At the time of going to press, the only thing to be nailed down is just how much money Celtic will make from a player they had on their books for just one year.
I’ve been briefed by two very well-placed sources on the nuts and bolts of this deal.
Rather annoyingly, they’ve shared some mutually exclusive nuggets on the negotiations.
The confusion came down to the specifics of Benfica’s cut on the deal.
Whatever the final figure will be, it is undoubtedly multiples of what Mr Beale has to spend in toto.
Just let that sink in.
Despite the best efforts of the Worshipful Society of Stenographers to spin it otherwise, Brendan Rodgers will get those funds to re-invest in his squad.
If you tune out their succulent stenography, then it comes down to finance.
Consequently, this offering from the lads at the Huddle Breakdown podcast is definitely worth your while.
I knew of this interview with Kieran Maguire when it was first recorded a while back, and it didn’t disappoint.
Once more, it proves that the Fitba Fifth Estate can produce quality content that the clickbait commandoes in the dying mainstream titles could never manage.
Kieran Maguire runs the highly regarded Price of Football Podcast.
As ever, Alan Morrison of Celtic By Numbers forensically homed in on the key points.
Celtic starts every season with an in-built financial advantage (£15m approx.) that is significant within Scottish football.
As Kieran pointed out, the Ibrox outfit has to have a good year EVERY year on the European front to match Celtic.
So it is adeus belo futebolista.
There is no point in blaring this out on a megaphone, but football fans shouldn’t get too attached to players.
Even the ones who grew up supporting the Hoops are not immune to the lure of inter-generational wealth.
It isn’t personal.
It’s just business.
Players leave, sometimes after only being in the club for an agonisingly short while.
Dear reader, this is the new normal.
Across the city, they are, once again, loan arrangers.
If you want to know why just follow follow the money.
Moreover, the players they’ve already brought in as free agents were in that contractual situation for a reason.
Celtic will make more from the Jota deal than Sevco has to spend on players during this entire transfer window.
That cash will be re-invested.
Of course, there are already substantial monies set aside to strengthen the squad.
This just in…
So just sit and chill…
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I also very much enjoyed the Kieran McGuire Huddle Breakdown episode. The only thing I take slight issue with is the idea that Celtic could or should have expanded the stadium at the point of Rangers’ liquidation and reemergence in the bottom tier. That would have been one almighty gamble. A huge section of the ground was closed altogether at that time; season ticket sales plummeted when Rangers were not in the league. Indeed, all existing season ticket holders (myself included) got a £100 per season discount on their ticket, such was the wobbly demand. Expanding the stadium in that context would have been really ballsy.
But, the discussion in general was excellent. Indeed, it moved me to listen to the Doncaster episode on the Price of Football pod, where I thought he (Doncaster) acquitted himself well with all but one question – the one sent in by Alan Morrison.
FIVE medals in two years. Would I be right in thinking that’s THREE MORE than the the much vaunted Tav has in eight years at the crumbledome?
£20-25m! A genuinely good player going for a genuinely good price. Compare and contrast with Morales. “We wouldn’t accept £40m for him!” Well, obviously not. No one in their right mind was ever going to offer it. The reality for the rotund Columbian is that he can be got now for zilch, and still no one wants him.
It would be sad………….if it wasn’t so funny!!
Let’s not write The rangers off already, they will not be pushovers this season, but I am confident Brendon will get it right, however getting too confident can be the worst scenario for us, as we ourselves have won cups and leagues with bargain basement buys and such, in the past, let’s not as a support get too far ahead, stay focused and get totally behind Brendon and the bhoys.
The majority of very good players get very good moves. You get the funny money in England for Avg to Good players that’s the exception.
I hope all Celtic players get very good moves and Celtic get suitably funded to find replacements and some profit also.
The feeder club notion applies to every club at some point. I prefer to call it a very fluid market for all.
As you say Phil it’s easy to get carried away with football hype and hysteria for the club you love and we maybe should take the foot off the gas idolising players and managers. We have done very well over the years when managers and players move on, it’s good business. It’s Celtic.
On the other side of town though, that process of marketing and ROI just hasn’t taken shape yet, except for the one off bit of luck.
The rangers have a habit of bringing in not soo good investments, talking up their value, helped by their red top lackies, to see the players move free or for ginger bottles with unattainable add on promises. A by product to the personnel they pick up cheaply normally sees some defects in their ability to cope, their ease of picking up the Klan bias and kultchur and inevitably after the no surrender mentality wears off they find out about themselves that they are just bang average with limitations and lack of the mental toughness to meet the potential they may have shown in the past (to make them the £40m potentials they were once touted as). Big heads, big ego’s with defects who are flattered by the like minded customers.
