There is interest in Kuhn from more than one club. Celtic cannot accept the first offer.

Yesterday brought some interesting developments in the Nicholas Kühn saga.

First, we learned that RB Leipzig, although reportedly interested in the player, have not submitted a bid. That alone tells you all you need to know about the “£15 million offer” stories—namely, that they’re utter rubbish.

The second story was that Como, of Italy, are also interested in signing him, and that they intend to enter the bidding alongside the Germans.

Once again, this underlines the utter folly of any club slapping a public valuation on a player who is likely to attract multiple bids. From the outset, people have said that Newcastle are also interested.

They may well be. But if you’ve got three clubs sniffing around, you don’t just set a number and sit back waiting to see who matches it. You find out who’s willing to offer the most and work the auction accordingly.

Kühn played Champions League football last season. Before that, he was in Austria. Before that, Germany. He’s got European experience, and he’s shown the kind of quality that suggests he can command a much higher fee than the £15 million being tossed around in some reports.

Now, we can and do criticise our club’s transfer business, particularly on the incoming side. But when it comes to outgoings, those in charge have shown time and again that they know what they’re doing.

They’ve secured fees for players we never thought we’d break even on. They’ve brought in sums that have broken Scottish transfer records. When it comes to maximising value on exits, Celtic are amongst the best-run clubs in the business.

That’s why I found the original “Como for £15 million” story hard to credit. I couldn’t imagine Celtic accepting that kind of fee for a player we could clearly get much more for—especially not from the first club that made an offer, when other interested parties were obviously circling.

Interest from Italy, Germany, and England? It’s no surprise whatsoever. Kühn is a very good player. He’s in the right age group. He’s at the right stage of his development. For clubs who can easily pay £20 million for a footballer, it’s a no-brainer.

And £20 million isn’t even shooting for the moon. It’s a reasonable sum for a player with this level of experience—a player who has scored in the biggest competition in the sport and drawn admiring glances from clubs like Bayern Munich. He’s had 18 months at Celtic and he’s done well. The interest in him is entirely natural.

Last night I wrote about Simon Donnelly’s daft suggestion that Celtic fans would be glad to see the back of Kühn. I don’t believe that for a second. I don’t know a single Celtic fan who wants to see him leave. We all want him at the club next season. But we’re also realistic. If Kühn wants to go, then the club will let him—and they should let him—provided the price is right. That’s the key issue here.

This ties into the media’s handling of the story. If there are multiple interested clubs in the mix, why aren’t they treating this like the Yilmaz story across the city? Over there, the media insists that more interest equals more money. That’s how it works. That’s how it’s always worked. So why, in this case, are those same outlets reporting that Celtic’s supposed £15 million valuation is somehow set in stone, and that we won’t get more even if a bidding war starts?

It takes a certain kind of brass neck to run two stories like this in totally different ways—depending on which club the player belongs to.

The simple fact is this: fresh interest in Kühn only strengthens our hand. It increases the fee we can demand. That’s how we should be approaching it. That’s how we should be thinking. When bids come in, we should listen carefully to the first of those offers—and then knock it back. Immediately. And we should make it crystal clear to everyone else that a bid in the region of £X was rejected, and that we are only open to negotiation from a higher starting point.

We should absolutely make it known that we’re not averse to selling, but that any deal must reflect our valuation. And right now, that valuation has not been met.

This is basic stuff. Clubs do it all the time. It would be foolish—extremely foolish—to think that Celtic, a club that has secured major fees for players time and again, won’t do so again here. It would be even more idiotic to think that we’re not actively working to squeeze out every last penny.