A Glasgow boy with strong Donegal connections, Aidan Cannon, has signed a three year professional contract with Glasgow giants Celtic.
A son of Joe Cannon from Falcarragh, Aidan, 16, has kept his Irish roots and plays for the Republic of Ireland at underage level, and has most recently represented the Republic of Ireland at under-16 level
The Scottish Champions, who won their 10th league title in 11 years, announced nine academy youngsters that have signed pro deals, including Cannon, along with: Aiden Haddow, Colby Donovan, Thomas Hatton, Josh Dede, Daniel Cummings, Kyle Ure, Eseosa Sule and Mitchel Frame.
Head of Celtic Youth Academy, Chris McCart said to the club website of the current intake: “Congratulations of all of our young graduates who have signed their first professional contract with Celtic this summer. This is a very proud moment for all the players and their families.
“Every one of these graduates have come through our Academy system joining us between the ages of seven and nine-years-old, starting off with our Junior Academy. This is the same pathway that James, Callum and Kieran took to join Celtic.
“This current group have all attended our partnership performance school, St Ninian’s High School in Kirkintilloch. They have benefited from our programme combining their football development while progressing their education.
“Hopefully they can follow in the footsteps of previous graduates like Kieran Tierney, Jack Hendry, Anthony Ralston, Michael Johnston and Stephen Welsh to become a regular in our first team.
“All of our staff who have worked with these players over the years, take a real pride in following the players’ development pathway through each age and stage on their journey at Celtic. It is important that we acknowledge the dedication of our staff to deliver their very best for each individual player.
“The importance of applying yourself in all that you do has been most apparent throughout all the players’ time in our programme and our advice to every player is that commitment to learning must continue.
“We wish all of the graduates every success in the future.”
