Manchester City are reported to be lining up a move for young Celtic keeper Rory Mahady.
Celtic’s top academy prospects are increasingly in demand with Ben Doak signing for Liverpool earlier this year despite making two first team appearances coming off the bench.
Two years ago Josh Adam took the route to the Etihad from Celtic, today The Sun reports:
LEEDS have joined Manchester City and Spurs in the chase for Celtic wonderkid Rory Mahady. The 15-year-old is one of Europe’s top goalkeeping prospects, with several clubs keen to prise him away from Celtic. But the big English trio are leading the pack.
Mahady has been playing for the Hoops U17s but can’t sign an official professional contract until his 16th birthday in August. That has sparked a race to land him, with City first out of the blocks to express an interest in the last few weeks.
Celtic have also lost Liam Morrison and Barry Hepburn to Bayern Munich, in a form of pay-back goalkeeper Tobi Oluwayemi was signed from Spurs in 2019 under similar circumstances.
While the money on offer is clearly attractive EPL clubs have clearly defined structures including an u-23 league and a network of clubs to send prospects put on loan to.
In contrast Celtic are still waiting to see if they will play in next season’s Lowland League. While that avenue provides regular fixtures the fifth tier of Scottish football isn’t likely to develop elite level young players.
We really need to get organized in terms of quality games for our older youth sides. If they don’t have regular opponents, then any promising player will be tempted to move on. No idea, apart from money obviously why anyone would choose Man City given it is all but impossible to break into the top side (Foden apart)
They will simply buy in ready made replacements as and when needed rather than promote from within. I had hoped that UEFA would clamp down on the number of players clubs are allowed to put out on loan to stop certain clubs harvesting 30-50+ top talents simply to stop others then loan them out continiously.
Clearly we also need to sort out our scouting network too, that’s how we lost 2 x players to Bayern and a scout to Man CIty who all have close connections to our youth system.