The Giakoumakis “Transfer Fee” Claim Should Render The Story Ridiculous To Celtic Fans.

A Greek journalist has said that Giakoumakis switching his agent means that the player is going to ask for a move, and that we should expect to lose him imminently.

Apparently this guy is an “in the know.” I love “in the know” types. Especially for how little many of them actually know. Time and time again these folk have been shown not to know much.

Still, the drumbeat about this is more or less steady now.

Amongst the many pearls of wisdom in the piece is that the Greek and his family don’t like the weather. That should rule out any move to England, right there, yet that’s where reports suggest he wants to go.

Okay then … strike one against this story.

But look, if families don’t settle in a new place it’s easy to understand why a player might want to go. That’s not where the story leaves the rails.

No, it leaves the rails on the proposed transfer fee; £6 to £7 million.

I laughed out loud reading that. There is not the remotest chance that Celtic would do business at that price, not for a player with years left on his deal and who is an established presence in the team. It’s crazy.

This guy was the top scorer in Holland not that long ago and has a phenomenal strike record here in Scotland. Even if we’re prepared to do business – and I remain steadfastly unconvinced that we will, at least in this window – we are not letting him go for so paltry a price as that. Not when we can comfortably expect to get eight figures.

This is clearly difficult for some people to grasp, but although we play here in Scotland we’re not actually short of a few quid. We’re not the team engaging in a desperate scramble to sell before it can give a new manager money to spend.

That would be the one across town.

Even if you’re a foreign journalist covering this game from nothing but internet reports, that’s still an unforgivable mistake to make and although it doesn’t mean that the story isn’t at least partly true it does reveal that Mr In The Know doesn’t know as much as he thinks.

I’m still taking this stuff with a large dose of salt.