As many readers know, I am a massive fan of Celtic fan podcasts and, in particular, The Celtic Exchange Podcast. On this weeks episode the boys had an exclusive interview with Sky Sports reporter, Anthony Joseph, where they discussed how Joseph rose to the ranks of Sky News, discussed the managerial set up at Celtic and gave a really interesting insight on how the infamous Ben Davies move in January collapsed.
Joseph gave a very detailed account at the move would have been completed but for one small but very important factor, “We were very close to all sides of that story. Player side, Celtic and Preston, and if you knew the people telling us it was done, you would understand why we put that it out it was done. It looked to me that the player had agreed the contract. He’d agreed the pre contract, but he hadn’t signed it that night.
“So this is why we (Sky Sports) reported that he’d signed it because obviously we were told it was signed. Obviously he’s slept on it, and not that he wasn’t going to sign it. I think he’s just genuinely not signed it and submitted it.
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“The next morning he’s woken up and other clubs in England are after him and it materialised that Liverpool were the ones who were in strong and ended up, as Neil Lennon put it, gazumping Celtic. So he HAD agreed, we were wrong with our wording that he’d signed, it wasn’t like we were jumping the gun on that, we were told that it was done.
“So that was our understanding and if you knew who was telling us this you would be confident with that as well. I mean, it can happen. I had to own up to it, we put the wrong information out that he’d actually signed it, I mean I’m sure that even in his mind, he was going to sign it.
“But the next morning, when Liverpool came in at the time, he’s must have been thinking, right, this is a chance, I can go on this season and win the Premier League and I’ve got a chance of winning the Premier League and the Champions League.”
It was an absolutely excellent episode and gave a fascinating insight on how the Davies move from Preston transpired. I would encourage all Celtic fans to give Tino, Mif and Keni’s podcast a follow on the link above.
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