Connor Goldson has given a telling insight into his Ibrox exit in the summer of 2024.
At the time the loyal messengers drooled over a £2m windfall for Phil Clement’s transfer war-chest, the reality was nothing of the sort.
ARIS Limassol have a budget similar to Kilmarnock, St Mirren or Motherwell.
They sign free agents and hope for the best. Now and then they will pay a token transfer fee.
The offer of a move to Cyprus carries plenty of appeal. A nice lifestyle, a very pleasant climate, decent golf courses and a reasonable level of football.
Cypriot football is on the rise, they are currently ranked at 15th in the UEFA Co-efficient table with Scotland down in 19th place.
When Goldson joined ARIS in 2024 the record transfer fee that they had paid was £600,000 to BATE Borisov for Artem Shumanskiy two years earlier.
Record readers were told that ARIS were ready to spend more than three times that for serial losers Goldson- and match his ridiculous Ibrox wages!
Crazy figures that.
I’m struggling to see anybody willing to take a punt on the rest of the names you mentioned though. You think there would have been at least low ball offers in by now because it’s public information that we need money before we can start our business.
— Conor. (@CRF_94) July 21, 2024
Yet still the Record stuck with the £2m transfer fee. About as reliable as Kelechi Iheanacho’s £50,000 a week mega bucks/silly money wages from Bursanspor.
ARIS Limassol were PAID to sign Goldson. Iheanacho is paid around £21,000 a week by Bursanspor.
The Daily Record are trusted messengers for both clubs.
GOLDSON- HOW CLUBS GET RID OF UNWANTED HIGH EARNERS
Today the Record turned to an Open Goal interview with Goldson that completely contradicts the claims of two years ago when Phil Clement was told to shift the high earners with only £30m man Jack Butland out of reach.
I think it comes from above. First the manager. He pulled me into the office said the club say my contract was too high and they want me to leave.
And I was like, ‘well, I’m not leaving.’ I feel like I earned the contract for what I’ve given to you. And from what I’ve given you for six years – I killed myself to give you everything I’ve got – you can’t now come back to me and go, ‘ah, sorry, we don’t want it’.
Goldson added
I felt like I was still the best centre-half, comfortably. I felt like I needed that rest and I needed a full pre-season to go again. I remember Clement was like, ‘Whatever you decide, it’ll be your decision. But if you want anything, you can leave for free.
So I’m like to my agent, ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ But then we go to Holland for pre-season. I’ve worked over the summer and I’m flying.
But then when you see in training when you’re playing a game in 11 v 11 and you know which one’s the good team, which one’s the bad team. I’m always in the bad team and then we play the friendly and I’m in the second half team. I’m like, ‘no, you’re taking the p***.
I just thought, do it for yourself, this pre-season now, in case you do move, in case you stay. I was at the hotel and my agent rang me saying, ‘There’s a team from Cyprus. The director of football’s there. Can you get on the bike and go back down to the pitch?’
He’s like, ‘Just go down, show some respect. He’s come over just to watch you.’ I went to meet him and that’s how it started.
Being eased out the picture Goldson added:
I couldn’t believe it, and I probably should never ever say this, but the contract I was getting in Cyprus, the owner was like, ‘I’m going to need money off Rangers.’
So Rangers paid for me to leave. I know that’s going to be mental. But Rangers paid half of my last year’s contract here for me to leave. So then you’re like, ‘they want me to leave.’ So I was like, ‘what can I do?’
Discussing his final hours at the Ibrox club he added:
You won’t believe it. So we’re playing Birmingham away in a friendly and I’m in the hotel the night before. My agent texted me the (next) afternoon saying it was done. So I’ve gone to Clement and was like, ‘Can I go home because I need to see my family before I travel?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, no problem.’ I was like, ‘Okay. How am I getting back? And then he was like, ‘I don’t know.’
To be fair, he was ledge with me. He was like, ‘I didn’t want this to happen but the club said it was going to keep last year’s team and add a couple more players and was really going to attack Celtic. But now they’ve completely gone against that and they’re saying that all the ones on decent money need to go and I need to start again.’
So I was like, ‘thank you for everything. I went in, players were having lunch, and I did a speech saying thanks very much and I remember I went back to my room and I cried my eyes out.
Then I was like, ‘how am I getting home?’ So I booked a train Tav (James Tavernier), Scott Wright and about five people walked me to the train station.
Loads of Rangers fans were coming into Birmingham and I’m walking with a little backpack, wash bag onto a train and that was the last time. I went back to Scotland and left.
It’s mad because half of the team weren’t there because they played Man Utd so I never got to say bye to them, never got to go back to the training ground and say bye to any staff or anything. It was just off you pop, get the train back and go.
After the pre-season friendly at Birmingham Clement returned to the post-match media conference to announce that Todd Cantwell wanted to leave.
The millions would be pouring in for Goldson, Cantwell, Sam Lammers, Scott Wright and others.
In their Annual Report for 2024 the post trading period Note revealed that £810,000 had been brought in from the sale of six players.
The Record ignored it. They did report on the figure being confirmed during the AGM Q and A when a fan asked if the £810,000 figure was a mis-print in the Annual Report. It wasn’t.
Other high earners have been given the same treatment as Goldson. John Souttar was available on a free transfer but no club was prepared to match his wages with his contract expiring in June 2027.
And they wonder why the circulation is falling !!!
On a separate note, I see Keevins has a headline that the deid club “will win the league at canter” which cheered me up no end,p as we know he’s always bang on the money with his predictions:))))
By the way I won’t click on any of their stories not even for a £1 a month.
Anyone else having problems reading the articles due to the adverts popping up and the pages jumping all over the place?
That’ll be Goldson on the hate list for telling it like it is…..Sevco fans don’t like hard facts.
Chris @ 11.39am…
Turn off JavaScript and you’ll get through it faster than Daizen on the pitch…
Having said that I can no longer post on The Celtic Blog without it and with it the send button freezes…
Still read every article but definitely miss getting things offa ma tits about the board on that very fine forum !
HC Andersen – Great man – One of my own heart so ya are…
Two otherwise nice enough Celtic ‘supporters’ on ma street buy it…
Do they realise they are handing their money daily to EVIL !