Saido Berahino's move to Rangers seemed like a fantasy. But according to the Scottish Sun, who are fairly reliable when it comes to the SPFL, we're definitely interested and looking to make it happen.
We discussed in another article, which you can read below, why that wasn't such a mad idea, and how it could work out best for all parties (well, apart from West Brom, but with the greatest of respect, they're West Brom, and nobody has the time to worry about West Brom.) The finances might just end up making a move to Rangers work out best.
But you no longer need to take our word for it. Because, here's an interview from a few months ago, with former 'super agent' Jon Smith, courtesy of FootballFanCast:
I talked last week about a player who was going between two Premier League clubs.
It broke down because of the fee, it couldn’t be agreed and it was in excess of £20m. They were only two or three million apart. The agent involved was telling me about it and saying that he was annoyed because the player wants to go but the club he’s at wouldn’t let him go because of the fee.
Anyway. so what’s going to happen is that the player is under 24 and in the last year of his contract, so he can give notice in January. If he goes to a club in England he’ll become a tribunal player, which means the fee won’t be far off what it was, but if he goes abroad it’s compensation, which is £400k.
So they’ve already got something lined up where the player will go to Europe for a short time, the club will then sell him back here for half the price having made some money, the player will get twice the money he is going to get, he’ll have hopefully improved and the agent will get roughly £5m.
People will be like, ‘Wow, £5m!?’ but in reality, they’ve saved everybody millions of pounds by doing that. And that’s the role of the agent, beyond looking after the player’s everyday life, that’s where it has come to.
Again, I don’t have a problem with that. They’ve done a damn good job for their client, they’ve been clever, they’ve enhanced his career, enhanced his financial value and they’ve helped the buying club.
Not much was thought of it at the time. However, at the start of the rammy with West Brom, Saido Berahino sacked his then agent Aidy Ward. His replacement appears to be one Dan Fletcher, who has a few other Premier League players on his books. Fletcher used to work for First Artist, which was an agency headed up by... Jon Smith.
We're not saying this is going to happen (and of course Rangers might not even be the European club they're referrring to) but it looks like it might just make sense.
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