Close to being done- Daily Record on the Jota deal

The Daily Record are claiming that Celtic will hold out for a fee of £25m from Al Ittihad for Jota.

It seems that personal terms have been agreed through the players agent which puts Celtic in a difficult position when they sit down with Al Ittihad.

Jota is likely to be getting paid somewhere between £20-25,000 a week at Celtic but with £10m a year tax free reported to be on offer in Saudi there is no prospect of the hoops putting in a counter offer.

Celtic paid around £6.5m to Benfica for Jota a year ago, even with the Portuguese side due a 30% cut of any fee the hoops are in line for one of their biggest ever fees.

In the Daily Record Michael Gannon reports:

Hoops chiefs remain tight-lipped over any official approach but Record Sport understands a deal with Pro League champs Al-Ittihad is close to being done. The story first broke in the Middle East on Thursday afternoon and it’s unclear if the Scottish champions have been approached by the Saudi side yet.

However, Record Sport can confirm Jota’s agents – the company run by Jorge Mendes – are confident a deal will be struck. And sources even claim the salary on offer could be worth up to £10m a year tax-free for the Portuguese star.

Jota is under contract at Parkhead until 2027 and the Hoops don’t want to lose him with Brendan Rodgers gearing up for a crack at the Champions League group stage after returning as manager. But a massive cheque of around £25m would likely force the issue – although Benfica are understood to be due 30 per cent of any profit on the wide man who signed last summer for £6.5m after a season on loan at Parkhead.

Getting the situation resolved quickly with more than a month to go before the start of the season will be the goal for Celtic.

In January the club had Alistair Johnston and Oh Hyeon-gyu lined up to replace Josip Juranovic and Giorgos Giakoumakis which has set the standard in a Player Trading Model.