Sligo Rovers have sold Aidan Keena to League One side Cheltenham Town after they met the release clause in the striker’s contract.
heltenham have paid a club record fee in the region of €85,000 to bring in last season’s League of Ireland top scorer.
Keena hit the net 21 times in his solitary season with the Bit’O’Red and put pen to paper on a long-term contract last July.
But, crucially, it included a release clause for English and Scottish clubs that expressed an interest.
League of Ireland champions Shamrock Rovers were keen to bring in Keena over the winter but the clause did not apply to Irish clubs and Sligo Rovers had no desire to sell to another Irish outfit.
However, there was always the possibility that interest from overseas would weaken John Russell’s hand ahead of the new season.
Cheltenham director of football Micky Moore said Keena was their priority this month.
“Aidan was our number one target of the window,” he said, “We’ve worked really hard to fight off a lot of competition.”
Mullingar native Keena (23) has already spent time across the water with Hearts, Hartlepool and Falkirk.
But returning back to Ireland gave him the confidence to propel his game to another level. He was in pre-season action with Rovers over the weekend but has traveled to England for the next stage of his career with Cheltenham battling to stay in their division.