CELTIC are preparing to thrash out new deals with Reo Hatate and Liel Abada.
The Japanese midfielder and the Israeli winger, both under contract until June 2026, will be offered lucrative extensions, according to a report in the Daily Record.
Hatate and Abada have been been involved in transfer speculation this summer and Brendan Rodgers is keen to get the immediate futures of both players sorted before the August 31 midnight transfer deadline.
AIR WE GO…Liel Abada and Reo Hatate in a moment of Celtic celebration.
The 25-year-old playmaker has been linked with Premier League outfit Brighton and the megabucks Saudi Pro League which lured Filipe Jota from the treble winners last month after the club accepted a £25million bid from Al-Ittihad and the Portuguese maverick agreed a life-altering £10million per season tax-free four-year switch.
Likewise, Abada, who cost £3.5million from Israeli top-flight side Maccabi Petah Tikva in July 2021, has been mentioned along with a host of European clubs including Benfica, Sporting Lisbon, Ajax and Fenerbahce plus, inevitably, he has also been involved in Middle East reports.
The international wide Bhoy, 21, has proved to be a big-game player for the Hoops and emphasised that invaluable quality again in the last game of the previous season when he came off the substitutes’ bench in the Scottish Cup Final against Inverness Caley Thistle at Hampden.
Abada whipped in the champions’ second goal and set up the third for Jota in the 3-1 triumph that sealed the club’s world record eighth treble.
Rodgers now wants Hatate to join his countrymen Kyogo Furuhashi and Daizem Maeda and sign an extension while he is eager to end the speculation that has followed the Israeli for at least a year.
