Frozen-out Ianis Hagi is BACK in the Rangers first team squad after calling a contract truce.
The Romanian international was told to look for another club in the summer after Light Blues boss Philippe Clement held talks with the player and his agent. But Hagi was unable to secure a move away from Ibrox during the transfer window and has been playing for the B team amid a clamour from a section of the support for him to be welcomed back into the fold.
Clement stood firm initially and said the arrival of Albanian playmaker Nedim Bajrami meant it was even more unlikely. The Belgian said: “We spoke about that months ago. We were really open and honest with him (Hagi) and his agent that we don’t see him becoming the next No 10 for Rangers for the next couple of years, so to look out for other opportunities. That story stays the same and, for sure, with Bajrami now in the building, you have this situation.”
If Hagi – just one game away from becoming a Rangers centurion as he sits on 99 games – hits a certain number of appearances for the Light Blues then it will trigger a wage hike on the contract extension he signed at Ibrox shortly after Michael Beale was appointed in December 2022. Record Sport revealed that the figure his weekly pay packet would rise by is around £6000, meaning it would cost the club around £600,000 if he remained in Glasgow for the remainder of the two years has deal has to run.
But now there has been a major u-turn and “that a solution has been reached following dialogue between the two parties with a desire to resolve the situation expressed on either side”.