Pape Abou Cissé has completed a move to Icelandic side Vestri Ísafjördur on a free transfer, ending his spell without a club and opening a new chapter in the Lengjudeild. The Senegalese centre-back, valued at €1.00m at the time of the move, joins Vestri after leaving his status as a free agent, with the transfer registered to start on 2026-02-05 and his contract running until 2027-12-31.
The 30-year-old defender arrives with no transfer fee involved, a notable piece of business for Vestri given his experience in top European and international leagues. Coming directly from the “Without Club” pool, Cissé strengthens a back line that now gains a left‑footed, 1.97m central defender with a track record at clubs such as Olympiacos Piraeus, AS Saint-Étienne, Adana Demirspor and Al-Shamal SC, as well as earlier in his career at AC Ajaccio and AS Pikine.
Cissé’s move also underlines a clear step in his career path: instead of returning to his homeland of Senegal, he will continue playing abroad and is set to compete in Iceland’s Lengjudeild. For Vestri, operating in a league far from the traditional power centres of European football, securing a defender whose market value once peaked as high as €8.00m during his Olympiacos years represents a significant coup, especially at no cost in terms of transfer fee.
Over the course of his career, Cissé has built a profile as a physically dominant centre-back, trusted in France’s Ligue 2 with Ajaccio, in Greece’s top flight with Olympiacos, in Turkey with Adana Demirspor and in Qatar with Al-Shamal. His value curve on the market charted a rapid rise after leaving Ajaccio in 2017, reaching the multi‑million bracket at Olympiacos before gradually declining in recent years as he moved between clubs and ultimately went through a spell without a team.
The transfer also reflects how his role in the market has changed. Once a high‑value asset in Greece and France, Cissé now arrives in Iceland as an experienced stabiliser rather than as a resale prospect. Vestri gain a player with exposure to European competitions and pressure environments, while the defender gains a platform to reassert his worth in a league where his pedigree should stand out.
From a Senegalese perspective, the move extends a long‑running trend: another national-team‑level profile continuing his career overseas rather than returning to the domestic league. Cissé, born in Pikine and developed at AS Pikine before moving to Europe, now adds Iceland to a list of countries in which he has played professionally, further broadening his international footprint.
For Vestri supporters, the signing offers both immediate reinforcement and a statement of intent. For Cissé, it provides an opportunity to rebuild momentum in a competitive environment, with the length of the deal through to 2027-12-31 suggesting both club and player see this as more than a short-term stopgap. How he adapts to Icelandic football and the demands of the Lengjudeild could prove decisive in shaping the late prime years of his career and determining whether his market value and reputation can climb again from their current €1.00m level.
