Rangers face fire sale of players
There may be light at the end of the tunnel, but reports today suggest there are dark days ahead for Rangers, with seven of the clubs biggest stars leaving for a fraction of what they’re worth.
It been revealed that seven players worth £25m could be leaving the Ibrox club for as little as £8m following pay cut deals.
According to reports in the Daily Record, these secret sweeteners were handed out to Ally McCoist’s most valuable stars by Duff and Phelps.
These steps will undoubtedly force new owner Charles Green into overseeing a painful Ibrox fire sale this summer.
The cut-price fees are the result of trade-offs made by Duff and Phelps when McCoist’s men agreed to take whopping 75 per cent wage cuts to keep the club in business.
The full list of bargain basement buys is being circulated around clubs in England and across Europe by agents who believe their clients can make a financial killing when the transfer market opens on June 1.
Record Sport also revealed they had received explosive details of the deals which were struck behind closed doors between David Whitehouse and Paul Clark, union boss Fraser Wishart and players’ advisers.
According to the paper, skipper Steve Davis, keeper Allan McGregor, team talisman Steven Naismith, Northern Ireland striker Kyle Lafferty, Scotland full-back Steven Whittaker, USA international Maurice Edu and Romania defender Dorin Goian are the stand-out buys likely to attract most interest from those circling the stricken club.
At 27 and captain of his country, Steve Davis could go for £1.65m, a far cry from the £5m Rangers could expect under normal circumstances.
Scotland No.1 McGregor can be picked up for a flat fee of £2m – around £6m or £7m less than the prices being bandied about when he was linked with Spurs in 2009.
Following a two-week ban from the club following a bust-up with McCoist, Lafferty appears a racing certainty to want to cash in on his clause.
The £3.5m signing from Burnley is up for grabs at just £575,000 and Record Sport report a firm bid could be imminent.
Whittaker, who Rangers bought from Hibs for £2m in August 2007 is reportedly now on the market for just £850,000.
At just £300,000, USA midfielder Edu might be viewed as the biggest bargain of the lot, given his experience of representing his country at the highest level including the World Cup in South Africa. That price represents a massive £2.3m loss on a player who was lured to Scotland four years ago in a £2.6m deal.
It had been hoped new Rangers owners might get the chance to negotiate with these players and urge them to rip up the recently redrawn contracts, but it would appear Green and his consortium arrived just too late to open talks, and instead now face re-building Rangers from the ground up, player by player.
