Celtic winger Jota has agreed terms on a move to Saudi Arabia, according to a report.
Qatari outlet Alkass say that Pro League side Al-Ittihad have agreed “all terms and details” with the Portuguese winger about a move this summer.
They say that “a few minor details remain with his club”. It’s a pretty startling report for Celtic fans to read about such a popular player.
Jota is not the first Celtic player to be linked with a move to Saudi Arabia this summer, nor even this week.
Reo Hatate was spoken about a few days ago before his agent shut down the rumours. (Daily Record)
Hatate was also linked with Al-Ittihad so this may well be a case of wires being crossed earlier in the week, and the Jota report being the correct story.
We’ll have to wait for further clarification. Don’t be too surprised to hear this one shot down as well.
But equally, Alkass do have over 1.4m followers on Twitter. They seem to be a pretty big deal in the Middle East.
There is no word on any potential fee in their tweet — but we do know that Celtic will have to hand a healthy percentage of any money received to Benfica.
When we signed the winger permanently a year ago, The Athletic reported that the Lisbon side held a 30% sell-on clause.
It’s not totally clear whether that would be 30% of the entire money received, or 30% of the profit made on the reported £6.4m we paid for him.
Whatever the case, it’s worth remembering that Celtic hold the cards here. Jota is contracted until 2027 (Celtic) and seems to be happy in Glasgow.
If he goes it will likely be for big money.
In other news, Celtic will no longer be playing Wolves in South Korea next month
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