Rangers: Jefte agreement in doubt at Ibrox as club chief issues new transfer update
Jefte’s presumed move to Rangers in the summer has been thrown into doubt after Prodromos Petrides claimed he is “already sold” on signing for APOEL permanently.
Speaking to Super Sport FM the Cypriot side’s president insisted, via the Daily Record (13 April), that they are aiming to turn the Brazilian full-back’s loan into a long-term stay this summer and he is on board.
The 20-year-old appeared to be on his way to Ibrox in January after Rangers agreed a deal with his parent club Fluminense, but APOEL caused the deal to collapse by demanding they also received a matching fee, despite Jefte holding out from training as he sought the move.
Fabrizio Romano subsequently reported that a verbal agreement had been put in place for Philippe Clement to get his man in the summer, but Petrides now suggests that isn’t on the cards.
He said of a permanent deal to keep the defender at the club: “No, it’s not forbidden. Just with the financial tightness that we have now – look, we’re doing everything we can to secure a deal to stay.
“He’s already sold, let me put it this way. We have suggestions (for Fluminese). We want to let him stay, we want to buy him.”
Rangers signing from Fluminense off thanks to APOEL again?
Petrides’ admission that the finances are a stumbling block indicates it might not matter what convincing they have done on the player himself if they can’t afford him, especially when Rangers were thought to have already lined up a cash deal.
It would clearly be a major frustration for Philippe Clement if he saw his move for the young left-back fall apart in consecutive windows when everything seemed to be in place to bring him in.
But it remains to be seen how much of the APOEL chief’s claims are accurate and how much amounts to public negotiating and a kind of brinksmanship.
Jefte was slated to arrive as a replacement for the exit-linked Ridvan Yilmaz during the January window, but the Turk ended up staying at the club and appears to be increasingly established at Ibrox.
Conversely Borna Barisic is expected to close a deal to sign for Trabzonspor in the summer when his Rangers contract expires, although delays at Turkey have seemingly put that on hold for now.
So whether a negative development in the pursuit of the Fluminense youngster could affect the Croatian veteran in theory.
Ultimately a verbal agreement is just that, and can easily be broken, and unless it requires APOEL cooperation it presumably would be possible to secure a binding agreement for a future transfer, so unless or until that happens the door remains open for the picture to change.
In other Rangers news, Michael Stewart is liable to explode as a notoriously unpopular element to the Dundee controversy emerges.
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