I’m a wee bit later with this today for one simple reason: Tony Haggerty and I were producing an extra piece of content for you all.

We spoke to our fellow journalist and broadcaster Juan Arango to break down Alexandro Bernabei’s reportedly imminent move to Celtic.

Topics we covered with Juan included his tactical profile (sneak peek: he is lightning in a bottle going forward but – and this is a quote – his defending can “sometimes look like he’s only got five minutes to get out of bed and get to work”), his career to date and his coachability while we also addressed any potential physicality concerns, his temperament, his work with Javier Mascherano and much, much more.

You can watch the whole thing here.

It’s also a good opportunity to tell you that – after several requests throughout the season – our weekday episodes of the Celtic Briefing are now available in audio format via all the normal podcast providers too.

What we didn’t get the chance to chat with Juan about when it came to Bernabei was the game of patience Celtic might need to play with him.

The 21-year-old ended his Lanus career with a straight red card in the 69th minute of the Argentine Primera Division side’s 1-0 home win over Colon.

With the subsequent ban imposed and Lanus having played just once more since then, he faces the prospect of being suspended when Celtic's competitive games get underway. Unless the Hoops hold off signing him until after Lanus have played enough, of course.

There’s every chance given the club’s recent track record of announcements that this hits your inboxes precisely 29 minutes before his signing is announced anyway but, regardless, it’s worth mentioning.

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If they do go ahead and sign him with the ban still in effect then it’s exceedingly likely it follows him to Parkhead. It seemed slightly odd to me that that would be the case given he would be arriving from a non-UEFA association. So I did a bit of digging – and I was wrong to think that.

FIFA’s Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players includes sections on both the FITC (the FIFA International Transfer Certificate, which is required to ratify the move) and the carryover of disciplinary issues. Section 3 Clause 12.1 states:

Any disciplinary sanction of up to four matches or up to three months that has been imposed on a player by the former association but not yet (entirely) served by the time of the transfer shall be enforced by the new association at which the player has been registered in order for the sanction to be served at domestic level. When issuing the ITC, the former association shall notify the new association via TMS of any such disciplinary sanction that has yet to be (entirely) served.

This, in conjunction with similar wording in the Scottish FA’s publication Suspensions for Players in Men’s Football, indicates Bernabei will have to serve the remaining time of his ban with Celtic regardless of the fact he is arriving from a non-UEFA member association.

That suggests if he arrives before Lanus have played enough then he’ll be unavailable for selection when the competitive matches start again.

So to recap: sign him now and just embrace that and hope Greg Taylor doesn't get injured or wait it out by not registering him until later but eliminate the worry in doing so. Either way, it’s a game of patience.

This piece is an extract from today’s Celtic Digest newsletter, which is emailed out at 4pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from The Celtic Way team. 

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