Luca Connell for Celtic

Celtic have signed 18-year-old midfielder Luca Connell from Bolton Wanderers on a four-year deal.

The teenager broke into the English Championship side's first team in January and made 12 appearances as they were relegated to the third tier.

Connell will reportedly cost £250,000, although Bolton's administrators are thought to be considering challenging his right to leave for that fee.

"It's unbelievable to sign for such a massive club," Connell said.

"I'm more than ready for the pressure and expectation and I'm really looking forward to it."

Connell received a first Republic of Ireland call-up last month, but injury prevented him joining the squad.

However, the left-sided, Liverpool-born player will join Celtic's first team at their training camp in Austria.

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Bugger another one gone, but this needs to be sorted out properly so we get the appropriate money for him. 
Nice to see Celtic and Lennon taking advantage of our current situation, not very classy at all 

Norpig wrote:Bugger another one gone, but this needs to be sorted out properly so we get the appropriate money for him. 
Nice to see Celtic and Lennon taking advantage of our current situation, not very classy at all 

The unconfirmed story is that because he's still at the academy (had another year to go before he could sign professional), all we would get for him was the £250,000 development fee - but that applied to the English League only.  If he signed for a foreign country (and in football terms Scotland is) they only have to pay £100,000.

Seems Celtic (because they don't want the bad reputation) is paying the additional £150,000 for him.

That would be it, no add ons for getting in their first team, playing certain amounts of games, winning domestic trophies, getting into Europe, becoming an international etc, etc.

So much for the club brining him through from the age of eight.

BN now saying Celtic have paid more than they needed to, possibly 350K to avoid them looking bad. Still all leaves a sour taste though.

£250-350k for someone who played about 5 games for us?

Sounds like a win for BWFC to me.

Celtic wrap up signing of Bolton's Luca Connell with 'generous' fee

LUCA Connell has walked out on Wanderers to join Celtic on a four-year deal.
The midfielder – who just 24 hours earlier had a request to terminate his contract rejected by Bolton’s administrators – has now pushed through a dream move to Parkhead.
A legal challenge was made yesterday to Wanderers by the SPL club which left them with no option but to allow the midfielder, who has been with the club since the age of nine, to head north of the border.
But administrators say Celtic were generous with the fee they paid, hinting that it had surpassed the cross-border development fee of £250,000 that had been predicted.

The Bolton News understands the fee was in the vicinity of £350,000 - with Celtic agreeing to match what Bolton would have received if he had signed for an English club.

Wanderers had the option of taking the matter to a tribunal but decided the likelihood of success did not tally with the money and time it would have cost to mount a case.
A spokesperson for the administrator said: “We took legal advice once Luca submitted his notice of termination. However, the discrepancy in the regulations between England and Scotland meant we had no option but to accept the situation.

“To their credit, Celtic recognised that and have agreed to pay substantially more than the financial obligations in Luca’s contract.”

Connell, who made just 12 appearances for Bolton having broken into Phil Parkinson’s first team in January, was thrilled by the move to Glasgow.
"It's unbelievable to sign for such a massive club," he said.
"I'm more than ready for the pressure and expectation and I'm really looking forward to it."

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Why are people angry on twitter. Fair play to him. Who'd want to start their career in league one when you can play champions League football at 18.

He’s been at our academy for 8 years and a little repayment would have been good by sticking with the club a little longer?

Why would you hang around at your job if you got offered a massive pay rise somewhere else? 

I wouldn't.

Hipster_Nebula wrote:Why would you hang around at your job if you got offered a massive pay rise somewhere else? 

I wouldn't.

Not everyone is motivated by money.

Footballers and their agents are.

gloswhite wrote:Footballers and their agents are.

In your opinion, I happen to know otherwise.

As its you Nat, I'll believe you 

Since we are in administration Connell's exit was a certainty weeks ago if only as a means of offsetting some of the debt. The admin's primary role is to find a buyer for the club and reduce/remove as much debt as possible and Connell was nothing more than an asset to be used for that purpose.

And to be fair to him if I was an eighteen year old player with his kind of talent and potential offered a choice between a league one, skint club and a massive team that's in next season's Champions League I doubt it would be hard to make a decision. It's not just the money, look at the level of competition he'll face next term especially if (as people seem to expect) he breaks into the Celtic 1st team. And lest we forget, Lennon WAS our manager so he probably already had a very good idea of Luca's potential.

I can't really understand why any of the players or management have stuck around this long.

Parkinson especially – for the sake of his own career he can't afford to have consecutive relegations on his CV. I'm guessing he'll be gone by the end of next week.

finlaymcdanger wrote:I can't really understand why any of the players or management have stuck around this long.

Parkinson especially – for the sake of his own career he can't afford to have consecutive relegations on his CV. I'm guessing he'll be gone by the end of next week.

Answer to that is he has no other offers ....proudly boasting one of the worse records in all four divisions.....that might have somat to do with it.