Rangers have been potentially handed a transfer boost by the news that Premier League Brighton are no longer interested in a move for Ajax centre-back Calvin Bassey.
This comes with Rangers holding a sell-on fee percentage for any profit the Dutch club make on the 23-year-old defender, who signed a £23m deal to move to Amsterdam last summer.
With Ajax shelling out close to £20m when the deal was struck, if Calvin Bassey remains at the club then the Gers also remain in line to recoup the £3m in achievable add-ons attached to the deal.
At least this is according to De Telegraaf journalist Mike Verweij, who claimed on the Kick Off podcast that Ajax do not want to sell Calvin Bassey and that Brighton are no longer interested in the defender.
“Brighton is just not interested in Bassey at the moment,” says Verweij.
“There is some interest, but I think Ajax partly chooses to keep him there. If an opportunity arises to sell it for €23m (£20m), then they will take it very seriously, but it is not broken.”
This comes against the backdrop of earlier reports which had suggested Brighton have agreed a £15m transfer deal with Ajax for Calvin Bassey this summer, meaning Rangers missed out on any would-be profit.
Calvin Bassey to remain at Ajax as Brighton reports shot down
With the Nigerian international now set to remain in the Eredivisie, Rangers will be hoping that Calvin can turn things around at Ajax for a number of reasons.
The big defender has been subject to some desperate reporting since moving to the Amsterdam Arena, with Bassey often the scapegoat for the club’s disastrous downturn last season.
But if the defender can resurrect his career in Holland then Rangers would stand to benefit financially as the club wait on £3m of add-ons and a potentially lucrative sell-on.
More than that however, Calvin Bassey is a hugely popular former player at Ibrox and the Rangers support remain big fans of the ex-Leicester youth from his time at the club.
Whilst we all want to see Bassey go on to become a success and bank Rangers a touch more money, everyone wants to see the defender prove his worth at the top on a personal level too.