Jotta on the other hand will see us make easily £10m profit and maybe some future funds too and the bhoy himself picking up an alleged £10m tax free per year, wow just wow.! I wish him well and that goal against them will be replayed forever. HH
Best of luck to the lad, he has done his bit for celtic and there is no chance of celtic competing with the wages Jota will get.
This may be the early days of Europe becoming a graveyard with all the good players going to Saudi.
Our performers that are leaving paradise- Ange, Jota, are going with greatly enhanced reputations thanks to their experiences & of course their efforts at Celtic. The club will be greatly compensated for the loss of said experience & effort. This Is a fantastic testament that our club can produce great commercial commodity, (what an expression of human endeavours lol). That you can look just a few miles across the Clyde and see the turmoil of a club with no dosh, no players & no hope doing anything spectacular on the field of play. Its great to be a Celt!
This is a sad day on multiple fronts Phil
1) Jota leaving, he’s been brilliant, a hunskelper of the highest level. He’ll leave a big hole
2) Money is more important to the players than glory, love and passion
3) The appeal of the champions league is not even enough to stop managers and players grabbing worthless currency. Imagine if Henrik Larsson had taken this easy money…he’d have missed out on playing for Barcelona and a champions league medal.
It’s a sad sad sad day. Just how much money do people need.
Couldn’t tell you how much Jock Stein earned but I can tell you what he won. Give me immortality any day of the week.
Oh really, Mr. Smith? Are you actually saying that if your son was in the exact same position as Jota (regarding this move), you would say to him – ‘naw son, forget about the E190,000 per week wages and stay wi Celtic’. Catch yer-sel on!
I can’t speak for my son, but I’d advise him to tell the Saudi state to shove their money where the sun don’t shine.
Take the shot at the champions league this season then look for a big move to a top 5 league in 12 months.
Money isn’t everything’s in life.
Plenty rich footballers end up bankrupt.
I’m glad you’re not my dad and I’m not Jota
Impeccable reply.
I wonder how Jota will feel when he discovers every penny they pay him is smeared with the blood of dead Yemeni children.
Probably wont give a shit.
As a 70 year-old Celtic da, I find it really difficult to accept the new “feeder club” reality. Not because I don’t understand it, but because it’s a symptom of the general surge of greedflation, materialism and right wing revisionism that has effed up the planet, developing countries and the game.
I will never have any time for Rodger$ because he is all of that sh#t personified; Postecoglou can eff off and tell the Spurs support about his love for the yarmulke and the fascists in Israel; if Jota goes to Saudi, I hope he educates himself about the abuses of human rights, and the persecution of women and minority religions in that hell hole.
I hope the North Curve bhoys recycle the “Never a Celt” banner for the first home game.
I’m well used to this anyway and remember being a broken hearted 12 year old lad when Charlie Nicholas walked out of Celtic for Arsenal and by the time I had turned 13 Billy McNeill had departed in acrimonious circumstances to Manchester City… While the raw emotion and my age left me distraught to the core Celtic did survive, McClair, Judas Johnstone, McInally, McGhee, McAvennie & Co. all arrived and Charlie was soon forgotten about and just a distant memory… Davie Hay replaced Big Billy and had a reasonable tenure of success only done by some very dodgy refereeing by Bob Valentine in the 1984 Scottish Cup Final and the same dodgy refereeing decision in the 1986 League Cup Final by David Syme (‘Twas ever thus with Celtic) – And credit to David Hay for stating at the time that if it was his choice that he’d move the club lock, stock and barrel to England the next day !
But players and managers come and go and no doubt they’ll be some young version of me (Clachnacuddin and the Hoops) cutting about distraught if Jota does leave so soon after Ange, but Celtic are in my heart and as Celine Dion sang ‘ma heart will go on’ and Celtic will go on also and we have pretty much been in a good place since The Millennium and long may that situation continue !
Whether we like it or not,
CFC is a business first and foremost, so as long as we buy low / sell high.
And for me, any CFC player can leave – for the right price.
Wouldn’t like to see Kyogo go either, but for £20M / £25M+…?
The ONLY player – IMHO – who remains unsellable, currently, is CalMac.
Why is McGregor unsellable? You are absolutely correct as no team is really interested in acquiring a 30year-old midfielder that cannot defend. Rodgers comments on McGregor are nothing but getting the captain onside to his thinking. A top six EPL player. No, he is not as he would not make the City team, Arsenal, Man U., Newcastle. Liverpool and Brighton. McGregor stays at Celtic because that is his level. Rodgers has stated that Leicester made a bid for him. I would not believe Rodgers because his agenda is always ‘me first’.
