It is widely assumed that Hayata Inamura is no longer a Celtic player.
On June 5 a tweet from Kazu Kakiuchi claimed that the defender had finalised a move to FC Tokyo on the back of a loan spell.
Almost all media outlets have taken the story to be true, Celtic have been praised for making more than £1m on someone that played just one competitive match.
Celtic signed Inamura last July on a four year contract. A fee around £300,000 was reported.
Since the tweet from Kakiuchi there has been nothing from either club.
That is par for the course at Celtic where Michael Nicholson is working hard on fan engagement and communications.
FC Tokyo keep their fans informed on all transfer and contract matters.
Throughout June there hasn’t been a single mention of Inamura.
?Exclusive: FC Tokyo has finalized the permanent transfer of Hayato Inamura from Scottish club Celtic. An agreement has already been reached between the clubs. The transfer fee is estimated at €1.5 million. done deal 100% #????
— Kazu Kakiuchi (@kazubaggio) June 6, 2026
Inamura has played 17 matches for FC Tokyo, the last of them on June 6 as they lost out on aggregate to Cerezo Osaka.
Tomorrow at pre-season training there could be a clue to Inamura’s future.
CELTIC SECRETS AND CONTRACT UNCERTAINTY
Pre-season training always sees the return of a few almost forgotten faces.
Maik Nawrocki and Shin Yamada fall into that category.
It seems highly unlikely that Inamura has any future at Celtic.
He wasn’t rated by Brendan Rodgers, clearly he lacked the physicality to play in central defence in Scottish football.
Martin O’Neill puts more emphasis on the physical side of the game. Inamura isn’t a Valgaeren, Baldy or Varga!
The summer transfer windows of 2023 and 2025 inflicted great damage on Celtic.
Clearing up the mistakes will be a long and costly exercise.
No communications are expected from Celtic tomorrow. SNS are likely to have a photographer outside picturing the arrivals.
The first pre-season match is on July 7 away to Shelbourne without eight players involved at the World Cup.
Season ticket books bought same, same, same. The only people that can stop him is us. Maybe next year when the coffin has a different smell of coffee.
HUNT THE BOARD!
Phil Mac told us one of the reasons why there is little if any activity from Celtic FC at this time ? The football financial year doesn’t start until July 1st !
The problem with that is that rather than having a huge budget to spend at the start of a new financial year in football , Celtic’s board still do the old Ebeneezer Scrooge routine ..a complete opposite as to what should be the case . When that lot walk …they squeak ! That’s how miserable they are as far as spending money is concerne .
Editor: July 1 spending isn’t logical. There will be a profit of £20-30m for the current year. Spend some of that by June 30 or pay 25% of it to their good friends at HMRC.
Profit as such but a lot of wages paid out for one fu**in game !