Celtic Sacked Staff Member After Transfer List Leaked to Public

Scottish Premiership giants Celtic once sacked a staff member after it was found that their transfer list had been leaked to the public.

The Glasgow club have dominated domestic football in Scotland for the past 14 years, winning all bar one of the league titles contested in that time period.

They are currently tied level with Rangers for all-time league titles on 55.

But Brendan Rodgers' side are going through a mini-crisis at present, having failed to qualify for this season's Champions League.

They were knocked out at the final qualifying round stage by Kazakh side FC Kairat, missing out on a £40 million windfall as a result.

Fans have also launched protests against the club's board over their lack of activity in the transfer market, with the final day of the window seeing the club scramble to sign a new striker before eventually securing free agent Kelechi Iheanacho.

It is a departure away from years gone by, with the club able to attract the likes of Moussa Dembele, Kristoffer Ajer and Odsonne Edouard to Celtic Park before the turn of the decade.

A small number of players from that dominant era, including Tom Rogic, Mikael Lustig and Stefan Johansen, are all due to play in a Celtic Legends match against Manchester United on Saturday.

In April 2019, club chiefs sat down for a recruitment meeting in which various target positions were identified ahead of the 2019/20 season.

But a document detailing notes from the meeting was leaked to the press.

The document contained initials representing chief executive Peter Lawwell, largest shareholder Dermot Desmond and first team manager Neil Lennon among others.

Cleaner Maureen Quinn was subsequently sacked from her role, while her son Edward was suspended from his security role at the Celtic training ground.

Maureen told the Daily Record that the decision was a 'disgrace' and added: "I've done nothing wrong and I'm getting blamed for whatever this is. I know my son would do nothing wrong either. We're just scapegoats.

"I support Celtic because my son and husband do but I couldn't name half their players. I couldn't care less what's on a bit of paper. I was in tears. I'm gutted and sick for Edward, too."

Who was on Celtic's transfer list?

The list itself provides an insight into exactly why Celtic were so keen to keep things private.

The first name on the document was Luton right-back James Justin, who would subsequently join Premier League side Leicester - coincidentally signed for the club by Rodgers, who had long since ended his first spell as Celtic boss at the time.

Chelsea right-back Reece James, then on loan at Wigan, was also pencilled in as an option but his name was crossed out.

At centre-back, fellow Chelsea defender Fikayo Tomori - on loan at Derby, and now at AC Milan - was one of two potential targets, along with Huddersfield's Mathias 'Zanka' Jorgensen.

It was quickly spotted that Tomori's name was spelt incorrectly on the document, but the Daily Record reported that Celtic would launch an investigation into the leak and were treating it as a criminal matter.

The Hoops did not sign any of the targets listed on the document, with their most expensive signing that summer being the £7 million capture of centre-back Christopher Jullien from Toulouse.

But the deal that turned out to have the most success was the £250,000 capture of Jeremie Frimpong from Manchester City.

The Dutchman is now, of course, at Liverpool after leaving Bayer Leverkusen, but the German club initially signed him from Celtic for a fee of £11 million and a reported 30 per cent sell-on clause - meaning a significant windfall for the Scottish giants when he joined the Reds for £29.6 million in the summer.