Celtic player to secure transfer exit 'in the coming hours' as £25m factor impacts Rangers recruitment budget

Celtic youngster Daniel Kelly is expected to depart for English Championship side Millwall ahead of schedule after an offer of £400,000 plus add-ons was accepted for his signature.

Earlier this month, Glasgow World reported that the 18-year-old had penned a contract at the Den ahead of a move in January 2025 when his contract expired at Parkhead.

But Lanarkshire Live Sport claim that the youngster is already on his way to South London to complete a move this summer and will complete a move ‘in the coming hours’. Kelly is expected to undergo a medical in the next two days and could be included in the matchday squad against Hull City on Saturday.

Kelly made five appearances for Celtic at the end of last season but has endured a frustrating pre-season away from the first team this summer after turning down a new long-term contract with the Scottish champions.

Brendan Rodgers had hoped to keep the youngster on board and claimed the club offered him a ‘really good deal’ with the prospect of first team opportunities. However, when Kelly rejected the offer he was told to train away from the first team and was frozen out of the club’s pre-season plans.

Finance expert makes Rangers claim after Champions League exit

Football finance expert Adam Williams has told Rangers News that the club’s exit from the Champions League shouldn’t have too much of a detrimental effect on Philippe Clement’s short term transfer goals - but a £25m dip to the Europa League will have an impact.

Rangers were beaten 3-1 on aggregate across two legs against Ukrainian giants Dynamo Kyiv in a third round UCL qualifier, meaning that they will instead compete in the Europa League this term.

Williams explained: “The Europa League is worth about £25m less from the off, so it will have an impact on their recruitment budget. But the board will have budgeted for that and will have been operating on a worst-case assumption as far as this season’s budget is concerned.

“Had they qualified for the next Champions League stage, the budget may have been scaled up accordingly. Revenue when they reached the group stage in 2022-23 was about £84m. It was higher than that in 2021-22, when they were in the Europa League, but they reached the final that year.

“There isn’t really another season in recent years that we can draw a direct financial comparison with because the last times they had an ‘average’ campaign in the Europa League was affected by the pandemic. But for what it’s worth, I don’t think this will necessarily affect Rangers player trading model in terms of sales. Those were going to happen anyway, and Rangers aren’t now suddenly in a position where players they had expected to keep now have to be sold.”

Rangers allowed the likes of John Lundstram and Borna Barisic to leave on a free this summer along with Ryan Kent and Alfredo Morelos 12 months earlier. Williams warns that Rangers will need to improve their transfer model moving forward to avoid such an instance.

“The club have lost a lot of players for free in recent years whose resale values were once high. They must be conscious that they can’t carry on like that in future, especially when their revenue prospects, because the significance of Champions League qualification, are pretty volatile.”