- Moroccan refused to come on as a substitute for Russell Martin’s team during their 1-1 draw with St Mirren
- Igamane has not trained and did not travel with Ibrox squad for Wednesday night’s Champions League play-off with Club Brugge in Belgium
- Lille failed with initial loan bid but have now come back with improved offer to trigger player’s release clause
Rangers striker Hamza Igamane is closing in on a move to Lille for a fee of around £10.4million after the French club met a release clause in his contract.
Igamane has effectively downed tools at Rangers after refusing to come on as a substitute in last weekend’s 1-1 draw at St Mirren.
The 22-year-old Moroccan forward has not trained and did not travel with the squad for Wednesday night’s Champions League play-off clash with Club Brugge.
Rangers boss Russell Martin revealed on Tuesday that a scan on the player did not flag up any issues, even though Igamane claimed he had a quad issue when failing to come off the bench in Paisley.
Lille had failed with an initial loan bid for Igamane last week but have now come back to the table with an improved offer to trigger his release clause.
Once the deal is completed, the move will see Rangers bank a considerable profit after signing him for only £1.7m last year.
Igamane sparks controversy by refusing to come off the bench against St Mirren in Paisley
The Moroccan striker is now on verge of a £10.4million move to the French club Lille
Martin is keen to offload the player, although he insisted on Tuesday night that he does not blame Igamane. Rather, he feels the young striker has been poorly advised.
‘I think we all expect that to come to a close very soon and Hamza won’t be our player any more,’ said Martin, whose side trail Brugge 3-1 from last week’s first leg in Glasgow.
‘I haven’t seen him. So, he had a scan yesterday, got assessed, and then obviously stuff’s happening today. So he wasn’t in. I think I always just said to the players, just be honest with yourself and with team-mates. It’s happened, we moved forward, we dealt with it, he’s got what he wanted.
‘He looks likely to get what he wanted – to play somewhere else and it means we’ve got some of the money that we wanted for him. Now we can move on.’
Martin had said on Sunday that he had to ‘trust’ Igamane, but insisted that he only wanted players who were fully committed to the project he’s trying to build.
Lille have been tracking the striker all summer and are now expected to wrap up a deal over the next 24 hours.
Russell Martin speaks to the media ahead of Rangers Champions League clash in Belgium
There was no sign of Igamane as the Rangers players trained ahead of huge Euro showdown
Pressed on whether the scans had shown any injury, and whether he felt let down by the player, Martin quipped: ‘I expect him to pass his medical, yes.
‘But it’s not the players’ fault, it’s really not. It’s really difficult for a young man, a young man that doesn’t speak the language that’s being told (by agents): “Don’t worry, your future is going to be elsewhere”. ‘Then I’m asking him to be all-in and do this and this is what we need from you and all that stuff. So it’s difficult. I don’t take it personally.’
Martin confirmed that Cyriel Dessers is fit and available to start up front for Rangers at the Jan Breydel Stadium after recovering from a knee injury.
‘Everyone else is pretty much here,’ he added. ‘We are looking forward to a big, big game. We want to really attack it.’
