Leigh Griffiths has revealed that he turned down the chance to join Parma on a 10,000 euro a week deal before leaving Livingston for Dundee.
The striker has become the first current Celtic player to be interviewed by Si Ferry on Open Goal, opening up with the sort of stories that rarely surface in the media.
Griffiths made his Livingston debut as a 16-year-old, getting the bus through from Edinburgh with his ability for scoring quickly seeing him promoted from u-17 side through u-19s into the first team.
In 2008 Livingston were bought be an Italian consortium that promised to bring Champions League football to the new town but soon Griff found himself on trial with one of the leading Italian teams of the nineties.
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Me, Andy Halliday and Joe McKee, they sent us over to Parma for a week, training with their reserves. We played a bounce game, I scored three and when we came back I got told Livi wanted to sell me to Parma and I’d be on 10,000 euros a week.
I couldn’t do anything, the three of us couldn’t do anything. We went to training and were just stuck in a room. We were 17 and 18, stuck there on our phones. It was so boring, I was like that ‘I don’t care how much money I’m getting offered I’m not going’. I ended up signing for Dundee that summer.
After 22 goals in 40 league matches Griffiths was sold to Dundee for £175,000 in the summer of 2009, after repeating those scoring stats he moved to Wolves in 2011 before joining Celtic in 2014 following two loan spells with Hibs.
