CELTIC TRANSFER DELAYS: ARE WE WAITING TIL JULY 1st TO ANNOUNCE NEW PLAYERS?
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 11 minutes ago
- 3 min read
After lots of optimism a couple of weeks ago regarding Celtic “getting business done early” with regards to summer transfers, anxiety is once again beginning to creep in. But is it justified?
Are Celtic Transfer Delays Connected to the Next Financial Report?
Celtic have developed a bit of an annoying habit in recent times of, on several occasions, leaving it until very late in the transfer window to complete business. Whilst this has worked in our favor recently (Cameron Carter-Vickers springs to mind), it can also work against us.
I think it’s universally acknowledged, regardless of how you feel about his ability (personally, I rate him), that Celtic paid far over the odds for Adam Idah last season, because we dithered on getting the deal done, and tried, unsuccessfully to haggle over the price.
This dragged out the negotiations, that should have been concluded within days of his Scottish Cup Final winning goal, for more than 2 months.
Now, there seem to be two emerging schools of thought with regards to Celtic’s transfer activity, or relative lack thereof thus far this summer.
One is that this is the same old road we’ve been down before. The manager has identified players that he wants, but the board are keeping a tight hold on the lid of the “biscuit tin” as it were and pushing to get deals done as cheaply as possible.
The other theory, and one that I’m now leaning more towards, based on what I’ve observed over the last week or so, is that Celtic are purposefully taking their time to announce deals that have, in reality, already been 99% concluded.
Celtic’s next financial report will include income and expenditure up until June 30th. So, any money that we, officially, spend before June 30th, would have to be deducted from any operating profit that we declare in our next round of six-monthly accounts.
However, money doesn’t change hands in the case of transfers until the deals are fully signed off and announced. So far, our only announcements have been Kieran Tierney on a free transfer, Ross Doohan for a nominal fee and young Isaac English, who due to his young age only cost Celtic 50,000 pounds from Greenock Morton.
Meanwhile, Fabrizio Romano, who as much as I don’t like the guy, I have to admit is seldom wrong on such matters, confirmed that Benjamin Nygren’s deal to join Celtic has been agreed.
We have one, possibly two, players in Japan who are in a similar position, but would, in any case, not be announced until the beginning of July, when the J-League takes its mid-season break.
The latest news out of Japan, according to Sponichi, who are usually quite reliable, is that Hayato Inamura’s deal is done subject to a medical, and that a fee has been agreed for Shin Yamada but no word yet on personal terms.
There’s also the case of Fulham striker Callum Osmand, who was sighted at Lennoxtown last week, seemingly to complete his own move to Celtic, but still no announcement has been made.
This all ties into the theory that we may, indeed, see a rush of announcements from the beginning of next week.
This is risky strategy from Celtic, if what I am being led to suspect is true. Because until any of the above-mentioned deals are fully completed and registered, the danger of a Mo “Judas” Johnston-style hijacking remains.
Celtic transfer delays may make for good accountancy, but angering the fanbase because deals collapse won't.
Maybe Celtic have found some legal workaround to prevent this. I don’t know, I’m not a contract lawyer, and as someone who failed his maths higher exam, accounting isn’t my strong point either.
I guess we’ll know either way within the next week or so if this theory is correct.
Or Celtic could go ahead and surprise us all, by announcing half a dozen new signings today, and rendering this article completely irrelevant.
I confidently predict that won’t happen, but if it did, then perhaps this is the one time I’d be quite happy for an article to go unread because it’s been disproven.