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Rangers terminate teenager contract after agreement reached
Umaro Balde has left Rangers after agreeing to terminate his contract at Ibrox, the Scottish Premiership leaders have confirmed.
In a tweet on the Rangers Youth Academy Twitter account on Monday night, it was announced that Balde, 18, has “left the club by mutual consent”.
Umaro Balde has today left the club by mutual consent. All at Rangers Academy wish him the best for the future. pic.twitter.com/6PqfVNrGBJ
— Rangers Youth Academy (@RFC_Youth) February 1, 2021
It remains to be seen where Balde will end up. The young midfielder joined the Light Blues from Sporting CP when he was 16-years-old.
Fresh start for Balde
It’s never nice to see an academy player getting released by Rangers but the brutal fact is that the vast majority of youngsters fail to make the grade at most clubs.
We never really saw much of Balde.
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The Guinea-Bissau-born midfielder, who played for Portugal Under-15s earlier in his career, failed to get anywhere near Rangers’ senior squad in his spell at Ibrox so it will be interesting to see where his next move takes him.
It wouldn’t at all be a shock to see him stay in Scotland but a return to Portugal could always be on the cards for the midfielder.
In October 2019, Balde told the Herald that his family still lives in Portugal.
He said: “It was a very good move for me and a very good opportunity for my career. Rangers is a very big club and they have a good youth team so there will be very good opportunities for me.
“It is a chance I had to take. I had to leave my family in Portugal to come here and play my football in a new country at this club. I am in a new country but I am making new friends and I am very happy here at Rangers.
“I moved here myself but every day I will talk to my family. I speak with my sister, my mother, my father, my brother. I talk to them every day and they ask about Rangers. I tell them I am doing well, that I am training hard every day.”
It must be quite a leap for a teenager to move to a foreign country, chasing a big dream without your family there to support you and with the way the world is lately due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it might have made things even tougher for Balde.
We wish him all the best for the future.
In other Rangers news, fans are thrilled by this player’s arrival in Glasgow.