{"id":809401,"date":"2026-07-18T05:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T05:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/809401\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T05:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T05:08:10","slug":"iheanacho-celtic-debacle-clarified-after-agent-goes-awol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/809401\/","title":{"rendered":"Iheanacho Celtic debacle clarified after agent goes AWOL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  When announcing Iheanacho&#8217;s arrival last September, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heraldscotland.com\/topics\/celtic-fc\/?ref=au\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Celtic<\/a> confirmed they had the option to extend his initial one-year deal by a further 12 months.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <img  width=\"100%\"\/>Kelechi Iheanacho scored nine goals for Celtic last season. (Image: Steve Welsh\/PA)\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  But they sought to renegotiate this summer, and we understand a deal worth \u00a312,000 per week \u2013 rising to \u00a317,000 per week with add-ons \u2013 was initially agreed for Iheanacho to remain at Parkhead before an official contract was signed.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  His agent then stopped responding to phone calls or emails, before returning to the table earlier this week demanding a contract worth \u00a347,000 per week.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Less than 48 hours later, Iheanacho had signed for Bursaspor in Turkey&#8217;s second division on a three-year deal worth \u00a347,000 per week.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Read more:\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Elsewhere, left-back Marcelo Saracchi recently confirmed via Instagram that he won&#8217;t be re-signing for Celtic this summer.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;Dear Celtic fans, I&#8217;m writing this to say goodbye. We had an intense, beautiful year together where we achieved so many of our goals,&#8221; Saracchi wrote on social media.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;My agent and I did absolutely everything within our power to make a return to Glasgow happen.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;I&#8217;m truly gutted that I won&#8217;t be able to continue at the club at this stage of my career. However, I know our paths will cross again in the future.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;I wish you all nothing but the best for what&#8217;s ahead. Thank you for everything.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When announcing Iheanacho&#8217;s arrival last September, Celtic confirmed they had the option to extend his initial one-year deal&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-809401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}