Celtic Pursue World Cup Star Haissem Hassan as Transfer Tensions Rise

Celtic have finally nudged the market into life. Sky Sports confirmed the club have lodged an official enquiry for Real Oviedo winger Haissem Hassan, the Egypt international who lit up the World Cup this summer.

At 24, with a year left on his contract in Spain, Hassan fits the modern Celtic template: hungry, upwardly mobile, and potentially sellable. He also fits a more urgent brief – a team that, as things stand, is heading into a Champions League play-off with barely a stitch of meaningful reinforcement.

A World Cup spark

Hassan’s stock rose sharply in the United States. The Egyptian winger impressed during the 2026 World Cup, notably in the Round of 32 clash against Australia at Dallas Stadium in Arlington, where his direct running and composure on the ball caught the eye of scouts and executives alike.

Those performances have pushed him onto Celtic’s radar as a potential leading figure in Martin O’Neill’s next iteration of the side. The club are “exploring the conditions of a potential deal,” according to Scottish journalist Anthony Joseph, who confirmed the enquiry and the contract situation at Real Oviedo.

This is not a speculative glance. It is a move prompted by need.

Deals lost, trust strained

Celtic’s summer so far has been defined less by arrivals and more by what – and who – has slipped away.

Kelechi Iheanacho and Marcelo Saracchi, central to last season’s dramatic title-winning surge in May, were at the top of O’Neill’s retention list. The manager wanted them tied down early. He made that clear to CEO Michael Nicholson and CFO Chris McKay, seeing both as cornerstones for the “major surgery” required in this window.

Instead, the club lowballed. Negotiations stalled. The pair were allowed to walk away from Paradise.

The fallout has been brutal for the manager. Once again, he is left exposed, the public face of a project undermined by an approach in the boardroom that appears driven by resale value rather than footballing need. Neither Iheanacho nor Saracchi offered significant future profit on paper. On the pitch, they offered something far more valuable: continuity and proven quality.

To make matters worse, the club were accused of briefing the mainstream media with a skewed version of Iheanacho’s wage demands. That narrative did not survive long. Updates from Turkey quickly challenged the suggestion that the Nigerian’s requests were unreasonable, leaving supporters to draw their own conclusions about who was shaping the story.

Maeda talks raise the stakes

Just as Celtic fans were digesting those missteps, another key name moved closer to the exit door.

Ipswich Town have now officially opened talks with Celtic over a possible deal for Daizen Maeda. The Japanese forward, whose tireless work and crucial goals have become a feature of recent seasons, could be the next major departure from a squad already stripped of Iheanacho and Saracchi.

Against that backdrop, the Hassan enquiry feels less like ambition and more like damage limitation. The pattern is familiar: players are ushered out before replacements are seriously pursued. The wage bill is trimmed, the squad thinned, and the football side of the operation is told to make do.

The cost of delay

The clock is not Celtic’s friend. The UEFA Champions League play-off looms once again, the financial and sporting stakes as high as ever. Yet the “constant feet-dragging and dithering and delaying” that almost cost them last season is still woven into this window.

Former captain Paul Lambert has already sounded the alarm, joining a growing list of voices warning that Celtic will not escape unscathed a second time. Last year’s narrow avoidance of disaster has not sparked the decisive action many hoped for. Instead, the club approach another crucial European gateway without three of last season’s key contributors and with only tentative movement in the market.

Hassan, then, becomes a symbol as much as a target. A World Cup standout, a 24-year-old with one year left on his deal, a winger who could energise a tired attack and offer O’Neill a fresh weapon out wide. On paper, it makes sense.

But Celtic have been here before: linked, interested, enquiring, “exploring conditions” while the games edge closer and the squad remains short.

For a club that once prided itself on bold, early moves, the question now hangs heavy over Glasgow’s east end: will this be the summer they finally act with conviction, or another window where promise is left on the table and opportunity slips away?