Celtic were keen on adding Mihajlo Cvetković to Brendan Rodgers’ squad this season.
Celtic joined Red Star Belgrade, FK Partizan and top German clubs in the race to sign the 18-year-old last summer.
That’s according to Tuesday’s edition of Gazet van Antwerpen, who cover how Anderlecht beat Celtic and others for Cvetković’s signature. They paid €3m plus €500,000 bonuses and Čukarički retain a 15% sell-on clause.
The forward was in his final year of contract when he left Čukarički for the Belgian club. Their sporting director, Olivier Renard, was the first to act and made contact in January.
The Jupiler Pro League club faced competition from Celtic and unnamed German clubs. Red Star Belgrade and FK Partizan also pushed to sign the Serbia international, but he wasn’t keen on staying in his home country.
GVA report Renard personally met with the player to convince him Anderlecht was the best option. Although he had a good impression, the director is said to have ‘devised a bonus system’ to secure Cvetković’s services.
If the youngster makes a certain number of starts for Anderlecht’s first team, he’ll receive a bonus on top of the base salary.
Cvetković played 45 minutes from three games for Anderlecht so far and netted the winner against Standard Liège last weekend. He’s yet to make his first start, meaning the bonuses haven’t kicked in so far.
If Cvetković were to impress for Anderlecht regularly, Celtic and clubs from top European leagues could come to look for him in the future.
