Kevin Muscat insists he won't block Ange Postecoglou's calls if the Celtic boss comes ringing for more of his stars.
The Australian took over as boss at Yokohama F. Marinos following his countryman's decision to try his hand in Glasgow. Postecoglou has regularly raided the J League for talent and has taken Daizen Maeda and most recently Tomoki Iwata from his former employers.
It's part of the business model at Yokohama according to Muscat, who tells Optus Sport that increased attention in the Japanese market can still bag clubs like Celtic a bargain. When asked over whether he won’t be 'screening Postecoglou’s phone calls during the transfer market just yet', the former Rangers man said: "Not every time! It's more me bothering him than him bothering me. So I wouldn't do that. I understand the model of the club and I understood that when I first arrived 18 months ago.
“We as a club and the parent company pride themselves on giving opportunities to players first to come in and play our football. And then with success, however that's defined, you get opportunities to move on.
“That is going to be ongoing, it's the model of the club, you've got to embrace it and work towards it. If you want to be successful after success, all those things can add to it. But I look at them and go, well, anything's possible.
"Even when I was in Belgium there were many Japanese players in Belgium, Germany and Holland and places like that. But the exposure maybe wasn't as big to the rest of the UK.
"And then once the Premier League got hold of a few, then obviously the exposure is tenfold because of the exposure of the biggest league in the world. And then all of a sudden this caught the spotlight with 10, 12, 15, Japanese players in Germany and another 20 in Belgium.
"It'd be really interesting to see what sort of numbers we get to have and the World Cup has helped as well. But I just think the boys going to Celtic and the Premier League brought it I suppose to the forefront of everyone's mind.
"It's still to this day, not something that I want to advertise, but it's still a relatively cheap market for Europe. And I say that with a little bit of reluctance because we're losing players all the time.
"But what that does do is give an opportunity for next generation of players. We've got the captain of the next Olympic intake in our squad so we embrace that, we love it."
