As Celtic look forward to restarting their league campaign against Ross County at Celtic Park on Saturday, the Hoops fans will be hoping to get a glimpse of new striker Giorgos Giakoumakis donning the hoops.
The Greek striker comes to Parkhead as the Eredivisie’s top goal scorer and there is a lot of intrigue surrounding the striker and what kind of quality he has.
Signing for the Hoops for £2.5m might tell you that there must be something that put other clubs from larger leagues off attempting trying to steal the former Venlo front man, but Anthony Joseph of Sky Sports revealed the true price tag that the Dutch side would have been asking for if they were not relegated to Holland’s second tier.
Speaking on The Celtic Exchange Podcast, Joseph revealed the outstanding work completed behind the scenes by the Celtic board to get the deal done, “If I was to tell you, Celtic can sign the top scorer of the Eredivisie for less than £2.5 million, on paper, forget who it is, you’d be saying, yes get him.
“And that’s what they’ve done. He was available for that price due to Venlo being relegated. Had they not been relegated, I was told they were looking for €10 million for him.
“Celtic were lucky to be in that position they weren’t going to be priced out for him. But there was interest in him. Werder Bremen’s interest was very real and he did go out there and speak to them and see their facilities.
“Werder Bremen knew they had to really sell it to him and Celtic were quite confident that they were in Europe were in the top flight in Scotland, were as Werder Bremen were relegated to the Bundesliga 2.
“Celtic sort of had a verbal agreement with Venlo that a deal worth up to £2.5 million would be okay so without doing anything without formalising anything Celtic were happy with that.
“And then it was just a case of negotiating personal terms with Giakoumakis.
“But Venlo and Werder Bremen were some way off and in what they were thinking of as a fee for the player so Werder Bremen pulled out, they signed two other strikers one on loan.
“And there were waivers made for Celtic to agree terms with them and for him to join.”