The ball’s in your court, Rangers
Frank de Boer’s agent says Dutchman would welcome approach to become manager of the Ibrox club and claims his client is not motivated by money
FRANK DE BOER’S agent said last night that his client is not motivated by money and his interest in the vacant Rangers post this summer is genuine.
While a move, short-term or longterm, for a Scottish candidate such as Alex McLeish or Derek McInnes still appears more realistic for the Ibrox club as they bid to replace Mark Warburton, the 46-year-old Dutchman – who led Ajax to four Eredivisie titles in a row before his most recent managerial stint at Italian giants Internazionale lasted just 85 days – insists he won’t make a decision on his next club until May at the latest and could yet be open to a surprise return to Ibrox.
While much will depend upon what other clubs express an interest in a man who has previously made it onto the shortlists at Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur, his representative Guido Albers – who brokered the deal which saw De Boer arrive at Ibrox as a 33-year-old under Alex McLeish on a heavily appearance-fee weighted contract back in 2004 – believes his wage won’t be the stumbling block. De Boer was thought to be on a sevenfigure annual sum during his time in Milan, although a sizeable fee will also be due were the Ibrox side to move for another potential target in Derek McInnes.
“Two years ago Liverpool called and Tottenham called and I think for him it is important to take his time,” said Albers. “But If he had no interest in a job like this [Rangers] he would say no definitely and he hasn’t done this. So if he has a good feeling about being approached by Glasgow then everything is possible,” he added. “For now, he is not saying ‘I am not going to do this or not do that’. Of course there have been a lot of things that he has said no to before but he is going to put all the options on the table in May and then he will make a decision.
“When he played for Rangers, and you can ask David Murray about this, he didn’t get any salary, he was playing for nothing, because he was just pleased that Rangers were going to let him play,” Albers added. “You could imagine 25 coaches who are like that, in it for the money, but you can’t say things like that about Frank because he has never made a choice about money. He makes his choices about ambition and what he really wants to do. I am not saying that he will work for nothing – for sure he won’t – but what I am not saying is that money will not make it impossible for him to go there. It will depend on everything, the club, the vision, the long-term, the quality of the players, everything like that.
“I had the same with Ronald Koeman, when I brought him to Feyenoord everyone thought that was impossible because of the money, but he spent three years at Feyenoord. And now he is at Everton.
“At Ajax it worked because he had a vision and time to create a vision and I think if he gets the time that he will be successful at his next club.”
W HILE Rangers were scrabbling around in the lower reaches of the Scottish game, Frank de Boer had the football world at his feet. Back in 2013, as he was cutting his teeth in a successladen spell at Ajax, the Dutch defensive legend rebuffed the chance to interview for the Liverpool job, watching as Brendan Rodgers led the Anfield side to a Steven Gerrard slip from the Premiership title.
He was even closer to the Tottenham gig a year later. Reportedly the No.1 target of both the club and fans, he angered the board by letting word of their interest slip and Daniel Levy instead went all-in on Mauricio Pochettino from Southampton. It was another inspired choice which so nearly led to that club holding the Premiership title aloft.
So how exactly did it come to pass that this 46-year-old, in the prime of his managerial life, is currently unemployed, with even Premiership basement dwellers like Crystal Palace thumbing their noses at him? And if Rodgers can electrify both his own career prospects and those of a grateful club by slumming it in Scotland with Celtic, is it really too far fetched to suggest that the De Boer twins could do likewise across the city at Rangers?
Certainly not for De Boer’s representative Guido Albers, one man who sees some merit in the Rodgers comparison. The Dutchman, still smarting from a stint at Internazionale in Milan which lasted just 85 days, presumably still sees himself operating at a higher level in the future than Scottish football. But the same could equally be said of Rodgers. The only question is whether it could be mutually beneficial for both manager and club to bring him here.
“Brendan Rodgers is a good example,” Albers told Herald Sport. “But in my opinion what will happen in the coming weeks is that more and more clubs will get in contact for Frank about the end of the season. In this window there was a lot of interest and he made a decision not to do anything else right now and just focus on next season. There was interest from clubs at the bottom of the Premier League, clubs who were already in trouble. They changed their manager but decided to go with somebody else. But next season, you never know.”
One part of the equation which De Boer would be more than comfortable with is working with a director of football, another part of the recruitment process which chief executive Stewart Robertson let slip last night. For much of his time at Ajax that man was his former team
In this window there was a lot of interest and he made the decision not to do anything else right now
mate Marc Overmars but there are no shortage of candidates for this crucial role at Rangers, including former Celtic recruitment supremo John Park, Ross Wilson should he be persuaded to leave a rewarding current role at Southampton or perhaps even Alex McLeish, also a prime candidate for the unenviable task of taking the load short term.
There is, of course, an elephant in the room here: Rangers in their current state do not measure up to Celtic, on or off the field. Last year’s Scottish Cup semi-final win proved illusory and while their greatest rivals finally seem wellplaced to benefit from what should have been an annual bounty in the Champions League, the Ibrox side instead find themselves locked out, and financially stymied by their previous owners, for the foreseeable future. The scale of the rebuilding to be done at Ibrox should not be underestimated and Dave King and the board will have to find ways to fund an ambitious, expensive programme if they are to come close to attracting an operator like De Boer to the club. It is the kind of long-term rebuild which may take more than four years to achieve – as much as the club’s supporters gaze anxiously across the city and the imminent arrival of six in a row. A less dreamy, more pragmatic, approach would be to hand the keys to Derek McInnes, a boyhood Rangers fan and former player who may be attracted by some additional bang for his buck when it comes to taking on the Parkhead side. The whole Dutch connection may turn out to be a red herring. But De Boer is wise not to dismiss it out of hand. It isn’t every day that a Hasenhuettl at Red Bull Leipzig or Massimiliano Allegri with Juventus will throw their hats in the ring for that one. Going back to Holland would feel like square one and certain Premier League clubs would be dicing with disaster.
As dismal as his time at Inter was, there was at least some mitigation – they are now onto their ninth manager in seven years and De Boer was also a victim of some boardroom upheaval. Of more relevance is his grounding at Ajax, where when it comes to imprinting a philosophy and turning a tidy profit, it seems a fair bank of experience for where Rangers would love to be. Okay, so the Amsterdam side’s budget still beat everyone else’s throughout his stint, but four titles also saw them turn a profit in excess of 100m Euros on the likes of Luis Suarez, Daley Blind, Christian Eriksen, Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen. Bring in that kind of money and no-one will be branding him a luxury the club cannot afford. long-term project like an Arsenal, a Southampton or an Everton becomes available in the Barclays Premier League and a new raft of young pretenders like Thomas Tuchel at Dortmund, Ralph