Multi-million Rangers benchmark set for Josip Juranovic sale at Celtic with record deal mooted
The £23million pocketed by Rangers by selling Calvin Bassey to Ajax could be used as a benchmark in Celtic negotiations, according to The Times.
Croatia bowed out of the World Cup on Tuesday night after losing 3-0 to Argentina in the semi-finals. It was still a great tournament for Zlatko Dalic’s side, and Celtic are set to profit from it.
Josip Juranovic played in all six of Croatia’s matches and registered an assist as he put his name up in lights in Qatar. Despite signing for Celtic as recently as 2021, Juranovic is now expected to depart Glasgow in a potentially record-breaking deal.
As reported by The Times, Celtic will inflate their asking price for the 27-year-old off the back of his World Cup campaign. He signed for Celtic for just £2.5million, but is now expected to match the fee that Rangers received for Bassey in the summer.
“All the indications are that Juranovic will depart sooner rather than later — Torino, the Serie A club, were today reported to have already tendered an approach,” read the report.
“Yet whereas before the World Cup, Celtic might have been prepared to entertain offers in the region of £12 million to £15 million (having paid around £2.5 million for him last year), they will surely now be looking for something much more like the Scottish-record £25 million they pocketed from Arsenal for Keiran Tierney in 2019.
“The £19.6 million (which could rise to £23 million) that Ajax paid Rangers for Calvin Bassey is another useful recent benchmark.”
Transfer contrast
While Celtic are looking at matching a record fee for a player sale in Scotland, Rangers are struggling to tie down two of their biggest stars in Ryan Kent and Alfredo Morelos.
It’s the latest example of how incompetent the Rangers board have been over the last 12 months when it comes to transfers and contrasts.
No one was able to stand in Bassey’s way this summer as he left Ibrox, but it was then down to Rangers to capitalise on his sale and reinvest the funds into the squad.
That simply didn’t happen and Giovanni van Bronckhorst was left with a thin, ageing squad that were never going to compete with Celtic at the top of hte table.
Now Gers face the threat of losing both Kent and Morelos for free, despite them being two of the most marketable stars at the club. It’d be an absolute financial disaster if Rangers didn’t receive a single penny for their transfers.
With Michael Beale now at the helm, those above him need to make sure he’s sufficiently backed in both January and the summer.
In other Rangers news, Tam McManus expects Gers to play similarly to Celtic after appointing Michael Beale