Jota's £6.5m Celtic transfer: Agents give their inside track on how 'option to buy' deals work

It's fair to say that on-loan Benfica wide man Jota has caused quite a stir since his arrival in Glasgow's East End. His six goals and six assists in just 14 matches have put Celtic within four points of Scottish Premiership leaders Rangers. Ange's men are also in with a chance of qualifying for the Europa League knockout phase. European football will be on the menu after Christmas with participation in either the Europa League or Europa Conference League.

The perceived wisdom according to reports is that Celtic now have an option to buy the player outright from Benfica for a knockdown fee of £6.5 million.

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This will only happen if Jota has a successful season in Glasgow and in the event that Celtic want to make it a permanent deal.

The clamour among the Celtic supporters has already started for the club's hierarchy to back their manager and conclude negotiations as soon as the January transfer window reopens. It would represent a significant piece of business for Celtic on a player who back in January 2020 reputedly had a massive £75.5m release clause placed into his contract.

Speaking to Celtic fan media earlier this week Ange had this to say on the possibility of signing Jota early: "On this kind of issue people get really excited. I tend to let those things happen naturally. For me what's important when I signed Jota who is a good example, I wasn't signing someone I thought had talent, I wanted to also sign a player who really wanted to come to this football club - that was really important for me.

"I think this football club gives you a unique stage if you are an ambitious footballer. You get to play in a fantastic atmosphere in front of big crowds and in Europe and you are constantly challenged every week to be successful because this football club demands it.

"It is not simply about signing players who can fit the style but also about bringing in players who want to be here. That extends to whether we keep people here and the situation with Jota or anyone else is that if both parties want this to continue then we will make it continue."

Celtic remain in pole position to land the winger come the summer then and the Aussie is clearly not fazed by what transpires before then. However, there remains a burning question on Jota and the option to buy deals. Is it as straightforward and cut and dried as that for Celtic?

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British football's longest-serving football agent Raymond Sparkes who has been involved in doing football deals since 1991 put more meat on the bones with regards to the Jota to Celtic deal.

Sparkes offered a fascinating insight from all perspectives and believes that Ange and Celtic are right to be cautious about any prospective deal in January. In fact, he reckons Celtic are playing a courtship game with Jota before deciding whether to commit to the full wedding contract.

Sparkes said: "The phenomenon with loan arrangements is that everyone is looking to protect themselves from what might come about. That is to say that in this instance if Celtic have been tipped off about a good young player like Jota, in a position that is always a revered position in a club like Celtic - wingers in other words - it is because someone thinks he will be a good fit. How do we know Jota will be a good fit? He is from another style of football and he is coming from a different culture and is a young man in every respect.

"Celtic then take a bit of a chance and the first instance is that you do not go diving in to buy him. You go in listening to what the options are. Benfica has allowed Jota to go on loan to Celtic and if he plays in the team and hits trigger points then it might automatically activate a separate arrangement that has been entered into before he is allowed to leave.

"The protection angle is that Benfica have let him go and they want to make sure that they are not left embarrassed by the situation. If Jota excels for Celtic then the happy compromise is the number attached to his services if he really does the business.

"In this instance, Benfica have covered themselves by attaching a number to Jota. A try-before-you-buy arrangement.

"On the flip side of that when you are a big club like Celtic you do not want to leave things open-ended. If you do then you leave yourself exposed to Jota becoming a superstar, or a perceived superstar in the short term, and suddenly the number which was a realistic one has shot itself into the stratosphere.

"As and when it does, then Celtic could possibly find themselves in a Patrick Roberts situation again whereby nobody gets anything out of the situation - in that case, Celtic, Manchester City or the player.

"If someone like Jota is available to Celtic then it shows they are looking further afield than the UK. They like what they see but they don't want to dive into anything.

"Celtic will not be betrothed to the marriage that early. It's a kind of dating game - a courtship. Celtic know what they are getting into here and they know what the number is and therefore nobody can get hurt. If the numbers are palatable at the outset and the player delivers and he wants to come and there is no outside interference from dodgy agents then it could be that this tale will have a happy ending for Celtic.

"They have the platform to offer potential Champions League football and will allow you the exposure to something greater. If Celtic don't take up the option, which is their option and their only - that is the clever part and at least Benfica have had the chance to parade their wares in the UK.

"In such cases, it is not unusual for players like Jota to then go for three times that amount because somebody in Leeds, Leicester, Aston Villa or Brighton has been watching developments closely. Clubs like that can offer more than what Celtic are prepared to offer.

