Juranovic: The Discredited Celtic Transfer Story That Simply Refuses To Die.
Soccer Football - Euro 2020 - Group D - Croatia v Czech Republic - Hampden Park, Glasgow, Scotland, Britain - June 18, 2021 Croatia's Josip Juranovic during the warm up before the match Pool via REUTERS/Andy Buchanan
When Romano sent out his now notorious tweet, this site was one of the only ones which didn’t jump on the bandwagon and report it as a fact. It was not a fact. It contained not one single bit of verifiable information. At the centre of it was a simple contention; that the player was “expected” to leave Celtic before this transfer window closed.
All this site did, and all it continues to do, is ask a simple question; who is it who “expects” this? Nobody inside Celtic does. The player doesn’t. Nor do his agents.
They are the only three parties in this whose view of the situation matters a damn.
So I repeat; who is it who expects this to happen?
Who except whoever Romano talked to?
And as we’ve asked here over and over again in the last few weeks, who is that? Who are his Scottish sources? If I told you that they were Keith Jackson and Mark Pirie, would you believe a word that he tweeted again? The almost universal view that this guy “is in the know” has carried this story to absurd heights, and it continues to generate news.
It continues to generate news even now, when it has been utterly discredited.
It continues to generate news even when it has been proved to be manifestly false.
And like any lie – and I have no problem calling it that – it mutates as it spreads.
Atletico Madrid were thrust into the story yesterday.
What a shock for those outlets which promoted that latest total untruth to have it collapse so completely within the space of 24 hours, with the news from their own club that their priority is selling players before they even think about who they are going to bring in.
Other suggestions that we had slapped a £15 million price tag on Juranovic have been flatly denied by his own representatives. Brick by brick this story has collapsed. And still it will not die. Still it continues to grow and spread.
It might be the most ridiculous story of the window yet. “Josip Juranovic facing Celtic transfer waiting game” screams the Record, as though the player hasn’t said he’s doing no such thing, as if his agent hasn’t expressly denied this, as though Celtic itself is desperate for cash and in need of selling the player.
Not for a long time have I seen such a non-story generate such heat. Someone said to me the other day that there’s no smoke without fire; that’s a nonsense in this case because this is all smoke and there’s no substance to any of it.
Clubs are interested in the guy. It would be a shock if they weren’t, but interest rarely in football translates into an actual bid because these clubs will be looking at other players too and many of them will be cheaper than this guy would be since he’s got four years on his deal still to run and we have no need to sell.
Celtic fans should stop giving this dire story oxygen.
The foundations of it have proved to be as rotten as this website said they were.
Romano’s tweet contained one fact, one morsel of truth, which is that Juranovic had an excellent first season in Scotland … and that’s exactly why some of the hacks are desperate to keep this going.
Which is all the more reason why we should finally seek to kill it.
