Borna Barisic about to quit Rangers as Ibrox ‘disgrace’ causes outrage
Borna Barisic is about to leave Rangers on a free transfer, according to Mail on Sunday journalist Gary Keown.
Barisic, 30, will be out of contract at the end of the season and could join a growing list of senior stars to leave Ibrox in the last year for nothing despite being of value to the club.
Keown is outraged by the mishandling of contracts at Ibrox and is desperate for Philippe Clement to play a role in hiring a new director of football who won’t allow these mistakes to happen again.
Writing in the Scottish Mail on Sunday on 5 November (page 100 and 101), Keown said: “Aware of sounding like a stuck record here, overall recruitment and the manager of assets at Rangers in recent years has been a disgrace. Over and above so much of the rubbish signed, key assets such as Alfredo Morelos and Ryan Kent were allowed to run down their contracts and leave for zilch.
“Borna Barisic, who has played 31 times for Croatia no matter what you may think of him, is about to walk out the door for free as well. It cannot go on.
“Clement is cracking the whip behind the scenes in terms of fitness work and liaising with the medical department. He needs to make sure the board get it right with a new director of football as well and sharpen up in terms of the way they source talent, nurture it and, ultimately, make profit on it.
“With Barisic out of contract in the summer, there is little to suggest [Ridvan] Yilmaz, although still 22, will be a dependable replacement despite the £3.4m spent to sign him from Besiktas.”
Ridiculous
It’s too early to say that Barisic will be walking out of Ibrox on a free.
Sure, clubs will be able to approach him with a pre-contract deal in January because his contract expires at the end of the season.
However, there’s almost two months until that’s the case and there’s no doubt that there’s some work going on behind the scenes in Govan to extend the left-back’s deal by at least 12 more months.
Keown must not have seen reports this week about the Croatia international’s situation too.
Football Scotland reported on 3 November that talks are underway to get Barisic to sign a new contract with the left-back attracting attention from Roma and Watford.
Barisic has been a liability at times in his career in Glasgow but he’s also a player with value in the transfer market and another Morelos or Kent situation has to be avoided at all costs.
If Jose Mourinho is looking at Barisic, there has to be something there but if we were the full-back, we’d wait to see what January brings.
This should have been sorted out a year ago.
In other Rangers news, the Gers want to hire this Liverpool chief.