Celtic chairman gets his numbers wrong

Celtic chairman Brian Quinn got his numbers wrong when he left a telephone message complaining about manager Martin O'Neill.

Quinn thought he was calling PR consultant Alex Barr but instead left a message on the mobile phone of teenager Kayley Elkington, of Walsall in England.

O'Neill had dismissed Quinn's statement made in an interview on BBC radio that the Scottish champions spend more on wages than most English clubs.

"It's Brian here... I'm trying to head off yet another storm created by our esteemed manager who has now, I believe, contradicted the numbers I used in the radio interview given this morning," Quinn said in the phone message.

The message ended: "...so you're going to have to use your skills to try and defuse this thing. Bye."

Quinn had said that Celtic's wage bill was £40 million and only five English Premier League clubs paid out more.

O'Neill told Sunday newspapers that the figures were wrong.

"There's not a prayer of the players' wages being remotely near the figure being quoted. Not remotely near," O'Neill said.