Celtic hailed as ‘high class club’ by Belgian team

Celtic have been described as ‘a high-class club’ by Belgian fourth division side Royal Liege, after they voluntarily paid a development fee that the Belgian’s had not even requested.

When Celtic signed back-up goalkeeper Logan Bailly from OH Leuven in the summer, that triggered a FIFA rule which allows the club he played at as a youth player, Royal Liege, to be entitled to a one-off payment.

Rather than try to avoid the payment, or wait until the minnows contacted them asking for the cash, Celtic immediately got in touch with Royal to arrange payment, and promptly sent the payment over.

According to a statement by the Belgian fourth division side, this is highly uncommon in the murky world of football transfers, and Celtic bucked the trend of underhandedness and secret handshakes that are unfortunately all too commonplace in football today.

The statement said:

At a time when the world of football often resembles a jungle where the end justifies the means, we would like to acknowledge the exemplary behaviour of this venerable Scottish club.

It’s probably only our supporters who remember this, but Logan once spent time at Royal Liege in his youth training. Under FIFA rules, that meant we could receive a solidarity allowance payment.

Before we even thought about contacting Celtic, they got in touch to ask how we would like to receive payment and we got it in 72 hours. Celtic told us their policy was to make payments proactively rather than wait for clubs to contact them. A high-class club.

Bailly has played in just one game since arriving in the summer, that was the 3-1 over Dundee United in August.