Dunajska Streda Sporting Director Jan Van Daele has revealed that Celtic were interested in signing Damir Redzic in January…
Despite Celtic reportedly putting more money on the table, the player chose to join Red Bull Salzburg, according to Dunajska Streda transfer guru Jan Van Daele.
Celtic had approached the Slovak club over a potential deal for the 22-year-old prospect. However, Redzic ultimately sealed a £4million transfer to the Austrian champions after indicating he did not want to pursue a move to Scotland.
That decision came even though Celtic’s proposal was financially superior to Salzburg’s offer.
Now, speaking via Glasgow Times, Van Daele said: “The starting point was that we did not want to sell Damir and we told this to the player.
“The first interested party was FC Copenhagen in mid-January, but their offer was so low that it was practically impossible to take it seriously. Then his agents appeared, tried to put pressure on us, but we still insisted that the amount was not enough. After that, Red Bull Salzburg arrived and that’s when things really got serious.
“His agents started talking about all sorts of things, for example, stopping training, but fortunately, Damir behaved extremely professionally, said no to the boycott of training and worked as he should have throughout. I can’t say a single bad word about him. He is a fantastic person and a professional player.”
Van Daele added: “I am especially grateful to him for the way he handled this whole situation, because it was a huge pressure for him too. After Red Bull entered the picture, suddenly other clubs appeared – Celtic and (the)Rangers were also both interested.
“In fact, Celtic’s offer was higher than Salzburg’s, but the player was fully focused on Red Bull. Damir had very clear career goals – he said he wanted to go to Salzburg and from there move on to a top club.
“As a specific example, he had Dominik Szoboszlai’s career in mind because he was at Red Bull Salzburg.”
Conor Spence
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This only confirms that potential players of the quality we are potentially hoping for?
Don’t see Scottish football as much of a career choice now imo?
Can hardly blame the likes, all the while cheating officials are allowed to destroy the Scottish game?
Without the unity within our support on offer at present, makes ourselves less of an attractive proposition also imo?
Looking at players to hopefully kick start there careers with ourselves, is a far lower bar on offer, than the quality we require to get ourselves back into contention of becoming a respected CL team?
Long way to go before such issues are going to be resolved for ourselves, all the same imo?