"The good thing for Celtic in this deal is that if they have got a contract then they have covered themselves well by making sure that there is a pre-ordained trigger fee that actually allows them to take Jota on a full-time basis.

"The problem Celtic have now is do take their time or dive in? Do you invite competition by doing the deal later or go and nail it to the floor because you back your own judgement?

"Jota has proved that he can make the transition from living in Lisbon to living in Glasgow. He is playing with a smile on his face and is loving life and enjoying his football. That's a big chunk of the dilemma solved.

"If you have an arrangement with Benfica and you are sure of what you are looking at, I would nail it down sooner rather than later. You can call in the marker with Benfica and they will have to honour the deal."

Meanwhile, agent Glenn Corcoran, who represented former Wales, Swansea, Liverpool and now Stoke midfielder Joe Allen also insisted that there are many pros and cons to the option to buy deals.

He admits that there is no guarantee Jota will sign on the dotted line for Celtic come May despite the option to buy clause.

Corcoran said: "It can be productive and counter-productive for both sides. Jota's market value is probably higher than that what Celtic are expected to pay for him come the summer.

"He has done well for Celtic. The way these options tend to work is that if you look at other examples, Dennis Praet at Leicester being another example as he is out on loan to Torino.

"Leicester wanted a guaranteed purchase because Praet wasn't featuring in Brendan Rodgers plans and he couldn't get into the Belgian national squad because he could not get a game in the UK.

"I believe Leicester had a loan fee of around £3-4 million which would have come off the guaranteed sale price at the end of the loan deal. Clubs want it written into the contract that they have to purchase the player after a loan spell.

"That kind of deal on the table will put a lot of teams off signing a player. Some clubs just want a stop-gap signing for a few months with no option to buy. Clubs then look at their players and then say, 'shall we give him a shop window because we want to sell him?'

"So in the case of Jota, he hasn't played many games for Benfica in three seasons, I think it is just 27 in all, and my opinion is that Benfica doesn't think he will threaten the first team squad any time soon.

"Therefore they wanted him out on loan to use that as a way of getting him out permanently. Celtic may well have said we will take him on loan as a kind of try-before-you-buy.

"An option to purchase is the best outcome here for Celtic. If it doesn't work out then you just pay the loan fee, shake hands and move on.

"So Benfica has said we want £6.5 million and they will probably have asked for £1 million option fee and if you buy him you pay us £5.5 million more.

"The £1 million will cover Jota's wages if Celtic don't take up the option to buy. That's how these deals tend to work.

"The downside of this kind of deal is that if Jota does well then there is no guarantee you will remain in the box seat to purchase come summer. What teams will try and do is the guaranteed purchase option. Option to purchase is not always what a club wants.

"Benfica will want a guaranteed purchase and will insert a clause saying something like if Jota plays 40 or 50 games for Celtic then they will have to buy him.

"Understandably many clubs try and stay away from that. I think this is Celtic's way of erring on the side of caution, trying before they buy and sticking an option to purchase and if he does well then we know the figure at the end. If he doesn't do well then they'll pay the loan fee and that is it.

"Do I see Jota signing for Celtic at the £6.5 million asking price come the summer? I'm not so sure as it will all depend on the variables that I have spoken about stacking up. Celtic will have to weigh up whether it represents value for money.

"If that offer is a straightforward option to buy for £6.5 million and there are no trigger clauses in there or anything else then it will be up to Celtic to turn round and say they can afford him in the present football climate and more importantly that they want him.

"The downside is that if he rips it up in Scotland an EPL club like Brighton come in for him then he will probably go to Brighton."

Amazingly Corcoran also revealed that English clubs could have purchased ex-Celtic Virgil Van Dijk from Groningen for as little as £1.6 million back in 2013.

The Dutch defender ended up joining Celtic before clinching a £13 million to Southampton in 2015 before a mind-boggling £75 million switch to Liverpool in 2107.

Yet astonishingly there were no EPL takers originally for Van Dijk, Corcoran said: "I remember trying to sell Virgil Van Dijk to every single EPL team for £1.6 million from Groningen. Nobody was interested and he ended up at Celtic because they paid the money for him.

"Groningen wanted a permanent deal back then and they did not want to entertain a loan with an option to buy because they needed the money. Back then Celtic took the chance and it turned out to be a good move for Van Dijk.

"Ironically with Brexit now, Van Dijk would not have been able to come to the UK as he would not have got a work permit because he was not involved with the Dutch national side.

"In that window, we were working on deals to punt Van Dijk and James Tarkowski for a combined total of £2 million. Now it would cost you in the region of £125 million to buy the pair of them!"