Ranger head coach receive a heartbreak
But after the Belgian agreed to bring him back in it has emerged that he was pressured to do so by senior players and board members.
Influential members of the dressing room had backed Hagi and reportedly went to senior figures at Ibrox for support to change the manager’s mind, and it has now worked.Ianis Hagi has agreed to give up the contract clause that entitled him to improved pay in order to return to the Rangers first team, the Daily Record reports.
According to the paper’s website on 1 October, after the Romanian was reintroduced to training with the senior squad, part of an agreement to break the stand-off that saw him left in the B Team is for the 25-year-old to forego the pay rise he was entitled to after a certain amount of games.Hagi has never played for Clement as he was on loan at Alaves when Michael Beale was sacked last term so it seems far too convenient for him not to even look at Hagi, who sits on 99 Gers appearances, during preseason without influence from elsewhere
It is difficult to pin down who was ultimately responsible for the bizarre situation over the past few months, but the headline news that it has been resolved is good for the Light Blues.
If it was entirely at Clement’s direction that the 41-cap international was dumped in the reserves despite a decent showing at Euro 2024 and a lack of alternative options it surely calls the Belgian’s judgment into question.But even if there was pressure to keep the former Genk player out for financial reasons it is very strange for it to cause a player who could genuinely help on the pitch to be completely banished from the senior set up.
Rangers have surely wasted more money on less important players in recent seasons, and if the entire situation was just a way to strong-arm Hagi into sacrificing a clause in his contract then questions have to be asked why he was given it in the first place and what freedom Clement has to manage his squad
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