Luis Palma’s summer transfer to Celtic was fraught with challenges, as revealed by the player’s agent, Paulo Hernandez.
The Hoops finally managed to secure the Honduran international’s move from Aris Thessaloniki only in the closing stages of the summer transfer window.
The addition of Palma was particularly crucial for Celtic after they saw their star man, Jota, depart for Al-Ittihad in Saudi Arabia earlier in July. With the gap left by Jota looming large, it took Celtic almost two before they could announce Palma’s arrival – Jota’s replacement.
Many fans had directed their anger to Celtic for the delay, especially when the links were extremely strong, yet nothing seemed to be happening from Celtic’s side.
There were some added delays due to paperwork, which saw the player travel via Dubai just in case of any lengthy hold-up.
Luis Palma’s agent revealed that his former club were to be blamed for the transfer. Hernandez told Honduran outlet Diez:
“Luis’s was frankly complex. He belonged to a team where the president negotiated in a particular way, long contract, he had the strength to be able to retain their player. Fortunately, Celtic came with a lot of interest and a lot of strength for Luis and the arrangement was made.
“But I tell you that the operation was fallen, lifted, fallen, lifted and we were easily 12 fighting it. It happened in part because of the player’s intention to go to Scotland and not listen to other offers, and the people of Vida [Palma’s old club] and their president Luis Cruz for whom I have a lot of respect and gratitude for helping the player.
“I also can’t forget that I understand in part the president of Aris, that he was the one who bet on Luis Palma when he came from Honduras, from a small team, took the risk and was right to demand what he thought had to be demanded for Palma because he was the only one who took the risk at the time.”
