Talks are at an advanced stage to set up a partnership between Celtic and Karpaty Lviv .
It seems that more than a transfer was discussed when the January deal to sign Maryan Shved was concluded with the winger remaining with the Ukranian side on loan.
Celtic have links with various clubs worldwide, including Santos Laguna of Mexico but so far there has been no obvious playing benefits.
Finding an outlet to develop young players away from the 17 match Reserve League would be an obvious benefit with Karpaty Lviv enthusiastic to get the arrangement up and running.
Discussing the partnership Karpaty Director General, Oleg Smaliychuk, told The Sun: “Representatives of Celtic are watching him and they will come to Ukraine soon to visit us. We are hoping to start a cooperation between our clubs and establish a link.
“Maryan will be at our club for as long as we need him this season. If the season ends early for us and there is nothing to play for, then of course he will go to Scotland sooner.
“We want him to be successful in Scotland and the longer time he gets to adapt to his life at Glasgow, the better. The truth is we could have got more money by selling Maryan to another club. We had official offers from three clubs and the biggest bid was from a club that offered £500,000 more than Celtic. A big European club.
“Despite the speculation, Dynamo Kiev did not make an offer but I believe the player deserves the right to choose his career and nobody forced him into accepting the bigger offer.
“In the end, he told us he wanted to move to Celtic. And we were happy to conclude the transfer, even if we could have earned more money.”
Shved had a spell with Seville as a teenager but returned to Karpaty and is now on the fringes of the Ukranian national side.
Karpaty are currently in ninth place in the 12 team Ukranian Premier League which is dominated by Dinamo Kiev and Shakhtar Donetsk.
In today’s derby match their opponents Lviv had 11 Brazilian players in their squad including six of their seven substitutes.
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