Fabrizio Romano raises the bar for Celtic’s Jota fee
Soccer Football - Scottish Cup Semi Final - Rangers v Celtic - Hampden Park, Glasgow, Scotland, Britain - April 30, 2023 Celtic's Jota scores their first goal Action Images via Reuters/Jason Cairnduff
Fabrizio Romano is expecting Al Ittihad to pay out €30m for Jota which is the equivalent of £25.8m at current exchange rates.
If correct that would edge just above the £25m that Arsenal spent on Kieran Tierney in the summer of 2019.
Transfer guru Romano has been keeping tabs on the sale of the Portuguese winger with two tweets on Saturday as the transfer develops.
Understand Al Ittihad coach Nuno has already spoken to Jota about his transfer considered imminent and set to be completed next week. ????? #transfers
Fee gonna be around €30m, discussions ongoing. pic.twitter.com/0shQFzeCSI
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) July 2, 2023
With an original fee to Benfica in the region of£ £6.5m and a 30% sell on slice going to Lisbon the reported fee would give Celtic a total of £19.3m and a clear profit of £12.8m on the back of a significant role in a treble winning season.
While the accountants will be happy responsibility will fall on Brendan Rodgers and the Celtic recruitment team to come up with a replacement for Jota.
In January Alistair Johnston and Oh Hyeon-gyu were signed as replacements for Josip Juranovic and Giorgos Giakoumakis, that set a good benchmark with fans looking out for the first major arrivals under Rodgers following the arrivals of Odin Thiago Holm and Marco Tilio.