As Jota departs for Saudi millions, will Celtic re-invest the money from his transfer on a replacement of similar quality?

All too often in the past, Celtic have banked big transfer fees, but never re-invested them properly in the playing squad.

Jota’s departure has just banked the club another £25million, with 30% of the profit from the sale going to Benfica.

Which leaves the question, will the club now spend big to fill what is a big hole in the playing squad?

Jota was a huge player for Celtic, he would have been pivotal in the upcoming Champions League campaign.

I cannot imagine Brendan Rodgers is pleased with losing one of his top players this early in his tenure.

I’m sure he is also aware of the dangers this transfer now poses to the club.

The fact that Jota secured a salary of £200k per week will surely have piqued the interest of other players in the Celtic dressing room.

About a month ago, you would have thought that Jota was one of the most invested players in Celtic’s culture.

He struck all of us as someone who “got it” and it really seemed as if he loved the club.

But “getting it” counts for nothing when £10million a year tax-free comes calling.

It’s life changing money.

I don’t think any of us could say if were put in a similar position that we’d turn it down either.

I just think its sad that he has forfeited his chances of playing in one of Europe’s big leagues for money.

It was inevitable that he eventually would have gone on to play his football in one of the big five leagues.

We’ve all come to accept that this is the player trading model we operate.

Look, this has been a great piece of business for us, we’ve banked a nice fee for Jota and turned a decent profit in the process.

Do I think it’s a smart move for a player of Jota’s quality?

I think we all know the answer to that.

Footballing reasons didn’t come into this one, even Jota himself knows that.

Which brings me back to the main thrust of this article.

Will Celtic spend big to replace Jota?

Well, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t.

Brendan Rodgers already had a transfer kitty of £30million, so it stands to reason that some of the funds from the Jota sale should be added to it.

When Rodgers was given this amount, I doubt that anybody expected he’d have to replace someone like Felipe Jota.

Put simply, you don’t replace a player like him for anything less than £15million, because that was the least he was worth before the Saudis came calling.

This situation is now a real test of the testicular fortitude of the Celtic board.

It’s time for them to step up and show that while they’re willing to accept big money for players, they must now also be willing to spend big on replacements.

Because after Jota’s departure, you can be sure there will be more bids incoming for our top talents.

Whether some of those bids come from Saudi Arabia or elsewhere remains to be seen.

What we don’t want is a situation where the club now sees Saudi Arabia as a cash cow for the club.

As in we can get them to pay much bigger fees than clubs based in Europe or south of the border would.

The Scottish transfer record for an outgoing player has once again been matched.

Are Celtic now going to break the Scottish transfer record for an incoming player?

Because to replace someone like Jota, they may have to.

The club has just announced that Kyogo has committed himself to the club for another 4 years.

This realistically means that he may intend to finish his career at Celtic as he is 28 years old now.

It’s a smart move by the club.

They need to be equally as smart when it comes to replacing Jota.

Simply because Brendan Rodgers won’t accept anything less.

I get the feeling they might just do that.