Mulholland hails return on Gilmour investment

CRAIG MULHOLLAND insists Rangers did everything in their power to hang on to departing starlet Billy Gilmour.

The 15-year-old midfielder will sign for Chelsea on July 1 after agreeing a deal which will net Rangers around £500,000.

Gilmour had attracted interest from a host of rival English Premier League clubs including Arsenal, who whisked the teenager and his family to London for a VIP tour in January.

In the end, Rangers’ head of academy Mulholland insists it came down to a straight choice between Ibrox and the newlycrowned English champions.

He said: ‘We have been working on this for a long time and Billy had a really tough decision to make.

‘From our point of view we did absolutely everything we could.

‘We had so many meetings with Billy and his mum and dad, the club were great with them. To be fair, he knocked back a number of big Premier League clubs and it came down to Rangers and Chelsea.

‘He decided to go to Chelsea and we wish him all the best.’

Although his priority had been to retain Gilmour, Mulholland hopes the fee received will reflect well on the work being done inside the Rangers academy.

‘Our position was clear,’ he added. ‘This wasn’t Rangers saying we wanted to take that money, we wanted to keep Billy.

‘But he’s a human being and we know how attractive the Premier League can be.

‘Some of the academies are fantastic, the facilities and everything else. You can be in awe of that.

‘We would rather have kept him but once we knew he wanted to go we had to maximise our return. The positives are that we are developing a level of player in our academy that nearly every club in Europe was wanting to sign.

‘Also, we are getting a really decent sum to take back to the board of directors and say: “Well there is the investment you made in the academy and here is the return”.’