The Celtic goalkeeper Joe Hart is to retire at the end of the season. The former England and Manchester City player will be 37 when his three-year contract expires in the summer.
Hart made his first-team debut for Shrewsbury in April 2004 and won 75 England caps. He followed Sir Kenny Dalglish and Andrei Kanchelskis in claiming winners’ medals in the three major trophies in England and Scotland when Celtic won the Scottish Cup last season.
“This is something I have thought about for a while,” Hart told Celtic TV. “There’s no right or wrong time is there? But the way this club works is that I’m playing out at the moment. There’s so much on it. There’s so much heart and soul poured into what we’re doing as a football club.
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“But with the grand scheme of the club, with the support base, and the conversations that go on around it, there’s obviously a conversation around the goalkeeping position for next season.
“So I just think it was really important that with the blessing of the club – I’ve had the conversations with the club with Brendan [Rodgers], with Stevie Woods [goalkeeping coach] – we get the message out. It takes one thing off the table that people need to speculate over. I’m definitely not going to be there next season. I’m not going to be available to play football next season.”
Hart, who joined Celtic from Tottenham in 2021, said he still felt “great” physically and stressed his commitment as the club look to defend their Premiership title and the Scottish Cup.
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“I’m so up for it,” he said. “I’m so still so involved and still so committed … I appreciate the open-mindedness of the club and hopefully the open-mindedness of the fans when they see this and understand that this is not someone who’s checking out, this is someone who’s just letting people know because they think it’s important.”