Royal Antwerp are looking for a club record transfer fee for Aurelio Buta.
A move to Celtic has been strongly tipped for over a week with a variety of reports claiming that the deal is at an advanced stage.
Right-back was identified early on by Ange Postecoglou as a position that needed strengthened but despite signing five players that area hasn’t been touched.
Belgian football is very heavily scouted but Antwerp’s record fee stands at 2.5m euros, a figure that their owner Paul Gheysens is determined to push up wards.
Updating the situation over Buta, Voetbal 24 reveals:
Antwerp has the ambition to grow into a real Belgian top club, but then it still has a few steps to take. One of them is also doing large outgoing transfers.
And according to Sport/Voetbalmagazine , that is on the way. “To make the cash register ring for the first time since the arrival of Paul Gheysens, it may be looking forward to the transfer of Aurélio Buta, who would be close to Celtic,” writes the weekly.
“Or Koji Miyoshi, who scores high with Japan at the Olympic football tournament”, is added. Buta should bring in about 4 million euros. Not a top amount, but already a lot better than the record transfer so far.
Tony Ralston has done very little wrong in Celtic’s last two matches but beyond the 23-year-old there doesn’t seem to be many options with Lee O’Connor and Osaze Urhoghide the next contenders.
Carl Starfelt is the only defender that has been added to the squad by Ange Postecoglou with the Swede virtually coming in as a direct replacement for Kris Ajer.