Earlier this week, the Scottish Sun reported that Ross Wilson will recommend Rangers stump up £2 million to sign Aaron Hickey in January.
The 17-year-old Hearts defender shot to prominence after scoring the winner in September’s Edinburgh derby and has featured in all but one of his club’s Scottish Premiership fixtures this season [Soccerbase].
It’s said that he was already on Wilson’s radar when he was at Southampton and now he’ll encourage his new employers to swoop.
However, new details have emerged which may make the Gers think twice about the move.
The Edinburgh Evening News claims that Celtic will receive 30% of any transfer fee for Hickey, who played much of his youth football for the Hoops.
That would mean £600,000 of this prospective £2 million deal would go to Parkhead.
Could Celtic transfer clause derail Rangers move?
Clearly, this is all hypothetical at this stage. We’re still a couple of months away from the window opening and Hickey could always sign a new contract with the Jambos in the meantime, or opt to move to England, with Manchester City reportedly frontrunners for his signature [Daily Star].
Yet, it’s worth considering now whether or not Rangers would be willing to hand over additional funding to their fiercest rivals in order to sign a largely unproven teenager.
Hickey has looked promising so far, but he only has a total of nine Premiership appearances to his name and has a lot of development to do as a player.
Perhaps all will become clearer over the next few months. Has his form been a temporary purple patch, or is Hickey the real deal?
