Standard Liege have reportedly stepped up their pursuit of Stade de Reims midfielder Mory Gbane by entering formal negotiations over a potential transfer.
🚨 EXCLUSIF : Le Standard de Liège tente le coup Mory Gbane !
🔴⚪️ Discussions ouvertes initiées avec le Stade de Reims, ouvert à se séparer de ses gros contrats.
📁 Les discussions avec le joueur n’en sont encore qu’à un stade précoce.
👀 À surveiller. #mercato #RSCL… pic.twitter.com/VaIXQSXYed
— Sacha Tavolieri (@sachatavolieri) August 1, 2026
The Ivorian has also emerged as a target for Celtic, with the Scottish champions understood to be closely monitoring his situation as Reims prepare to offload players following their failure to secure an immediate return to Ligue 1.
At 6ft 2in, Gbane would provide Martin O’Neill with a powerful defensive midfield option currently lacking in his squad, while also bringing experience gained across several European leagues.
However, it is Standard who appear to be leading the race for the 25-year-old’s signature.
Belgian journalist Sacha Tavolieri reports that the Pro League side have now opened talks with Reims in an effort to complete a deal, with the French club willing to move the midfielder on as they look to reduce their wage bill.
Standard recently created room in midfield following the departure of Teddy Teuma, another player who had previously made the switch from Reims to Belgium.
Gbane is capable of operating in central defence as well as midfield and joined Reims for around £4.4 million in February 2025.
Despite his arrival, the French side suffered relegation later that year before falling short in their attempt to bounce straight back to the top flight, with Gbane featuring in just over half of their league fixtures.
The midfielder earned his first senior cap for Ivory Coast last summer but narrowly missed out on selection for this year’s World Cup squad.
Before moving to France, Gbane enjoyed spells in Croatia, Russia and Portugal, where his performances earned him a move to Reims.
He has also attracted interest from West Ham, who continue to work on a deal for Celtic midfielder Arne Engels after reportedly agreeing personal terms with the Belgian international.
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2 Comments
Celtic board are under severe pressure from there fans and other teams no it the frustration about to blow and we need incoming yes I agree don’t buy for the sake of it yes we can pay millions but its our wage structure fans don’t understand but with our coe or chairman staying quite fans have to go with what the read in the scottish media without anything coming from board level if we get knocked out of champions league in which our team is not good enough may e its the spl where you have opposition players in there own box home and away in europe we don’t get that our forwards are stuffed out you don’t get two touches in the box so in that perspective its hard the new rules have helped but throw ins still a problem walking up to the ball the player going down to stop play to disturb play works as I said its the wage structure epl players are going for 5 to 8 million even less with Celtic being top wages In spl we cant compete if its down to playing in champions league or more money I’m sorry money takes issue with some players how many chances do you get to play in champions league west ham utd are in enlish second division yes called championship but its not there top league yet there’s talk that Engels wants to leave a club 60,000 home crowd chance of champion league no matter will be in europe Celtic have bought to forwards and are haggling for a midfeilder now we hear that another spl club that was liquidated years ago mismanagement of fraud and spending over the top but noway thats going to happen to Celtic
The way round the wages difference is when signing on he gets a bonus which would not break the Celtic wage cap.
Not sure how high Reims pay, but I’d doubt they pay anything like €40k per week, if they were then we agree £30k per week and a sign in on fee of £1m which would equate to £5k over 4 years