Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell insists the Glasgow club have the potential to be one of the top five clubs in the world.

And Lawwell plans to increase awareness of Celtic around the globe, admitting they signed Roy Keane last season to "squeeze" money from their Irish fan base.

The Hoops are gearing up for the advent of a European league having reached "saturation point" in Scotland, he told the Soccerex conference in Dubai.

He said: "We are a club in a small region with a massive reach with the Irish-Scots diaspora around the world. I don't think there is a city in the civilised world in which there isn't a Celtic supporters club.

"Point two would be to go out and find players, obviously they must be able to play, but to find players in the markets where we think there is growth.

"We've got (Shunsuke) Nakamura from Japan, we have brought in two Polish players - Maciej Zurawski and Artur Boruc - and last year we brought Roy Keane to Celtic in order to squeeze growth out of the market in Ireland.

"So rather than sitting back we've got an ambitious plan to go out and bring the world to Celtic.

"So that in the future, if there is some sort of environmental change, with an extension of the Champions League, people around the world will know about Celtic."

Lawwell believes the Parkhead club must get out of the Bank of Scotland Premier League to fulfil their potential - but ruled out a Premiership move.

"There are maybe five or six clubs with global recognition and we are one of them," he said.

"I think looking forward we're going to need some form of reconstruction of the game in Europe to compete with the NBAs and so on, maybe a super league at some point.

"But we are not instigating anything, we are sitting back and observing.

"There's nothing specific and who knows what the answer is but the Premier League door has been closed because of the new Sky deal so we have no real hopes on that one."