Manager buries his head in the sand as Rangers look to follow up £33m double success story
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Rangers have twice taken advantage of cross-border compensation rules to great effect in recent seasons.
The Gers have swooped for both Joe Aribo (Charlton Athletic) and Calvin Bassey (Leicester City) for nominal fees, much to the anger of their parent clubs.
Cross-border rules mean clubs can avoid paying hefty development fees if they can agree pre-contract deals with players who play in different countries.
After paying around £500k for the pair, Rangers would go on to bank a combined £33m for both players, selling Joe Aribo to Southampton for £10m and Calvin Bassey to Ajax for £19.6m.
It's a market which has worked wonders for Rangers before and now one English side are refusing to accept the potential of the Ibrox club poaching a top talent for peanuts.
Rangers linked to Kwame Poku
Peterborough United winger Kwame Poku is a man in demand after a stunning season at the English League One club.
Rangers News exclusively revealed last week that Rangers scouts watched Poku net a stunning hat-trick in the 6-1 demolition of Cambridge United before the international break.
With Premier League interest in Poku, Rangers will face stiff competition to bring the 10-goal winger to Glasgow should they decide to pounce.
But Rangers are boosted by the fact that, unlike those Premier League and Championship alternatives, the Gers will not have to pay a hefty development fee for the 23-year-old.
Peterborough owner Darragh MacAnthony claimed last week that the Posh will expect north of £6m for Poku should he move on, as expected, come the end of the season.
But in doing so the outspoken Irish chairman appeared to completely ignore the possibility of Poku moving outside England.
"(Tribunals will) look at a lot of things," said MacAnthony said on his latest Hard Truth podcast.
"They'll look at how long he's been with you? He'll have been with us four years, he'll have played probably 200 games, we'd have paid nearly £500k in add-ons already.
"They'll look at the offers we've had. So we'll be able to straight away go into the tribunal and show them offers from six months ago that were of the value of three-and-three, £3m up front and £3m in add-ons (£6m in total).
"We will expect minimum that plus, plus, plus and plus.
"A fair tribunal will look and go 'yeah, you've spent £500k, you've developed him' and the club that is trying to sign him they'll look at it and go 'that's a big club with money, you're going to have to pay whatever'.
"So that's how they would value that.
"(The fact we've made him a big offer) plays into it to. We'd expect the tribunal to be very fair to not discourage clubs from being in that situation when you get richer clubs coming in and to make them pay a fair price."
Peterborough manager on Kwame Poku 'safety net'
Now, Peterborough manager Darren Ferguson has also been speaking about the situation and has joined his boss by burying his head in the sand.
It comes with the son of Sir Alex suggesting that Poku will stay put at Peterborough in January even if he'll likely leave next summer.
The Peterborough boss also confirmed that an offer is on the table for Poku to remain at London Road.
“We've had speculation about our players in all my time here," Ferguson told Posh +.
"And I see it as a good thing because if no-one is talking about your players it means you're not doing very well as a team.
"That speculation is only going to crank up in January and clearly I will have to manage the situation regarding certain players.
“I don't think anything will happen with Kwame (Poku). We have a safety net with him and with Ricky (Jade Jones) as we would get compensation for both of them given their ages.
"I never go mad with signings in January, but we will look to recruit one player in one position and that will also depend on one other thing happening."
"We have made outstanding financial offers to both of them.
