Celtic have entered the Israeli market with mixed success over the years, and now according to a report in Daily Record, we may be about to consider that market again.

Midfielder Mohammad Abu Fani of Israeli champions Maccabi Haifa is the player reported to be being scouted by Celtic as Israel take part in Nations League matches starting with this evening’s meeting with Iceland.

Fani is 24 and already has a significant amount of competitive football under his belt.

As well as 13 caps for Israel, the versatile midfielder who has played as a deep lying defensive midfielder – as well as an attacking midfielder and a central midfielder – has played 99 times for his current club scoring ten goals and assisting with a further seven, and for previous club Hapoel Hadira, Fani played a further 49 times scoring five and assisting four more times and a further 30 times prior to this for Hapoel Ramat Gan.

It’s an excellent amount of top-level football for 24-year-old and it has also encompassed European experience in both Champions League qualifying as well as the Europa League and most recently in the Europa Conference League.

It’s said Celtic will face competition for the player’s signature from the likes of Europa League Champions – God bless them – Eintracht Frankfurt, and Belgian clubs Standard Liege and Royal Antwerp, with a fee of £800,000 apparently enough to secure the services of the player.

Celtic of course signed the now departed Nir Bitton, Liel Abada and Hatem abd Elhamed from Israeli football, and agent Dudu Dahan often appears to the facilitator of deals for Celtic in that part of the world. As such there may be more commission to be had for Dahan with this particular deal, indeed it may even give Celtic something of an edge over the other clubs credited with an interest in Fani.

Fani is probably more renowned in the UK for his taunting of Spurs and England striker Harry Kane than he is for his football, but perhaps that’s about to change –

He is also the player who managed to keep the ball in the corner of the pitch to waste time in tempestuous clash with Maccabi Tel Aviv, so it appears he may be something of an interesting character to add to the Celtic squad. That one is well worth a watch!

Mohammad Abu Fani from Maccabi Haifa keeps the ball near the corner flag for 2 minutes straight against Maccabi Tel Aviv from soccer

It remains to be seen if this one is just another scouting mission for Celtic or if the interest in Fani has moved beyond that just yet, but if Celtic’s interest is genuine this lad looks like he’ll bring some entertainment and confidence to Celtic alongside his footballing ability.

Niall J

GET YOUR INVINCIBLE AND TWICE AS GOOD T-SHIRTS NOW FREE WITH MATT CORR’S BRILLIANT CELTIC BOOKS

You want one of these? It’s completely FREE when you purchase INVINCIBLE or TWICE AS GOOD* from Celtic Star Books website, just click on the relevant link below to order your copy and when you do select the BOOK you want then add the T-SHIRT SIZE you require from Small, large, XL or XXL, adding that after your name so we’ll know which size to send you…(please note that all medium Invincible t-shirts are now sold out).

*£1 from every copy of Twice as Good will be donated to Marie Curie in memory of Harry Hood and in line with the wishes of the Hood family.

Order Invincible here…