Celtic see a £3.5 million bid ‘turfed out’? We’ll see a lot more of that before this summer is through

£3.5 million?

The magic number, but with another half a million added on.

The Celtic board are getting brave, the absent meddling golfer must have given them permission to go in higher than the usual £3 million.

As we know, at Celtic, there are two magic numbers.

£3 million to buy a player, and £25 million to sell a top asset.

But late yesterday, according to a ‘report’ in the Daily Record from Anthony Evans, we had a bid for Swedish defender Zinedin Smajlovic of Nowrwegian top flight club Sandefjord ‘turfed out’.

In other words, stop insulting us and get real.

Evans got this story from a ‘report’ in a Greek outlet called Gazetta.

And imagine this, Sandefjord’s asking price for Smajlovic is just £4.2 million.

But as we all know, Celtic never meet asking prices.

They always try to lowball.

Strangely enough, this tactic never seems to work for the Celtic board.

Master negotiators Michael Nicholson and Chris McKay had quite a few bids ‘turfed out’ last summer as well.

In fact, Celtic became a bit of a laughing stock over the course of the 2025 summer window.

The Jakob Breum fiasco being the highlight of a summer of ‘turfings’.

Celtic put in several lowball bids for the Danish Under-21 which were laughed at, and then met with the ultimate insult.

Yes, Go Ahead Eagles Chairman, Jan Willem van Dop said that the Ibrox club were a highly professional club to deal with in comparison with Celtic during their pursuit of Oliver Antman.

You’d imagine that a kick in the teeth like that would help Nicholson and McKay to learn some lessons, wouldn’t you?

The Celtic board always say they’ve learned lessons, but….

Well, you know what I mean?

Anyway, back to Zinedin Smajlovic and Evans’ report in the Record.

Because it appears that Smajlovic’s bid wasn’t the only bid Celtic had ‘turfed out’ in the last few days:

Celtic have been linked with a whole host of names, and one of them is Swedish centre back Smajlovic. The former Leece youngster only joined top flight Norwegian side Sandefjord last year but is already said to have attracted a number of admirers.

And Greek outlet Gazzetta.gr claim that Celts, along with Olympiakos submitted an offer of up to £3.5million for the 22-year-old.

However, they add that the offer was quickly thrown out by the Eliteserien club, who are looking for a figure closer to £4.3million.

Defensive reinforcements this summer at Parkhead are likely, and another player said to be on Celtic’s radar is Poland international Oskar Wojcik.

Reports in Poland claimed that Celtic had a £3.5million bid for the defender rejected back in January but KS Cracovia chiefs have recently hinted that they will look to cash in on the 22-year-old this summer.

There it is again, the £3.5 million bid.

We learned last summer that if Nicholson and McKay wished to bid anything over £3 million for a player, this was subject to approval, via email, from the absent golfer in Barbados.

It would appear Dermot Desmond has gone all out this summer and allowed the dynamic duo to start making bids of £3.5 million now.

Wow!

Another half a million!

One wonders if an email of approval to go higher has to be forthcoming when £3.5 million bids are ‘turfed out’?

You know?

Like if we had to go mental altogether and offer over £4 million for a player?

Or like if we went totally insane altogether, and actually met the asking price for a player?

Now there’s a mad concept if ever there was one!

Imagine that?

Offering a club what they feel their asset is worth?

Funnily enough, when the shoe is on the other foot at Celtic, we won’t accept anything less than the value we place on players we wish to sell.

Isn’t it strange how we don’t get the concept that other clubs might want to employ that particular strategy too?

Well, it’s June 22nd, and the turfing out of bids has only just begun.

Expect many more of these throughout the summer, as lowballing season gets well underway.

Remember what I said last week when the transfer window opened?

My article on that subject was titled: The transfer window opens today. Celtic will be; ‘keeping tabs on’, ‘eyeing’, ‘scouting’, ‘targeting’, ‘monitoring the situation’, ‘preparing to make an offer’, all while signing nobody…

Well, you can add a new one to that.

Celtic see ‘bid turfed out’ will become part of that mix too.

Oh, and don’t forget, they’ve been ‘preparing to make an offer’ for Marcelo Saracchi over the last month of so.

With preparations now finished, it should only take 7-10 days to get the deal over the line.

Wow, we’ve gone from glacial pace to snail’s pace on the transfer front.

World class dealings from a world class board.

Jesus wept.

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