Rangers have so far managed to keep Alfredo Morelos at Ibrox.
Rangers managing director Stewart Robertson has told The Scottish Sun that the club intend to keep Alfredo Morelos until at least the summer – but he may still leave this month.
The Gers swooped to land Morelos from HJK Helsinki last summer, as a £1million punt on the Colombian – who hit 46 goals in 62 games in Finland – has turned into a masterstroke.
Morelos has become a fan favourite at Ibrox, scoring 13 times in 28 appearances in all competitions to emerge as something of a bargain for Rangers.
However, Morelos’ goalscoring exploits in Scotland have not gone unnoticed, and after links to Championship clubs in January, the last week has been spent fending off Chinese clubs.
The Scottish Sun reported last week that Rangers were offered £7million by Beijing Renhe for Morelos’ signature, with the Chinese side offering to almost quadruple the striker’s wages.
So far, Rangers have managed to keep hold of Morelos, and whilst the 21-year-old may have had his head slightly turned by a life-changing offer, he is continuing to work hard for the Gers.
Now, Rangers managing director Stewart Robertson has told The Scottish Sun that the club’s refusal to sell Morelos for a huge profit proves that the club is secure financially, and believe rejecting the approach shows the club’s ambition.
Robertson noted that Rangers intend to keep Morelos at least until the end of the season, but with the Chinese transfer window open until the end of this month, meaning he could still leave despite the plans to keep him.
“There were all the rumours in January that the club was going into administration and it was nonsense,” said Robertson. “The investor base is there. We have fantastic financial support. A decent example of that came with the Morelos bids being rejected. Some folk raised eyebrows at that, but that’s a sign that we’re trying to grow something and take the club forward. We want to compete year on year at the top of the game again. We’re not saying we won’t sell him eventually because we do recognise recycling players in the player-trading model is a key part of the business plan going forward. But we’ll do that when it’s on our terms rather than on the terms of a potential buyer. Hopefully the fans take a bit of comfort from that.”
“As a board, we have a duty to consider offers for players if and when they come in and that’s what we did with the offers for Morelos. We gave it serious consideration, but on balance, on the level where discussions got to, we felt we should stick with what we had. Listen, the Chinese transfer window is still open until the end of February, so who knows what’s around the corner. But as things stand today there’s nothing new on the table and we’re looking at a situation where Alfredo is with us until the end of the season at least,” he added.
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