Rangers may offer £500,000 plus sell-on clause to seal John Souttar transfer in January – report
Rangers could seal a permanent deal for Hearts defender John Souttar as early as the January transfer window, according to Edinburgh News.
The online outlet has reported that the Bears’ interest in a pre-contract deal shouldn’t tempt the Tynecastle outfit to sell early.
It is suggested that a £500,000 offers with a sell-on clause of up to 25-30% could get a deal over the line early, rather than waiting for the summer.
With a Bosman deal heavily spoken about, Souttar is available to open talks and sign a contract with another side from this month.
Rangers are the experts of that, bringing in the likes of Joe Aribo, Jack Simpson and Nnamdi Ofoborh in recent years.
Scott Wright also arrived on a similar deal, with the Bears paying a fee to bring him to Ibrox early from Aberdeen last January.
Despite Nathan Patterson’s recent big-money exit, the Edinburgh News suggest that big offers won’t come as they tend to bully other Scottish teams into getting their best players.
Bitter?
The suggestion that Rangers bully the smaller teams into selling their best players to them is ludicrous.
Hearts are in a strong position in the league, have a real possibility of European football, yet Souttar still wants to leave.
That doesn’t have much to do with the Bears, yet they could be about to push through a bargain deal for one of Scotland’s best defenders.
Hearts can decide whether to keep him around for the rest of the season if Rangers do agree a pre-contract, or earn some money by selling him early.
Would £500,000 and a big sell-on clause be a terrible deal? Certainly not given they have allowed his contract to run out – that’s on them.
In other Rangers news, an official club partner has fired back at Tom English after his latest bitter jibe at the Bears