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Fullname: Hayato Inamura
aka: –
Born: 6 May 2002
Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
Signed: 4 July 2025 (£250,000 from Albirex Niigata)
Loan out: FC Tokyo (4 Jan 2025- 31 May 2026)
Left: –
Position: Defender, Centre-half, left-back
Debut: Celtic 3-0 Livingston, SP, 23 Aug 2025
Squad No.: 25
Internationals: […]
International Caps: [TBC at end of career]
International Goals: [TBC at end of career]
Biog
“There really was a difference in football ability”
Hayato Inamura (2026)
Inamura arrived at Celtic from Japan with expectations more measured than previously for the aspiring Asian players. After the success of the first wave of players from Japan under Ange Postecoglou, the next wave of players were a mixed bag, and so hopes were more measured.
Inamura joined on a four year deal from Japanese side, Albirex Niigata, and as a defender it was expected that he would get gametime through the season to win some experience.
He played in some friendly matches before earning his debut in a 3-0 league win v Livingston, alongside fellow debutant Shin Yamada. Easy victory, but Inamura gained some plaudits from some, being tidy & combative in his debut which boded well. He was unfortunate to not make a name for himself when a cross into the box to Shin Yamaa wasn’t converted, but a great start.
However, before he really even had a chance to further prove himself, Brendan Rodgers remarked publicly that he didn’t see Inamura was not to be part of the plans for the season:
“He’s not quite at the level as of yet that I would expect. The plan for Inamura was to come in and train and see where he was at with the possibility of going out on loan because he’s only had a year’s football.”
Not very encouraging for the player, and sadly he was not to play another game with the first team. Must add that Celtic were to be highly dysfuntional, with Rodgers sacked/leaving before Martin O’Neill returned for the first of two interim managerial roles, and not forgetting the calamitous disastrous short-lived reign of Wilfried Nancy. Not an easy environment for any new young player to Celtic, the UK and European football to find his feet.
It was no surprise when he was loaned out in January back to Japan (to FC Tokyo), which was likely a good move. In the circumstances of an imploding club, a declining confidence in the stable of East Asian players, maybe it was best to get away.
To give the player credit, he humbly acknowledged the challenge:
“It was difficult in many ways. It was a tough time for me. There are things I can say and things I can’t say. But there really was a difference in football ability I was confident I could reach that level if I could play in the games, but I wasn’t given the chance. And I had mental ups and downs. Daizen Maeda told me I could definitely launch my career again if I returned home to Japan and that encouraged me. After thinking about what I needed for my career, I decided to move to FC Tokyo. I want to test myself and work hard to reach a higher level.”
Inamura (2026)
[….]
Quotes
“He was still a university student when he suddenly became one of the most promising centre backs in the J.League to watch last season.”
Transfermarkt J.League data scout and expert on Japanese football, Yuta Izawa (June 2025)
“To bring a player in, we’ll assess and see where he’s at as a young player. And then it’s whether he stays with the squad or whether he has to go out on loan.”
Brendan Rodgers on Inamura’s signing (not the most confidence inducing introduction for any player) (July 2025)
“He’s not quite at the level as of yet that I would expect. The plan for Inamura was to come in and train and see where he was at with the possibility of going out on loan because he’s only had a year’s football.”
Brendan Rodgers (Aug 2025)
“I decided to join this club after thinking about what I need to achieve my goals. I will do my best to absorb various things from great players, both as a soccer player and as a person, and to perform well. When I was a member of U-15 Fukagawa, these words, ‘strong and loved,’ were always the image of the players and team we aimed to be. We are still far from that, but I will accept my own weaknesses and the disappointment of last year, gain various experiences, and do my best to become that kind of player.”
