Celtic remain in negotiations with Benfica over the permanent transfer of Paulo Bernardo. That much is fact.
As reported in Portugal yesterday, the deal appears to have hit a snag due to financial differences that have still to be ironed out. However these differences have nothing to do with the player’s own personal financial demands as wildly reported by the Scottish media today.
A few SMSM outlets have quick to point out that it’s down to a split in salary demands between the player and the club, but that is just a guess and it’s total nonsense.
Although we know very little ourselves, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that it’s in fact the fee that Benfica are asking that’s the major stumbling block.
Paulo isn’t on a massive amount at Benfica (around £5k per week) and Celtic will know first hand his salary after negotiating a loan fee for the player last summer and presumably paying his wages.
The club will be able to meet the players salary expectations, don’t fret about that. They wouldn’t have entered negotiations to purchase Paulo had his demands been unrealistic. Michael Nicholson’s attention to detail on this and every other transfer negotiation Celtic enters into is always professionally conducted, we can be sure of that.
So in my view, it’s down to one thing and one thing only, and that’s the deal that Benfica are demanding for the player’s transfer. The SMSM know this fine well and are just trying to unsettle the feel good factor that currently surrounds both Celtic as a club and the supporters.
The core facts are Paulo wants to sign for Celtic, Celtic wants to sign him and the Portuguese U21 captain who got that brilliant assist for the Scottish Cup Final winner over theRangers last month is not part of Benfica’s plans going forward. The final details on this one should be ironed out and the deal confirmed in the not too distant future.
So do yourself a favour and don’t fall for this kind of propaganda. They are just making it up as they go along.
Just an Ordinary Bhoy
It is always the same: Celtic either negotiating a reduced fee or the player had to take a wage cut to join. In other words paint Celtic as skin flint, biscuit tin mentality while across the city it is players who will be worth millions.
This doesn’t mean I support our Board in all their activities but I can certainly see through our media.
Regardless, I don’t expect us to announce any signing until the first of July as that is when our new financial year start and will counted by UEFA as such.
I’m still reluctant to believe we will spend a large portion of our resources plus the £10M-£15M we normally commit to “projects”