No signings so far this week but there’s been updates on deals for Malik Tillman, Cyriel Dessers and Jose Cifuentes. Rangers already have four through the door and seem to be working tirelessly to increase that number. Here’s your Rangers update for Thursday 21/06/23.
Malik Tillman
Late on Monday evening there was a tweet which would’ve broken the heart of many Rangers fans;
Something I’ve personally never heard of before was a parent clubs right to cancel an option to buy. Apparently though, this is something that has been common in the past. It’s clear that Tillman was already worth more than the option to buy, so cancelling it for a supposed £1m is a good deal for Bayern.
The Rangers Review broke the situation down excellently. What Rangers get from this deal is;
- No Malik Tillman
- £1m cancellation fee
- 10% of any future sale
Considering Rangers don’t own Malik Tillman, that’s a pretty excellent deal. Obviously, in an ideal world, Rangers would’ve signed him for the buyout fee and sold him for double/treble that. That was never likely to be the case though as Bayern’s buy back would rumoured to be around £9m. So the profit made would’ve been minimal, it just would’ve meant we had the American for at least another season.
Fans may look at this negatively but the club will make at least £2m (assuming he sells for £10m+) from a player they never actually owned. Financially this is a sound deal for the club and they have actually done well to get anything from it when in other situations we may have walked away with nothing.
Cyriel Dessers
Reports coming from Italian publication Calcio Mercato suggested the deal for the Cremonese striker was off as he preferred the idea of staying in Italy with Torino supposedly interested.
Just two weeks after the deal being seemingly close to completion it was apparently dead. However, since that article has been posted, The 4th Official via an article on their Patreon suggesting that the deal may not be over yet. They have reached out to sources close to the club that have confirmed that Dessers hasn’t in fact turned the club down, as of yet.
This was also reiterated late last night from Scott Burns at the Daily Record.
The deal may not be seen through to completion but currently, it’s still on and progressing well. Time will tell on this one, he’s a player I’m definitely on board with arriving, so hopefully for Rangers there’s a bigger update soon.
Jose Cifuentes
This one feels to have dragged on the most. Since the initial interest and this tweet;
The deal seems to have stalled. No news isn’t always good news, but this time it actually may be. The latest update on the deal for the Ecuadorian came via Argentine journalist Alejandro Ruilova who had this to say;
Jose Cifuentes Ecuadorian player has agreed to go to Rangers. Only that Los Angeles FC asks for an amount of money to be able to release the player before the end of his contract. It is being negotiated since Rangers offered an amount that is being studied by the club.Alejandro Ruilova
This is definitely the more promising deal in my eyes. Dessers may or may not happen but Cifuentes, barring some kind of negotiation nightmare, appears to be heading to Ibrox. The Ecuadorian international played 67mins in his nations 3-1 win against Costa Rica and, hopefully, with the international break over, this deal starts to pick up some more pace.
Read more about him here.
Conclusion
I’m very hopeful that Rangers can get Dessers and Cifuentes done, hopefully sooner rather than later. Personally, I was already resigned to not getting Tillman in, so if anything I’m positive about the thought of an extra potential £2m being added to the funds.
Not the most exciting Rangers update in terms of incoming transfers but that can change really quickly. Who would you like to see come in the door next?