Shved turned down ‘a big European club’ to join Celtic

Maryan Shved could be the first of many Celtic signings from Ukrainian in the coming years.

Karpaty Lviv director Oleg Smaliychuk has explained to the Daily Record that the two clubs are looking to forge a partnership after Shved’s transfer to join the Hoops was completed.

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.

Celtic already boast connections with several clubs across the world and Karpaty Lviv could be the next on their growing list.

The promising young winger signed for Celtic but returned to his former side on loan for the remainder of the season, with the Hoops realising that the player needs regular game time at this stage of his career.

Shevd is a highly-rated youngster and Smaliychuk has confirmed that the player turned down a ‘big European club’ in order to sign for Celtic.

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.

The club in question remains unknown, but it is clear that the player was eager to join Celtic due to the club’s track record of developing players.