KYOGO FURUHASHI’S imminent move to Rennes has yet to be sealed and already we are being suffocated under a deluge of drivel.
So-called ‘in-the-know’ reporters are informing us the little striker is quitting the champions because he is looking for a new challenge and/or is hoping a shift to one of Europe’s top five leagues will boost his international ambitions.
Please spare us this guff. There is only one reason a 30-year-old player is leaving Celtic and it’s that oft-used four-letter word pronounced cash. Or dosh, if you prefer.
Everything else that is put forward as reasons for a fans’ favourite moving on after three and a half happy, enjoyable and successful years at the club is simply claptrap and an insult to intelligence.
EURO STAR…Kyogo Furuhashi aiming high in the Champions League.
Kyogo is upping sticks from a team that will play in the Champions League play-offs next month with the opportunity of participating in the round of 16 knock-out stages in March to join a club currently struggling big style in France.
Rennes are in 15th place in Ligue 1, just goal difference separating them from the drop zone in the 18-team division.
They have collected a mere 17 points from 18 games and have lost 11 of those outings.
So, some of these irritating ‘insiders’ are telling us Kyogo is leaving for a new challenge. Do they mean fighting relegation with a team hovering just above top-flight oblivion?
That is much more appealing than flexing your muscles and pitting your wits against Europe’s elite in football’s most prestigious competition?
Is scraping for survival going to attract the attention of Japanese supremo Hajime Moriyasu more than strutting your stuff among the creme de la creme?
Plus playing in the Premiership hasn’t hindered Daizen Maeda on the international front, has it?
HEAVEN’S ABOVE…Kyogo Furuhashi celebrates one of his 85 Celtic goals.
It has been reported Kyogo has been offered a three and a half year deal at his current suitors and that will take him to the summer of 2028.
His contract at Celtic, which he renewed in July 2023, is scheduled to expire a year earlier.
The Hoops hierarchy, in their wisdom, may believe it doesn’t make fiscal sense to match or better the terms put forward by the French side.
I’m guessing that is the case when you take Kyogo’s age into the equation.
I have never been a great believer in turning players into a pot of glue shortly after their 30th birthday, but I realise there are decision-makers who view the age as some sort of threshold.
That’s their business and they get paid big bucks to make sure these determinations are spot on.
Good luck to Kyogo and I’m sure you will join me in wishing him every success on the next step of his football journey.
However, we can all live without the hooha. There’s enough rubbish flying around at the moment without the ‘informed’ blabbermouths joining in.
ALEX GORDON