It is widely known that Celtic missed out on the chance to sign John McGinn before he headed from Hibs to Aston Villa for £3.5million.
But it has now emerged another Scottish side passed up on the chance to snap him up for a much cheaper price.
Former Dundee United chairman Stephen Thompson has been speaking in recent days and admitted he had gone bankrupt.
But he has also made some transfer revelations about selling a key duo and also missing out on McGinn and another star.
Dundee United sale of Gary Mackay-Steven and Stuart Armstrong
During Thompson’s tenure, Dundee United had some of the best young players in Scottish football.
Those included Ryan Gauld, John Souttar, Gary Mackay-Steven and Stuart Armstrong, among others.
It was the sale of the last two that caused consternation with the fans and ruined Thompson’s relationship with them.
United had a cup final against Celtic coming up when the Hoops showed an interest in the talented pair in the January.
It was thought the Tannadice side wouldn’t sell to them in those circumstances but they did end up going for over £2m all in.
The Tangerines lost the final and were relegated 18 months later with many fans attributing that transfer window as the start of the downfall.
Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland’s Off The Ball show on Saturday, Thompson said: “We were going into a cup final, but the problem was that we had a hole in the cash flow of £400,000 to £500,000 coming up six weeks later.
“That’s the reason we did it.
“Do I regret it? It’s probably the one thing I do regret, because we had a good chance against Celtic in the final and we didn’t (win it).
“That’s where things changed for me with the fans, and it’s never been the same since.”
Dundee United passed on McGinn and Jackson Irvine
Just as bad for United fans will be discovering that they possibly could have had both John McGinn and Jackson Irvine but Thompson claims then manager Jackie McNamara didn’t want them.
He explained how the club had made a £60,000 bid for McGinn and were asked if they would up it to £150,000. McNamara apparently said no and had the same response when offered Irvine.
McGinn has captained Aston Villa in the Champions League and is a Scotland hero while Irvine is the captain of the Australia national team.
The former Tannadice chief said: “I was sitting in a hotel with Peter Lawwell and Gordon Strachan, and I got a call from a guy who works for me saying we had an offer of £60,000 in for John McGinn and do we want to up the bid?
“I said, ‘to what? About £150,000?’
“But I needed to phone the manager. I told the manager, and he said no, we didn’t want him anymore. So, I didn’t up the bid.
“At the same meeting, Peter Lawwell said we could have Jackson Irvine for a 30% sell-on and, again, I phoned up and it was, ‘no, we don’t want him’. This is the summer before we got relegated, and Jackson Irvine is the captain of Australia now.
“There were a lot of decisions that happened that summer that defined us getting relegated that season.”