Inamura (Jan 2026)
“There really was a difference in football ability,”
Hayato Inamura
Playing Career
[Table to indicate clubs played for, including dates, transfers and fees where known [e.g. soccerbase table]]
| APPEARANCES (subs) |
LEAGUE | SCOTTISH CUP | LEAGUE CUP | EUROPE | TOTAL |
| 2025-26 | 1 | – | – | – | 1 |
| Goals | 0 | – | – | 0 | |
| 2026-27 | |||||
| Goals | |||||
| 2027-28 | |||||
| Goals | |||||
| 2028-29 | |||||
| Goals | |||||
| Total | |||||
| Goals |
Honours with Celtic
(Honours are marked below in which the player has played in at least one of the matches in the campaign.)
Scottish League
- […complete at end of 2025-26 season…]
Scottish Cup
- […]
Scottish League Cup
- […]
Pictures
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Articles
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Notes
- The standard in the Far East is for the surname to come first, so note you may see in various reports his name written as Inamura Hayato, but in the West it is formally put as Hayato Inamura. Inamura is his surname.
Articles
Announced by Albirex Niigata he has left to join ‘an overseas club’ (not us named this time like when Kobe jumped the gun but everything but). All Japanese newspapers reporting this morning he’s arrived in Scotland to join Celtic.
https://www.albirex.co.jp/news/67990/
We would like to inform you that our player Hayato Inamura (23) has left the team as of June 29 in order to begin the necessary procedures and preparations for a transfer to an overseas club. Details regarding his future will be announced once they are officially finalized.
⸻
Hayato INAMURA
• Position: Defender (DF)
• Date of Birth: May 6, 2002 (Age 23)
• Height/Weight: 182 cm / 72 kg
• Hometown: Tokyo
Career:
FC Tokyo U-15 Fukagawa → Maebashi Ikuei High School → Toyo University → Albirex Niigata
Match Record:
※ In the 2024 season, he was designated as a JFA/J.League special designated player.
• J1 League total: 28 appearances, 1 goal
• League Cup total: 7 appearances, 0 goals
• Emperor’s Cup total: 1 appearance, 0 goals
⸻
Comment from Hayato Inamura
To everyone who loves Albirex Niigata,
I have decided to pursue a move overseas, and as a result, I will be leaving the team.
First of all, I want to apologize for making this decision while the team is going through a difficult period.
Including my time as a special designated player before officially joining, I have been with Albirex Niigata for about two years. During that time, I received so much love and support from all of you, and I’m truly grateful.
When I heard my chant echo through the stadium on the opening day of this season, it gave me a strong sense of responsibility and awareness. I wanted to help this team win. I wanted to bring smiles to the supporters’ faces every week. That desire became my driving force.
“LA FAMILIA.”
It’s a word that supporters value deeply—and one that I love as well. I believe the warm, family-like atmosphere rooted in Niigata is Albirex’s greatest strength. That’s why I really wanted to express my passion for football and my dedication to the team more on the pitch at this club.
However, when I thought about my goals and worked backward from them, I came to the conclusion that now is the best time to take on the challenge of playing overseas. I understand that not everyone will be happy about this decision, but I will fight with everything I have so that someday you’ll say, “That decision was the right one,” and feel proud of me.
Lastly, to everyone involved with Albirex Niigata, and to all of you who supported our daily efforts—it’s because of you that I was able to grow here in Niigata. I was able to build the foundation of my career as a professional footballer thanks to all of you. I am truly grateful.
Carrying with me all the experiences I’ve gained in Niigata, I will now take on a new challenge. I will do my best to make you proud of the time we spent together. It was a short time—just about two years—but thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.
Hayato Inamura: I am excited to join Celtic
https://www.celticfc.com/news/2025/july/04/hayato-inamura-delighted-to-join-celtic/
First Team
By Celtic Football Club
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04 Jul 2025, 6:30 pm
Celtic are delighted to announce the signing of Hayato Inamura, who has joined the club on a four-year deal from Japanese side, Albirex Niigata, subject to international clearance.
