Hamilton Academical boss Brian Rice has confirmed that he would be interested in bringing former Rangers striker Kyle Lafferty back to the Premiership, should club finances allow it [Daily Record].
Lafferty’s second stint at Ibrox ended in July 2019 when his contract was terminated by mutual consent.
Since then, he’s represented Norwegian side Sarpsborg, EFL League One club Sunderland and Italian second division outfit Reggina.
The Northern Ireland international reached an agreement for his two-year Reggina contract to be terminated 18 months early last week, and so he’s currently without a club.
“I would love to have a player of his stature here at this football club, but, realistically, could we afford that? I don’t know,” said Rice when asked about the possibility of signing Lafferty [Daily Record]. “Would Kyle Lafferty improve Hamilton Accies? 100 per cent he would, there’s absolutely no doubt about that.”
“We haven’t tried to do anything on it. There are certain things that are realistic that you think you could maybe do, but it’s not something we’ve spoken about.
“It’s certainly something I’ll bring up with the chairman during our next meeting. We know how tight finances are, but it might be something that interests the club.”
Lafferty is now 33 and past his prime as a player, while he has moved around a lot since his departure from Norwich City in 2017.
However, he’d be a high profile signing for Accies and he has previous in terms of contributing during relegation scraps, as he helped Sarpsborg to avoid the drop in the Eliteserien in 2019.
Lafferty divides opinion in the Rangers support and he only scored seven times during his second stint at Ibrox.
He helped the Light Blues to six major trophies first time around, though, scoring 35 times between 2008 and 2012.
A promising young striker who made his debut during Lafferty’s second spell could also be set to leave the club in the summer.