With all due respect,
you’re totally missing the point about CM.
It’s not about his potential value to other clubs,
but what he represents to his current club:
and it’s not just about football ability.
I’ve been following Celtic for half a century and it was ever thus. Dalglish, Macari, Hay, Nicholas through to VVD and now Jota. Others will follow. All we can do is enjoy them while we can (this guy has been an absolute joy to watch), hope we get top dollar when they go, wish them well and try to unearth/develop more of the same. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s the reality for all but a very few clubs. It’s also brought us a shedload of silverware.
Every club bar a handful are feeder clubs. Not only is this sale good for the coffers, it’s a good flag to attract top talent to our club. Always a heart-ache when favourites leave, but they’ll always be celts, and spread the love for the club far and wide.
Mikey Johnston come on down…🤣☘️
Good luck to Jota if the move goes through his two outstanding goals against the Espanyol of Glasgow will stay long in the memory as will his song. He will always hold Celtic in his heart.
Maybe the issue for many fans is trying to accept this new reality and realising that we are little more than a feeder/development club which doesn`t sit well with a historic Celtic standing.
Historic setting only relevant for those of us over a certain age anyway. I’ve been nearly 30 year season ticket holder. When I started going, aside from the fact we were awful, Scottish football was beginning to slip behind the big players. That has accelerated over the past 20 years to the point where we are in the outer rim of the football solar system. This won’t change any time soon. Our only hope of progress as a team is to realise our place and adopt the feeder club model. The higher our players go on to perform the higher the fee we can command for subsequent players, which closes the European gap from “utterly hopeless” to “in with a chance over 90 minutes for an upset.”
The historical context thinking, not realising just how far down the pecking order any team from Scotland is, exacerbates the problem and creates anger and fury when our teams perform as a dispassionate observer would expect.
As much as i wish it wasn’t so, we’ve always lost our talent to England and the bigger wages available there (apart from a very short period during the early part of MONs reign, when DD thought we might have a chance to join the EPL).
Could be worse, i.e. no one wanting to eat your produce.
Sevco can’t give it’s apples away.
To quote Gregory (Gregory’s girl)…”they’re in real trouble*
Try not to think about this as Celtic being a ‘feeder’ and more about the role of the player trading model in football today. If Celtic can continue to spend wisely (£6.5m spent for Jota) and sell at peak (£20+) then as long as the scouting network can replace with a similar ability then actually its a very astute piece of business. It will go to hell in a hand basket however if the team fails to deliver so the crux of this models success is that the team/management/scouting system continues to deliver footballing success.
If as rumoured that Jota is getting £10m tax free per season then you tell me anyone who would refuse that kind of money even if they were born singing ‘grace’ and wrapped in hooped swaddling!
Quite right.
The converse is – more often than not – not even a good one.
If you hang on to a quality player much beyond his peak selling point, the most likely outcome is an Ntcham type situation (the like of which Rangers have gotten themselves into right now). The best time to sell a player is when we, as fans, will instinctively like it the least.
This Jota deal is a fantastic one for Celtic and it’s only possible because of the ludicrous more-money-than-sense, probably short-lived Saudi football fetish that’s hotting up at our main oil supplier right now.
In normal European terms, I’d be amazed if his objective value was anything more than around £14m, tops. He’s not fast; ALL elite wingers are fast (some of them aren’t much else). He was sold to Celtic from Benfica for £6.5m less than 12 months ago. The idea that his actual value has even doubled would actually really surprise me. His lack of pace means he won’t make the cut in the big teams in the big leagues; too much of a luxury player for the lower-end dog-fighting teams in those leagues.
A great footballing move for him would be a Sevilla/Villarreal type. But, those clubs probably wouldn’t meet our valuation for him.
The best deal for Celtic (which, bottom line, is all I care about) is this one.
So best of luck to him (in the season ahead it might just be that elite scouts have their eyes on that league and that team more than they would on us; and if not, I’m sure there will be millions of things to cheer him up); and many many thanks to him: a terrific Celtic player with more winner’s medals than many of the ones I had posters of on my wall as a kid managed in over a decade.
Your point on his lack of speed is spot on. His signature move is to cut inside and as happened to Scott Sinclair, everyone figures that out and eventually neutralizes you. I think his effectiveness may have lasted one more season so going now, although sad, is financially good for all parties. He gave us moments of brilliance and joy and I hope he will be fondly remembered
We have in reality been a feeder club for quite some time that’s just the nature of the beast it is what it is unfortunately also for managers aswell.. however onwards and upwards