The 23-year-old defender becomes the latest player to arrive at Celtic during this transfer window, and he will also link up with fellow countrymen, Daizen Maeda and Reo Hatate.
Celtic manager, Brendan Rodgers said: “We’re delighted to bring Hayato to Celtic and we’re looking forward to working with him.
“He’s a young player full of promise and potential. I know that he’s delighted to be taking this next step in his career by joining us, and we look forward to welcoming him into the squad.”
Hayato Inamura, who will wear the No.25 jersey, like his fellow countryman and Celtic great, Shunsuke Nakamura, is delighted to have joined the Scottish Champions.
He told Celtic TV: “Many Japanese players have had success at this club. Across the world, this is a massive club and is really well known. I am truly excited to be joining Celtic. It’s a huge opportunity for me.
“So far, even the current Japanese players have been performing at a high level. I think that is why there are expectations on Japanese players. I really want to live up to those expectations and do my best.
“The reason why I chose 25 is because out of the options I was given, that one really stood out to me.
“Then obviously regarding Nakamura, I used to imitate his kicking style when I was a kid. He was one of my favourite players.”
“There really was a difference in football ability,” Hayato Inamura
thecelticstar.com/there-really-was-a-difference-in-football-ability-hayato-inamura/
Hayato Inamura has been speaking about his time in Scotland after returning to Japan to join FC Tokyo on loan just six months after signing for Celtic. The left-back joined Celtic from J-League side Albirex Niigata, signing a four year deal and was one of the summer arrivals that Brendan Rodgers labelled as ‘club signings’.
He made one competitive appearance in the win at Celtic Park at the start of the season and played very well. However Brendan Rodgers had concerns about the level the player was at, especially defensively, after working with him during the pre-season and the early weeks of the season.
Speaking to The Celtic Star, Brendan Rodgers was asked by Conor Spence about his decision to omit Inamura from his Champions League squad ahead of the ill-fated qualifier against Kairat Almaty. The then Celtic manager replied:
“He’s not quite at the level as of yet that I would expect. The plan for Inamura was to come in and train and see where he was at with the possibility of going out on loan because he’s only had a year’s football.
“He came in as a centre half stroke left back, but his defensive qualities aren’t at the level that would see me put him in. So it’s as simple as that. So that’s why he’s not involved.
“He’s played in some really good games against Cork and Queen’s Park, but the reality is that’s the level that you play, you get 80% of the ball and you’ve got the ball. But we also need a player that can defend. And we’re hoping that over the couple of years with experience and with maybe a loan, that can that that can take place.
“But at this very, very moment, that’s why he’s not in the squad. It’s as simple as that,” Brendan Rodgers told The Celtic Star.
So in many ways the return to Japan for a loan spell is hardly unexpected, indeed such a move was always in the plan and perhaps advice that the player has been given from Daizen Maeda has influenced the choice of club for the loan especially as the player has now spoken about things being tough for him in Scotland.
Hayato Inamura has been talking about leaving Celtic to join FC Tokyo on loan until the end of the season.
“It was difficult in many ways. It was a tough time for me. There are things I can say and things I can’t say. But there really was a difference in football ability,” Inamura said as reported by Scottish Sun.
“I was confident I could reach that level if I could play in the games, but I wasn’t given the chance. And I had mental ups and downs.
“Daizen Maeda told me I could definitely launch my career again if I returned home to Japan and that encouraged me. After thinking about what I needed for my career, I decided to move to FC Tokyo. I want to test myself and work hard to reach a higher level.
“My first priority will be to break into the team because there are good players here.”
Whether we’ll see much of Hayato Inamura in a Celtic jersey over the next three seasons remains to be seen. Getting more game-time in Japan is going to help a perhaps another loan spell in Scotland or maybe south of the border may help his development.
What is clear is that the player, by his own admission and by the assessment of Brendan Rodgers, is currently well short of the level required at Celtic, although standards have been slipping recently.
flatbackground of KDS:
This signing and the way it’s been handled is really illustrative of the problems at Celtic and why fans like myself have been so disgruntled for about a year. I just want to go through it from my point of view because I think it illuminates a few things.
