Toronto FC are likely to make Jose Cifuentes’ loan there permanent. It was confirmed again that they have been in talks with Rangers.
Cifu, 27, was a bizarre Michael Beale signing from his-then club LAFC, and while his reputation in the MLS was promising, it was a left-field call to bring him to Scotland.
It was also riddled in red tape and took many, many weeks to finalise his £1.5M move from North America.
It didn’t work out at Ibrox, and Toronto is one of his many loans away. And their boss confirmed they are in talks with Rangers to make it permanent.
The deal did indeed include an option to buy, and their boss Robin Fraser confirmed earlier last month that talks were ongoing regarding his future.
Speaking on the 14th of May after the Daily Record claimed the buy option had been rejected:
“There are discussions between us and the parent club, us and the player, and all these things will certainly resolve themselves in enough time. We have Cifu till [the end of] June, so [we’re] just going through the necessary steps now to try to move things forward and see where it goes. Not to my knowledge (has a final decision been made).”
Ibrox Noise wonders why this story has been regurgitated in the past 24 hours as a new update. Especially by some credible sources, but there you go – it’s an older story from almost three weeks ago.
Cifu could well get his move to Canada made absolute. And Rangers would be in line for a nice bonus chunk of change.
We can’t know what the exact fee would be for the permanent purchase. It is likely to be a modest £2M to try to secure a small profit on the Ecuadorian.
Frustratingly for Cifu he was overlooked for the world cup. So he won’t be travelling south for the showpiece event in USA.
But Rangers may finally get to write him off the payroll for good, with promising comments coming from Toronto about that prospect.
But we’ve heard nothing new since the 14th of May so we’ll just need to wait.