Celtic have picked up a fee of £800,000 from the sale of Hatem Abd Elhamed to Hapoel Be’er Sheva, according to a report in The Sun.
The defender has barely featured for Celtic over the last couple of months with his move forced through by his wife and son returning to Israel.
Celtic were reported to have paid £1.6m from Be’er Sheva for Elhamed in the summer of 2019, there may have been part of that fee written off in return for the transfer with the defender signing a three and a half year contract at his old club.
The Sun reports:
Four Israeli clubs – Hapoel Be’er Sheva, Maccabi Haifa, Beitar Jerusalem and Maccabi Tel Aviv – all expressed interest in the 29-year-old. But he opted to return to Be’er Sheva and will sign a three-and-a-half year deal with the club that Celtic paid £1.6 million to in July 2019 and manager Yossi Abukasis was delighted to have won the race for their former player.
He said: “We are very happy that Hatem has chosen to return here. For me, he is a great guy and we think we have signed the best defender in Israel, so we are looking forward to him playing for us again.”
With Jeremie Frimpong joining Bayer Leverkusen Celtic moved to sign Jonjoe Kenny on loan from Everton until the end of this season.
Since Mikel Lustig’s form took a dip after the Invincible season right-back has been a problem position for Celtic, last season Frimpong, Elhamed and Moritz Bauer were all played at right-back.
As things stand Tony Ralston, with one appearance this season, is the only right-back under contract for next season.