As alluded to earlier, it turns out Rangers’ signing of Jefte has a little ‘twist’ in it per se, but in fact it actually doesn’t, it’s just how all transfers from South America actually work.

The story breaking over the weekend is that former club Fluminese have not sold ‘all’ of Jefte to Rangers, only 80% of him, which presumably means they’re keeping one of his legs…

Being serious, this story did the rounds as a breaking shocker, that Rangers will only own 80% of Jefte’s rights, that his market value is actually around £1M but Rangers have only paid circa £600,000-£800,000 of it.

Now, this is the first signing Rangers have ever made directly from a Brazilian club, or indeed, a South American club, and it operates differently – before you ask, all the other South American players we’ve ever signed we’ve imported from European clubs where the ownership issue wasn’t a factor for us.

So, the basics here is that in South America, particularly Brazil, the plan for all native players who get into their Serie A etc, is that they want to impress scouts and clubs in Europe.

South American clubs known this, and want to sell for good cash to those clubs, those cash rich clubs in the world’s most lucrative football market. South America is a poor place and in the way boxing is a legendary ‘working class escape’ for talented fighters to earn a bigger living than in slums in the western world, it’s the same for South American footballers.

So clubs put clauses on – they retain a portion of the players they sell, so that they are guaranteed future remuneration of any sales in the more expensive European lands.

And that’s what Fluminese have done.

If Jefte thrives in Govan, and Rangers sell for, say, £10M, we keep that money, because we’re selling 80%, our share of him, but Fluminese decide whether or not they’re cashing in as well, and either keep their 20% or sell it as well, meaning the purchasing club either still only owns 80% or now has the full player.

That’s their gamble, because they want to get as much as they can – what if we sell to a French club for £10M and they sell for £40M to a Real Madrid? They have one chance to sell those rights and they want to make a killing.

In simple terms, South American player rights are complicated things, and thankfully we’ve never had to bother with them before.

By picking Jefte up from Fluminese, we’re now entering that murky world!