Hagi Rangers latest as Clement gives major update | OneFootball

Rangers manager Philippe Clement has given a major insight into the future of Romanian playmaker Ianis Hagi by seemingly confirming a significant change to the attackers contract.

In December 2022 while injured and under the miscalculated wisdom of the then sporting director Ross Wilson Hagi was offered a quite preposterous four year extension to his contract as well as a wage rise in the event of 100 appearances.

Unfortunately, this was not an agreement that Wilson’s successors endorsed. That is to say that the board at the time of Wilson were happy enough with this agreement but their replacements were not.

Which led to an impasse – Rangers simply refused to trigger the wage rise by giving the Romanian another appearance because it was money the club could not afford.

Clements admission however about numbers does back up that the issue was about wages in the first place but the big admission the Belgian made was the playmaker’s contract expires this summer in stark contrast to other available information.

All available resources confirm his contract is until 2026 so either Clement is a hugely in error which we find unlikely or the truth of how he returned to the first team has been revealed.

While we cannot confirm this, it appears that Hagi’s contract was changed and that Rangers honoured the wage rise but reduce the length of the deal.

The player just wants to play, but he did want his wage rise. Rangers refused to honour that and it appears a compromise was reached.

It seems the resolution was to give him one less year, but to give him that rise in salary.

And now he is free to talk to other teams as a pre-contract which is something we did not know.

Hagi has made no secret of his desire to leave Rangers in the past.  When in Spain he wanted to remain there stating clearly that that’s what he wanted to be.

Because it did not work out, he changed his tact and declared love again for Rangers.

In the end, it is true that the boy just wants to play, but he does also want his money guided as he is by his eccentric father.

And that is what Clement is alluding to by confirming that there are discussions with the playmaker but hinting the numbers are far apart for now.

The the last time he said things like this was about John Lundstram and we know how that one worked out.