Robin Propper ‘doesn’t want to be at Rangers’ says ex-chief

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Ibrox Noise

·5 de septiembre de 2024

Robin Propper ‘doesn’t want to be at Rangers’ says ex-chief

The whole signature of Robin Propper really was a strange one for Rangers – he appeared from nowhere, a last-minute signing and it was only once he was secured that FC Twente’s Technical Director Arnold Bruggink mouthed off to the press about his disappointment at so unexpectedly losing the defender and his club captain.

We have a lot of problems with all of this – firstly the lack of denial from Propper, who has kept his head down and remained quiet amid the story. We suppose denying the accusations might not be the best move in itself…

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But then Bruggink is telling us that Propper doesn’t even really want to be at Rangers at all, that the Dutchman was basically torn between staying and going.

So, the picture looks like this:

Propper was apparently approached last summer, and Twente did not want to lose him, so he agreed a contract clause that if another club came in for him the following summer, at a certain release price Twente would let him go.

That was secured at a modest £2M or so.

However, it is also claimed Propper really REALLY wanted to get Twente into the Champions League, and when the side secured an excellent third in the league in Holland, that was a change in his philosophy.

See, Propper hadn’t expected Champions League. Twente had been 5th the previous season and third was a big ask when he’d asked for that contract agreement. But against expectations, they got it.

Rangers came in and then Propper was torn.

So does he actually want to be at Ibrox?

Bruggink says this:

“I sat with Robin a lot here, because Robin also had doubts in the beginning. (He said) ‘We finally have Europe, which is what I really want with FC Twente’. But, in the end, he chose to go. You always take it into account (that players could leave). But at that moment, on July 28, I didn’t really take it into account anymore, because you hope that it will die down somewhere. But in your head you always take into account that the players can leave, and you have to try to anticipate that.”

This is either lost in translation or a bit misleading, because Twente did get Europe last season, they got Conference League but lost in the playoffs to Fenerbahce – Champions League was surely the ambition.

But Propper does seem like his heart wasn’t set on Rangers, and he was being given a choice.

He chose the new adventure, but he is probably regretting that now.