Celtic Minnesota ‘Cell On’ card pulled out
Guaranteed money beyond the transfer fee, ‘big meaning’
The competition among clubs that have entered the race to recruit Cho Kyu-seong (25, Jeonbuk, photo), the goal scorer of the Korean national soccer team, is getting fiercer. Scottish Celtic guaranteed an amount equivalent to the transfer fee offered to Jeonbuk Hyundai, a team belonging to Cho Kyu-seong, and Minnesota United of the United States even pulled out a card for issuing permanent residency in the United States.
The three-way match between Celtic, Minnesota and Germany’s Mainz is going on, but Cho Kyu-seong said, “The ultimate goal is to advance to the Premier League (EPL)” and said he wanted to go to a team that can grow as much as possible.
European transfer market expert Fabrizio Romano posted on Twitter on the 11th (local time), “Celtic offered Jeonbuk Hyundai a 50% ‘sell-on’ as a condition of Kyu-Sung Cho’s contract.” Cell-on is money that is given to the player’s previous team for a portion of the transfer fee that occurs when a player transfers to another team. According to Scottish media The Scotsman, the Celtic negotiating team met with Jeonbuk Technical Director Park Ji-seong in England on the 10th and presented these conditions.
Celtic offered 3 million euros (about 4 billion won) for the transfer fee of Cho Kyu-sung, and then decided to apply 50% cell-on, but limit the upper limit to the transfer fee. Jeonbuk can receive up to 6 million euros from the transfer of Cho Kyu-seong.
According to Romano, American Major League Soccer (MLS) Minnesota also offered Cell-on as a condition for Cho Kyu-sung’s transfer. The cell-on ratio is 30%, which is lower than Celtic, but there is no upper limit on the total amount paid, and the transfer fee originally proposed reached 5 million euros. In addition, Minnesota guarantees the issuance of permanent residency in the United States even to Cho Kyu-sung’s family and is making efforts to recruit him.
Germany’s Mainz is said to have offered a transfer fee of close to 3 million euros, but has yet to mention a cell-on clause.
Cho Kyu-seong met with reporters at the club’s winter field training media camp held at the Jeonbuk clubhouse on the 12th and carefully expressed his desire to leave for Europe in the winter. He said, “All players have the same desire to go out as soon as a good opportunity comes,” he said. “The teams that want me now may not want me in the summer.” Then, as a final goal, he said, “All players want to go to the EPL.” Regarding the timing of the decision, he said, “We will make a decision as soon as possible.”
