The Daily Record has shocked world football by revealing what really goes on with agents. They attend matches. They watch players. They actually enjoy the game itself. This news will stun supporters who might have been under the impression that in fact they watched old DVD’s of classic matches and waited on clubs phoning them about players.
The story of course is Moussa Dembele, and how his agent tweeted that he was attending the Chelsea – Brighton game yesterday. Now, bear in mind that every party involved in the so-called Brighton deal has denied this. Bear in mind that Dembele’s agent has other clients and is always fishing for more. Bear in mind that he actually lives in London, where the game was taking place, and probably attends hundreds of games each year.
The Daily Record believes this is significant somehow.
And perhaps it is. In some ways it would be a relief just to put these stories behind us once and for all. The club certainly seems in no hurry to offer Moussa the sort of contract that would end them for a while and commit him to two more years here. But nor are they in a hurry to sell him on, because if they were it would already be done.
Celtic is right to take the stand on Dembele that it has, and Brendan is right that we have a moral duty to the players that if they believe they can earn more money elsewhere and the price is one we can’t realistically say no to that they should be allowed to pursue their career ambitions elsewhere. Moussa will play in the EPL, but let’s not forget that he could have already. He didn’t have to sign for us in the first place; we sold him on something here and he and his agent have a “career plan” well worked out for him. The discipline is in sticking to it.
But as of right now, there is absolutely nothing to report here. Nothing whatsoever. Celtic’s position has not changed. The player’s position has not changed. The agent is doing what agents do. He’s attending games, watching footballers, speaking to clubs, filing his paperwork, enjoying life. What he isn’t doing is agitating for a move.
Believe it or not that doesn’t happen with agents; these guys spend years cultivating good relationships. They don’t blow those to smithereens by getting a rep for unsettling the footballers they work for and screwing over the clubs.
Moussa Dembele is still a Celtic player. I expect him to be a Celtic player when the transfer window shuts. Celtic do not need to sell him. If we did, with a European game coming up, we would need to invest a large chunk of the money in a striker who was not only a good goal scorer but who was eligible to play in the Europa League. A summer move might just happen, but it would be rank stupidity from our club to let him go with so much at stake in the rest of the campaign. The people who run Celtic are not stupid, especially Brendan.
The media hates that. When our manager said yesterday that “we do not need to sell” he meant it. They hate that too. They know an extra £18 million or more in our bank accounts is overkill; we can put the rest of the SPL to the sword by standing still. If we spent the £7 million which is winging its way to us from the Van Dijk deal we’d blow everyone out. Can you imagine what we’d do with a £25 million spend? It won’t happen anyway.
Let the media write its nonsense. This is what they do, at this time of the year. When that window opens we’ll face a deluge of this stuff. What gals them is that they’ve tried it on for the last three of them and our squad has emerged at the end of each stronger not weaker.
I expect we’ll do that this time too.