Ibrox side Glasgow Rangers lost Billy Gilmour last month, and the Celtic supremo suggests it’s a “big risk” by the player.
Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell has claimed to The Glasgow Evening Times that Billy Gilmour might have made a mistake in leaving Rangers too early.
The 15-year-old prodigy joined Premier League champions Chelsea from Rangers last month following months of speculation about his future.
Sky Sports reported at the time that the Ibrox club would receive some £500,000 compensation for the midfielder, a product of the Gers’ youth academy.
The teenager had played for Rangers’ Under-20 side and trained with the senior squad prior to his switch to London.
But the Celtic chief believes that Scotland is far and away the best place for young players to develop, and points to the plight of Islam Feruz – who left the Hoops for Chelsea in 2014 and spent last season on loan at Royal Excel Mouscron – as a reason why the likes of Gilmour are taking a “big risk” when they leave so early.
“If you go somewhere else too early – and we saw this with the likes of Islam Feruz, maybe we’ll see it with Billy Gilmour – it is a big risk,” he said to The GET.
“The financial attraction is there, you can’t ignore that, but the right advice, unquestionably is to stay here and if it was my own son that is the same advice that I would be dispensing.”
You hope for Gilmour’s sake that his career will not go the same way as Feruz, who was 18 when he quit Celtic for the Blues, but time will tell.
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