Martin O'Neill was disappointed to miss out on signing Gvidas Gineitis and believes Celtic would be in the Champions League if the player had arrived ahead of their play-off loss to LASK.
That's the claim of the Torino midfielder's agent, Dmitri Vinokurov, who has lifted the lid on the Parkhead club's attempts to sign the player.
He has revealed that he and Gineitis had a video call with O'Neill and his coaches but no personal terms were ever agreed. Ultimately it didn't get that far as Celtic didn't meet the Italians' asking price.
Vinokurov has claimed that was down to people higher up at Parkhead, who didn't share the management's enthusiasm over the Lithuania international.
He told Lithuanian outlet LRT: "Personal terms with Guido [Gineitis] were never agreed. Celtic said they wanted to reach an agreement with Torino first. It’s usually the other way around. I can say that the interest from the coaching staff and their sports people was genuine.
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"We had a video call with the coaches, they were very positive about Guido. But ultimately, I think the main problem was that not everyone in the club’s management was as convinced about this transfer as the coaches.
"So, in the end, it all came down to Celtic’s final decision. When you’re making a transfer of this financial level, everyone on the buyer’s side has to agree. It’s usually four or five decision-makers, including the head coach.
"If one of them doesn’t want to do it for whatever reason, especially if it’s the person who’s in charge of the money, then it just doesn’t happen. I think if they had qualified for the Champions League, then we would have had more chances for this transfer.
"I think then Celtic would have satisfied the wishes of the Turin club. They would have just known that they would get more money from the Champions League, and they would have needed a stronger player.
“I know that after they had a fight in Austria, Mr. O’Neill went to the board and told them that if they had signed Gineitis and another of their targets earlier, Celtic would be in the Champions League now. And I think that’s true.”
