Celtic break their transfer record for Kasper Hogh days after selling Maeda to Ipswich
Two days after agreeing a deal worth up to 10 million pounds for Daizen Maeda, Celtic have gone past their club record to sign Bodo/Glimt’s Denmark striker.
Jul 27, 2026
Celtic sold Daizen Maeda on Saturday and broke their transfer record two days later. The Japan forward is an Ipswich Town player now, and Kasper Hogh was due in London on Monday for a medical before travelling north to put pen to paper.
The fee for Hogh is 11 million pounds plus add-ons, which takes it past the 11 million Celtic gave Augsburg for Arne Engels in August 2024. Engels had broken a record that stood since 2018, when Celtic paid nine million for Odsonne Edouard. The Denmark striker is expected to sign a four-year contract with the option of a fifth.
What Bodo/Glimt are selling
Hogh is 25 and has 53 goals in 102 appearances for the Norwegian club. The number that will interest Celtic more is the five he scored in last season’s Champions League, in 12 appearances, as Bodo/Glimt reached the round of 16. No Dane has scored more in a single Champions League campaign; Nicklas Bendtner managed five in 2009-10 and Rasmus Hojlund did the same in 2023-24. Add his assists and Hogh finished with eight goal involvements in the competition.
Martin O’Neill, confirmed as Celtic’s permanent manager in June, has been blunt about why that matters. “For most of the time that I was here last season, we struggled to score goals,” he said. “We didn’t have that recognised striker.”
On Hogh specifically: “That’s the calibre of player that we’d be looking for, who has scored goals in the Champions League.”
Four and a half years, 79 goals, one exit
Maeda leaves for an initial eight million pounds with two million in add-ons, on a three-year deal at Portman Road. He is 28, joined on loan from Yokohama F Marinos on the last day of 2021 and signed permanently the following May, and made 212 appearances in all competitions for Celtic, scoring 79 goals and setting up 38 more. Five Premiership titles, three Scottish Cups and two League Cups went with them. He finished last season at a gallop too, nine goals in his final seven matches, and scored for Japan in their 1-1 draw with Sweden at the World Cup on 25 June.
“I will obviously miss him, but I’m delighted for him at the same time, genuinely delighted for him,” O’Neill said.
The maths of a title defence
Celtic won the Premiership last season by the narrowest route available, going into the final day second and beating Hearts 3-1 to take a fifth straight title and their 56th overall. A squad that needed that kind of finish is not one you leave alone.
Selling a 28-year-old forward for 10 million and spending 11 million on a 25-year-old who scored five times in the Champions League is defensible arithmetic. It only works if Hogh settles quickly. O’Neill has said what he wants from the signing, and a striker bought to fix a goalscoring problem tends to be judged on it by about October.