Sports journalist Scott Burns at the Daily Record has confirmed this afternoon that Celtic have given new contracts to a treble of young stars ahead of the new season. Mitchell Frame, Daniel Cummings and Josh Dede have all signed on for Chris McCart’s U-18’s team for the upcoming footballing campaign.
All three players are 16-years-old, meaning this is their first professional contracts. It is reported by Burns that all three have rejected interested from clubs in England in order to stay put at Celtic Park for the foreseeable future. A welcome change in regards to our youth prospects of late. The players all came through at Lennoxtown and are fully fledged products of our own academy also.
Of late, many of our good, young, emerging talents have flown the nest far too soon, leaving us feeling bereft in all truth. Barry Hepburn, Liam Morrison and Josh Adam have all been high-profile cases to have jumped ship before we even got to see them in action for the first-team. The two former players joined German giant Bayern Munich and Adam joined Pep Guardiola’s Man City respectively.
Hopefully with Ange now at the helm, losing top youngsters with potential to reach the highest echelons of the game is a thing of the past. We had high hopes for Karamoko Dembele too, yet a run of bad luck and injuries curtailed his progress. Celtic really do need to find a proper pathway for these youngsters and having B-teams in the Lowland League is only a short-term solution.
Paul Gillespie
