Rangers tried and failed to sign Swansea City’s Championship goal-machine Oli McBurnie last summer.
12 months ago, Rangers offered £4.5 million to hand Oli McBurnie a dream move to his boyhood club, according to the Mirror (1 July, page 59).
And the Swansea City forward must have been tempted.
“Me and my brother grew up as massive Rangers fans. I don’t think we had any choice,” McBurnie, who is now an established Scotland international told the Daily Record one day after that speculation emerged.
“But I am still contracted to Swansea.”
In the end, the Swans refused to let McBurnie pull on that famous blue shirt, keeping their academy graduate at the Liberty Stadium for one more year. And they are now set to bring in a lot more than £4.5 million.
McBurnie’s stunning, 24 goal season has caught the eye of Premier League newcomers Sheffield United. The BBC claims that the Blades have seen a £15 million bid rejected as Swansea will only sell for in excess of £20 million.
It goes without saying that McBurnie is out of Rangers’ reach these days. It seems that they had only one chance to lure a boyhood Gers fanatic to Glasgow – and they missed it.
Swansea, to their credit, knew that McBurnie had the potential to go from strength to strength at the Liberty Stadium and they could be rewarded with a £20 million-plus windfall, just one year after they deemed a bid of £4.5 million to be insufficient.
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