Belgian recruitment guru Nils Koppen has been spreading his Rangers net far and wide this summer.
With transfer links to a number of players in South America, Rangers are also said to be interested in talents paying their trade in South Africa and Morocco.
It’s all about securing the futures of talented young players before they make big-money moves elsewhere as Rangers look to establish a functional player trading model.
But according to one leading fan media outlet, the search is also taking place a little closer to home with ex-PSV guru Nils Koppen back in his homeland this week.
Koppen jets out to Belgium
According to the Four Lads Had a Dream podcast, Nils Koppen is in Belgium building the Ibrox club’s ’scouting network’.
The discussion starts around 17 minutes into the outlet’s latest podcast.
The country has proven a source of talent for Rangers in recent seasons, with Ross Wilson bringing Kemar Roofe (Anderlecht), Ianis Hagi (Genk), Fashion Sakala (KV Oostende) and Rabbi Matondo (Cercle Brugge) to the club after stints in the country.
Being Belgian you’d expect Nils Koppen has a number of close links to the country with the Rangers recruitment guru back home as he looks to bolster the Ibrox squad.
Whilst the podcast does not say who Rangers are looking at – in fact quite the contrary – there was a discussion about a number of potential options.
These include Kevin Denkey (Cercle Brugge), Hans Vanaken (Club Brugge), and Brandon Mechele (Club Brugge).
Head contributor Stevie Clifford suggested it would be a few weeks before we see if the trip to Belgium heralds links of any ‘substance’.
Busy summer for Rangers transfer guru
It’s the second time we’ve heard of Nils Koppen taking something of a transfer trip out of Rangers this summer.
The ex-Genk scout headed to Cancún in Mexico as part of the latest TransferRoom summit, meeting with a whole host of key players in South American football.
We suspect Nils Koppen is going to be a busy man at Rangers up until the end of the window with plenty of work still to be done this summer.
Rangers have already lost five experienced first-teamers at the end of their contracts whilst several more continue to be linked with the exit door.
So far Rangers have also only added three new faces with Jefte (Fluminense), Clinton Nsiala (AC Milan), and Connor Barron (Aberdeen) joining the club.
With the likes of striker Hamza Igamane and goalkeeper Liam Kelly reportedly close to agreeing deals, this promises to be one of the most dramatic windows at Ibrox this decade.
