Rip Off Rangers – Clarke wants the Blue Pound

With today’s rejection of Rangers’ reported half million bid for Kilmarnock’s Jordan Jones, Killie boss Steve Clarke betrayed his feelings speaking earlier.

With more than a touch of derision and a smile on his face, Clarke suggested Jones will remain a Kilmarnock player if Rangers continue to bid at the levels we currently are at.

Clark said the bid was way low. Which means he must value Jones around £1.2M minimum. Which, equally, means this young star is being paid a weekly salary in line with such a price tag, right? Wrong, of course.

Jones has 18 months left on his deal – which clearly hurts his value considerably. He has shown no intent on signing a new one, yet Clarke has more than suggested Rangers must pay something absolutely ridiculous for the Northern Irish international.

It appears another example of exactly what the site pointed out only earlier today – an SPL team either refusing to do business with Rangers or selling at way above the market price.

Meanwhile Aberdeen happily sold Celtic Jonny Hayes for a fee reported to barely have even hit seven figures – true, Jones has seven years on the Republic of Ireland international, but since when did Kilmarnock hold anyone to ransom over player prices?

There does feel like a new rule for Rangers these days. Killie sold Josh Magennis, 33 times capped for Northern Ireland, aged 25 at the time, to Charlton, for £250,000 in 2016.

Meanwhile one-times capped Jones at 23 is apparently worth five times that?

Said Clarke:

“We got an offer for Jordan that was nowhere near, it was a really low offer for a player of Jordan’s standing and it was an easy decision for the club to turn it down.”

But not for Josh, right?

This is an occasion where Rangers have to play hardball. Killie’s attitude on this is poor, and we know just fine well they would have sold to Celtic without the animosity or nonsense.

We have previously had a decent relationship with the Rugby Park men, but the era of Clarke may well be changing that.