Celtic have confirmed Shunsuke Nakamura will not be leaving the club before the end of the season.

The Japan midfielder, whose contract expires in the summer, appeared set to return home in the January transfer window after former club Yokohama F Marinos prepared a reported €4million bid for the 30-year-old.

The move appears to have collapsed, amid suggestions Yokohama's parent company, car manufacturing giants Nissan, had decided to pull the plug due to the credit crunch.

That may not please the player, who had previously indicated a desire to return home in the new year for the sake of his young family and his international career.

Nevertheless, Celtic insisted today there was never any suggestion Nakamura would leave the club.

They said in a statement: "Celtic didn't want Naka to leave and Naka didn't want to leave. Therefore, there was never any prospect of Shunsuke leaving in January."

Despite the news, it is almost certain Nakamura will end up rejoining his first club in the summer, when he will be a free agent.

That means he will miss the start of the J-League season, which begins in March, and which was the reason Yokohama had originally sought a January move.

Celtic's European exit at the hands of Aalborg last week appeared to have made January the right time for Nakamura to move on.

The midfielder joined Celtic from Reggina in the summer of 2005 and has been part of manager Gordon Strachan's three Clydesdale Bank Premier League title-winning teams.

Chief executive Peter Lawwell has also repeatedly said he did not want the player to leave the club.