DAILY RECORD DAIZEN MAEDA CELTIC STORY IS COMPLETE FICTION
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- Jun 6
- 2 min read
A reminder folks, we are in the silly season, and with Rangers fans revolting (aren’t they always?) The Daily Record badly needs both a distraction and a feel-good story to appease their rabid readership.
And when they don’t have one. They just make it up.
Daily Record Daizen Maeda Celtic Fee Claim is False
The Record, in its usual style sprinkled just enough truth into their story that it will grab the attention they so crave.
It is maybe true, though as usual they provide no actual source beyond “trust me, mate”, that Celtic have rejected an offer from Fenerbahce for Daizen Maeda.
I doubt the Turkish side would have been stupid enough to think they could poach Celtic’s star player for as little as 8.5 million. However, it is possible they did make an enquiry and were respectfully rebuffed.
Jose Mourinho has spoken with great respect about Celtic in recent times, and whilst I’m sure he would love to add a player like Daizen Maeda to his team, he also knows the players true value.
So, where did this 21 million pound figure, that the Daily Record claims is Celtic’s asking price come from?
We know it didn’t come from Celtic. The story has no mention of any source at Celtic at all. And at the end of the day Celtic are the only ones who can actually tell us how much Daizen Maeda is worth, since they would set the hypothetical price of any hypothetical transfer.
Hypothetical is the name of the game here, as nothing in this story has any substance to it beyond rampant speculation.
The amount of 21 million pounds does seem oddly specific though, doesn’t it?
Well, I think I may have found an answer on that one.
Fenerbahce’s current record signing, Moroccan striker Youssef En-Nesyri, was signed just under a year ago for a fee just shy of 20 million. He’s scored 20 goals in 34 games this season.
A decent return to be sure, but not exactly earth-shattering for a player who smashed not just Fenerbahce’s transfer record, but that of the entire Turkish League.
So, I think it’s very unlikely Fenerbahce would spend 20 million again on a single player this summer. The Daily Record knows this. They probably thought they were being smart by taking Fenerbahce’s record transfer fee and quoting a figure just a little beyond it.
It’s dismaying, though not surprising at all, that The Daily Record once again shows so little respect for the intellect of their readership. They really do think the Scottish public are that stupid.
The entire story can be picked apart by anyone with a computer and a spare 10 minutes to do some basic fact-checking.
Once again, they bank on the twin hopes that firstly the reader won’t look beyond the headline, and secondly that the same readers won’t have the time or brainpower to apply any critical assessment to what they’ve read.
