ANOTHER DAY and another angle to the Kristoffer Ajer leaving Celtic story that has been bubbling away for the past month or so. We’ve had continuous stories linking the 22 year old Norwegian with clubs around Europe.

AC Milan have been a constant and remarkably stories emerged that both Real Madrid and Atletico were both considering moves for the Celtic defender. Then there’s Leicester City, whose manager can’t seem to stop thinking about or talking about his time at Celtic. Rodgers has been credited with an interest in Ajer although there was a story in the local paper down in the East Midlands that stated that the former Celtic manager had no interest in signing the player from Celtic, but this was quickly followed by a follow-up which said that there was interest.

Amid all this Ajer changed agents from the loud mouth guy who claimed that the player would not be signing a new contract at Celtic but would instead move this summer. Celtic have the player under contract from another two years so you could sort of understand that this outburst caused embarrassment for the player and ultimately helped make his mind up that a change of agent was needed.

Yet this decision, when it became known, was then regarded as an action of a player planning a Summer get-away from the East End of Glasgow. Niall J on The Celtic Star at the weekend had a theory that selling Ajer, replacing him with the Scottish Premiership tried and tested Scott McKenna, spending some of the surplus on an additional defensive signing would still leave a surplus of £12m for Celtic to put towards the cost of enduring the COVID-19 shutdown.

So when the pandemic has got Niall J and Peter Lawwell thinking along similar lines then we know we are living through some pretty remarkable times!

Today’s story is a new angle entirely on the Ajer transfer saga and involves his cash-strapped former club back home in Norway, looking to benefit from the 10% sell-on clause they cunningly inserted into the contract when they sold Ajer to Celtic for just £650,000 four years ago.

IK Start are apparently £2m in debt and like every other club they are struggling due to the financial problems caused by the pandemic. A former director at the Norwegian club gave an insight into the windfall that IK Start can expect to receive if Ajer is sold this summer by Celtic.

Ogrey Brandsdal, as reported in Scottish Sun, had this to say: “When we sold him to Celtic, we were also in a very tight financial position and that made the negotiations very pressurised.

“But from the very first moment we saw Kristoffer, we knew he would be playing in the top leagues one day.

“So although we needed the money urgently, we sacrificed some of it so we could add the sell-on clause. We took a long-term view of his career.

“Celtic are known to develop and sell players. They will want a good return on him and won’t allow him to see out his contract.”

And the Norwegian side’s general manager, Christopher MacConnacher also commented: “Although we have not included the sell-on clause of Kristoffer in our budgets, it would of course be very welcome if he did get transferred.

“Especially if the transfer fee is as close to what has been speculated.

“The worst case scenario is that we run out of money in the summer, but we believe we now have a better control over our situation.

“But we still have an uncertain future.”