More details on Celtic’s transfer business involving Jota has emerged from Portugal this week.
The winger signed on a loan-to-buy basis from Benfica in 2021, and then signed permanently a year later. He made himself a hero with the Celtic support, before completing a big-money move to Al-Ittihad in Saudi Arabia.
It’s long been known that Celtic paid a significant fee and had to shell out more on a sell-on clause, but the Portuguese club’s accounts now tell us exactly how much.
Record in Portugal report that Benfica’s accounts show they received a further €7,585,000 from Jota’s move to Al-Ittihad from Celtic, on top of the initial €7,500,000 fee reported at the time. That’s €15,085,000 in total, or around £12,950,000 at today’s exchange rate.
Benfica’s profit on the deal was reduced after they had to pay out €738,000 in expenses relating to “retention of the solidarity mechanism and expenses with intermediation services”, according to the financial results.
The move for Jota will go down as one of Celtic’s most successful signings ever. He netted 28 goals in 83 appearances for the club, contributing a further 26 assists on the way to two Scottish Premiership titles, two Scottish League Cups and a Scottish Cup.
Then, he landed the club a big profit, with the Bhoys netting far more than the close to £13m they paid for him in total. Reports indicated that Al-Ittihad shelled out a massive £25m. [Sky Sports]
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Amidst reports of being frozen out and potentially moved on quickly from the Saudi club, he’s made five appearances so far and scored a single goal.
Regardless of how his situation pans out in the Middle East, Jota is likely to have a very lucrative footballing career from this point on. And if he ends up back in Europe, he could earn quite the reputation in his peak years, having shown so much potential at Celtic.
Along the way, Celtic fans will follow his career closely and be willing him to do well at every step.
In other news, Every Celtic absentee at Ibrox and when we can expect to see them play again.