Galatasaray have told Celtic that they won’t meet the £3m fee required to sign Stefan Johansen.
The Turkish side put in a bid of £1m last week for the midfielder who is in the final year of his contract.
With no sign of a new contract being agreed it seems certain that Johansen will be moving on but Celtic are determined not to give the Norwegian internationalist away on the cheap.
Galatasaray had hoped to have Johansen with them at their training camp in Switzerland but general manager Levent Nazifogi has been unable to deliver their number one target.
According to Turkish website Fotomac Nazifogi said: “It is impossible with these figures (the £3m asking price). We first spoke with Celtic about a fee of €1.3m, the figure they have requested is impossible for us to pay.”
From a distance it seems that Johansen’s agent, Tore Pedersen, had attempted to set up a deal based on a fee of under £2m.
With the transfer market buoyant thanks to the new English broadcasting deal Celtic are holding out for a higher figure despite the clock ticking down on the player’s contract.#
As a current internationalist under normal circumstances Celtic could expect to pick up a fee in the region of £5m for the 25-year-old.
It would seem that an offer of £2.5m would be needed to get serious negotiations underway but at this stage that seems unlikely.
Johansen’s ankle injury has taken some of the urgency out of the deal but it seems only a matter of time before the Norwegian is on his way out of Celtic Park.
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