peter Lawwell in his chairman’s statement.

In stark contrast to the house of cards Rangers’ period of dominance was built on during the David Murray era, Celtic have built up such reserves they are now even insulated from their own mistakes. The uglier side of the accounts for Celtic fans showed that £16.6m was largely wasted in the previous 12 months on players now either unable to get a game or shipped out on loan. Hyun-jun Yang, Odin Thiago Holm, Maik Nawrocki, Gustaf Lagerbielke, Hyeok-kyu Kwon, Marco Tilio and Luis Palma is not a summer window that will be remembered fondly.

That recruitment ‘disasterclass’ could have proved very costly. Rangers could smell the financial lifeline of the revamped Champions League when they edged ahead in the title race in the spring. Rodgers, though, restored Celtic’s order to maintain his perfect record of winning league titles during two spells in Scotland and has been rewarded with a change in transfer strategy.

The investment in Engels and Idah delivered an immediate dividend as both scored in a 5-1 rout of Slovan Bratislava for Celtic’s most comprehensive-ever win in the Champions League on Wednesday. A perfect start to the competition for the first time in 13 attempts brings in another £1.8 million in prize money with the promise of plenty more to come in the next seven games.

“The club were great, absolutely brilliant. Over pre-season we wanted to push, bring in the right calibre of player,” Rodgers said on the eve of battering Bratislava.

“I always want more, and I want to bring that into the European stage. For that, you need that calibre of player, the club have backed me greatly with that and going forward we want to add a few more as well that will help evolve that.”

After being confronted by fans just last month before a routine win over St. Mirren, Lawwell was at pains to stress the investment that has gone into the Celtic squad with just shy of £100 million spent in the past four years.

“As a result of this period of sustained investment, our current squad carries the highest value and resulting amortisation charge in the club’s history, by a considerable margin,” added the chairman.

That outlay has been more than recouped by sales and the Champions League stage is the perfect platform for Celtic to shine up their current collection of rough diamonds to sell on for even greater riches as they have done with O’Riley, Jota, Odsonne Edouard, Jeremie Frimpong and Kieran Tierney.

As they set their sights on making a mark in Europe, domestic dominance is now taken for granted. After 12 Scottish Premiership titles in 13 years, if there was ever any doubt, Celtic are ever more playing in a league of their own.