First off, it’s a very cheap signing, so it’s ‘low risk’ in that regard, but we’ll get back to that issue.
Inamura joined relatively early last summer, before all the panic about the window being a catastrophe could really set in. But there were two things that really stuck out about the signing at the time.
1) He wasn’t a very decorated player in the JLeague. He was relatively inexperienced, at a team who were towards the bottom of the table, and from looking at stats available online (things like aeriel duels won, and even just his height) he appeared to lack physicality.
That didn’t necessarily mean he was a bad player, but straight away your mind turned to Kobayashi (a much more experienced/successful J League centre back) who arrived here and struggled.
But ok, you’re hoping that the club know something we as fans don’t. And in some ways, with a signing like Inamura, you get the feeling that there must be some kind of clever, advanced, scouting process going on. They must be diving deep to find this guy. There’s got to be more to it than I can discern from 5 mins on Fotmob, right?
Then we get the 2nd part of this process.
The player’s arrival is reported and Rodgers is asked about it at a press conference and very obviously hints that he has nothing to do with this signing. Furthermore, he made a comment about getting a look at Inamura in preseason before deciding what to do with him. That’d be ok if Inamura was 5 years younger, but it’s a strange way to talk about a 23 year old.
Now, I don’t care as much as some people about managers getting to choose their signings. I don’t think signings are a way of ‘backing the manager’. The players belong to the club; the manager usually eff off quicker than half the players do. So I didn’t care about whether Rodgers personally wanted Inamura. But his comments were worrying nonetheless, because they pointed to a complete lack of strategy- whether Rodgers’ or from above- in terms of the recruitment at Celtic.
I remember very clearly watching CelticAm around this time and Hamish (I ended up repeating this point in conversation with someone the same day) saying that he hopes Celtic will bring Inamura in and be aggressive about loaning him out- maybe in Scotland- and ensuring he develops. Even before he arrived it was clear that the one thing we shouldn’t do was let him waste half a season in the stands, by which point he’d be too old to have any shot of realistically kicking on. ‘Get him straight out on loan to Falkirk. He’s a passer and they play good football’; even before I’d ever seen him I remember this was the talk.
But deep down you knew Celtic wouldn’t have a plan. You knew they would follow a series of inevitable and utterly predictable steps: 1) Inamura would arrive and take part in preseason, 2) He would obviously (again, this is an inexperienced, physically slight, CB from the bottom end of the J League) not be at the required level in the eyes of the manager, 3) He would be kept around because we lacked cover at LB and CB, and we would be very slow to sign any actual 1st team contenders. 4) When those players arrived, Inamura would be an afterthought and maybe he’d go out on loan to a random club, or maybe we wouldn’t even get round to it and he’d rot for a few months.
Now, this isn’t an expensive signing. It’s not some sort of calamitous situation (those would be later in the window). But the sheer ineptitude on display, the fact that everything about it was so predictable but nobody at Celtic seemed to anticipate any of it just made it utterly galling.
As fans, we’re watching: Celtic post record turnover; sign a 23 year old (not a youth) for the kind of fee/salary St Mirren could afford with about 5% of our wagebill; have no loan destination in mind even though he obviously will not be ready to play for Celtic; keep him around simply because we can’t get other deals done; waste his time/talent (if any) and when all is said and done set fire to probably about £1m (fee plus wages) for absolutely no reason.
There were loads of other, bigger, problems that summer. But the Inamura episode is a good one for anyone who’s wondering why the anger among Celtic fans has been so white hot for so long. We were watching this unfold while other domestic rivals appeared to be modernising and we knew that the people (let’s be honest; one person and some stuffed shirts) running Celtic were clueless. We knew they wouldn’t keep getting away with this sheer incompetence for much longer.