HAYATO INAMURA CELTIC DEAL: DEBUNKING SOME OF THE MYTHS
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- Jun 29
- 4 min read
Sponichi, a pretty reliable source when it comes to football news here in Japan, today confirmed the timeline I laid out last week when I explained the delay in Celtic’s Japanese transfer business.
Hayato Inamura will become a Celtic player officially within the next few days, and already, some online seem to be lining up to put a negative spin on this player ahead of his arrival
Hayato Inamura, Celtic’s Greg Taylor Replacement and More
The first thing to pick up on is some of the negative press surrounding what appears to be his final game for his current team Albirex Niigata. This afternoon they lost 4-0 at home to Machida Zelvia.
This leaves Niigata in 19th place, and in something of a relegation dogfight. Funnily enough this is the exact same spot that Matsumoto Yamaga, a club of similar size to Albirex Niigata, were in when they let Daizen Maeda leave for his first foray into European football with Portuguese side Maritimo.
Yes, Inamura played the full 90 minutes today, and it was, to use Glasgow parlance, “an absolute skelping” for Niigata.
However, this is the way it has always been for Albirex ever since they joined the top flight in 2022.
They are a club that always finishes close to the relegation zone, and for whom J-1 survival is the primary goal each season.
Their opponents on the other hand Machida Zelvia were genuine contenders for the championship last season. And currently sit only 7 points off the top of the table, having won their last 3 games in a row.
So, if not for the fact that football betting is illegal in Japan, a few quid on Albirex to get hammered in this afternoon’s game would have been, as they say, “easy money”.
Just for clarity, I’ll add that I didn’t watch the full game, but I did see about 20 minutes of highlights and, from what I could tell, Inamura was not directly at fault for any of the goals. Not that such a thing should really matter in the grand scheme of things anyway.
The next point is the oft-quoted snippet I’ve seen repeatedly lifted from today’s Sponichi article and taken out of context, with perhaps a little bit of accidental mistranslation too.
It states that Inamura has only been a professional footballer for a little over a year. That’s technically true, but it doesn't tell the full story.
We need only look at our own Reo Hatate to see the error in this line of thought.
Inamura was on the books of FC Tokyo as a youth, playing for them up until he entered high school at aged 16.
He then played for his high school team, Maebashi Ikuei, for the next 3 years, after which he headed to university.
He represented Toyo University in the national university football tournament during his 4 years there.
I should add for context, that High school and University football in Japan, whilst not having anything like the same money or media exposure, enjoys a similar level of prestige among the Japanese public as College American Football and College Basketball does in the US. Many young players go on from the university system to become full time pros when they graduate.
He was actually signed to Albirex Niigata in the summer of 2023, whilst he was still in his final year of university.
This signing took place under the J-League’s “Special Designated Player System”.
This system allows J-League clubs to sign promising young players and put them in their squad before they actually graduate university.
Typically, these players don’t immediately go into the first team, but the scheme allows them to train alongside the first team and gain valuable coaching and experience as they transition from university to professional life.
Reo Hatate was another beneficiary of this system at Kawasaki Frontale.
Inamura impressed the coaches and staff at Albirex enough that he was then included in the first team for their League Cup campaign in the 2024 season.
Although not a hard and fast rule, The League Cup in Japan or the YBC Levain Cup to give it its official title, is basically an under-23 tournament. Clubs use it to test out young players ahead of potentially promoting them to the full first team for the season ahead.
As it turns out, Albirex Niigata surprised everyone by going all the way to final. Inamura played in all 7 matches of their league cup campaign, including the final itself.
And, like Reo Hatate before him, his performances saw him move from “special designated player” to full professional status in February of this year, ahead of the start of the current J-League season. He has played every game for Niigata’s first team this season.
So, while some may frame this as a risky signing (which it is in some ways, because all new signings carry a certain level of risk), don’t be put off by Inamura’s seeming lack of experience, or game time for a 23-year-old.
He is at almost the exact same level of experience now as Reo Hatate was at the same age, and I think we can agree he turned out all right.
This is not a player I expect to immediately go into the first team and be a regular starter. However, much like goalkeeper Viljami Sinisalo, who we signed last summer, I expect him to play a part here and there, and continue his development with a view to, hopefully, becoming a regular starter a year or two down the line.
In the meantime, in Hayato Inamura, Celtic are still getting a very promising young player, arguably the break-out star of last season’s league cup, for a bargain price.
Let’s give the boy time to settle in and see how it goes.
