No, Celtic were not “embarrassed” by Norwich. It’s the claim itself which is embarrassing.

It’s not often that somebody manages to get in the way of a Keith Jackson story by being even stupider than he is.

I said earlier that Jackson was going to be my end-of-the-night article, but I’ve had to change my mind and put that on hold until tomorrow.

Because Anthony Joseph of Sky has made a ridiculous statement this evening which needs to be tackled first. And the fact that it’s been amplified by other sites makes it even worse. Because if anyone does even two seconds of thinking about this, it doesn’t stack up at all.

The Evening Times was screaming – until they changed their headline – that Celtic had been “embarrassed” by Norwich over the pursuit of Kvistgaarden.

But Joseph’s claim, which is daft enough, doesn’t even mention Celtic, which is what pisses me off the most about the rush from some to get it into print with our name attached to it.

His claim is that Norwich embarrassed the “other clubs” who were negotiating for by signing him for £6.9 million, because they had discovered a “secret clause” in his contract with that release fee in it.

It must be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen published online.

It makes exactly zero sense.

Let’s take it in stages.

First, dragging Celtic into this is ridiculous.

We shouldn’t be near this story. Whoever Bromby or Kvistgaarden or anyone else has supposedly embarrassed here, it’s not us.

Because we didn’t make a bid for him in this transfer window. And it’s highly doubtful that we made a bid for him in any previous window since Rodgers has had his hands on the tiller. A report earlier this week came closer to the mark than most when it said we weren’t interested in him at any price during this window.

So we weren’t even in the negotiations. Whoever Joseph is talking about, it ain’t us — because we weren’t part of this. And the rush that some people feel to drag our name into this story should leave them pretty red-faced.

Secondly, if it was a secret clause, how did Norwich find out about it? You only find out about a clause like that if someone tells you. And if someone did tell them, it was either someone inside Bromby (which I doubt) or someone close to the player, which is really the only place it could have come from.

But here’s the rub: if the clause did exist, then what the hell were Bromby doing putting a £12 million valuation on the player in the first place? And weren’t there reports that we offered in excess of £7 million for him?

If that clause was there, a £7 million offer would’ve triggered it, and we’d have got him.

You can’t put a £12 million-plus valuation on a player who has a £6.9 million clause in his contract. You’re never going to get that money — and I’m 100 percent certain the player’s agents would have made damn sure that every interested party knew that the clause was there.

Because you don’t keep a clause like that a secret!

There’s a reason it’s in the contract in the first place!

You want someone to trigger it!

I mean, for Christ’s sake, this stuff is so obvious it really should need pointing out. I just don’t believe the level of stupidity it takes to accept this at face value without giving it any thought. It has more holes in it than Swiss cheese.

And none of it takes into account a very simple fact: Bromby’s valuation of the player was always ridiculous anyway.

Celtic’s initial valuation of the player — in the £4 million range — was probably as good as it gets. Norwich haven’t conned anyone, or got one over on anyone, or embarrassed anyone by paying £6.9 million. The only way you’ll know if he’s worth £6.9 million is when you see him play. When you see his scoring record.

So it’s a big claim to make that Norwich have somehow embarrassed other clubs in the negotiations. Because all those clubs had to do, if the clause existed, was meet the valuation, trigger it, and the deal was done.

But if no club moved up to that valuation, then no club thought he was worth that kind of money. Only Norwich did. That’s how these things work.

And when you consider that this is the first season in which he broke double figures in the Danish league, you can see why other clubs had their doubts.

Now, I’m not saying this guy won’t come good. He might. But a lot of players go to England and are never heard from again — especially a lot of players from Scandinavia. The list is as long as my arm.

But I do know this: that fee is much lower than what Bromby were quoting in the media. And the simple fact that no club triggered the clause until Norwich did tells you everything you need to know about how highly rated he really is.

And in the end, that might be where the embarrassment comes in. Because maybe he is worth it. Maybe he’s a better player than a lot of people gave him credit for.

But until he proves that, the only people who should be embarrassed are the people who published this nonsense, and especially after attaching our name to it, without taking even a second to think through the problems with the story they are pushing, and they are so obvious a first year writer on a student paper would have saw them.