Celtic may have to pay compensation to Shakhtar Donetsk if they are to make a move for free agent, Tete. It comes after the Brazilian winger was linked with the Hoops following the appointment of Brendan Rodgers, who Tete worked under during a brief spell at Leicester City last season.
Tete has been estranged from his parent club, Shakhtar, after Russia annexed Ukraine and the war began. Due to this, FIFA have rules and regulations in place that allow players affected by such anomalies to leave on freedom of contract. The winger spent some time on-loan at Lyon in France before moving to the King Power Stadium.
Now looking for his next club, Tete will have a wealth of options and the 23-year-old would be a real coup for the Hoops. However, it is being reported that Shakhtar Donetsk chief executive, Sergei Palkin has been left apoplectic and demanded that FIFA introduce a solidarity payment for the club’s affected.
He said: “First of all, at this moment, we want to set up some kind of solidarity fund for Ukrainian clubs, because not just our club suffers from this Annex,” as reported by Standard Sport. “We want to set up the fund to support Ukrainian football, otherwise we will have big difficulties. The situation is quite catastrophic.
“All sources of income that we have before, and now we just have two sources – to sell players and to receive some kind of bonuses from UEFA. When FIFA issued this Annex 7, they just cancelled one of the (financial) sources that we have. They always say that we are one football family, but as I understand, Ukraine is out of this football family.”
And Palkin could be seeking compensation from Celtic’s former boss, Ange Postecoglou and his new club Tottenham Hotspur, after they signed Israeli winger Manor Solomon for free. He said: “We are sure Tottenham executives understand that Shakhtar invested significant money in the Solomon transfer, investment that Ukrainian clubs in our difficult position, simply cannot afford to lose.
“We hope we will have a meeting with Tottenham representatives on the eve of our friendly match and in good faith we will find a solution to the Manor Solomon issue. The solution should satisfy both sides. We are not trying to receive some kind of profit. We need just to cover everything that we lost, and that’s it.”
Paul Gillespie