Another Ibrox casualty as austerity campaign kicks in

Nils Koppen is about to be axed from Ibrox with the Rangers Review breaking the story this afternoon.

The Newsquest owned site is the go-to place for the club to break bad news with the chubby Belgian following 13 of the Academy stars announced last week out the door.

After arriving with Phil Clement as the Head of Recruitment he was promoted in November 2024 to the role of Technical Director with chairman John Gilligan announcing:

We are delighted to have appointed Nils to the role of Technical Director here at Rangers.

Nils has impressed throughout the club with his leadership skills. He’s built excellent relationships across both the football and non-football sides of the club, and his knowledge, experience, and vision to drive improvement make him extremely well suited to lead the football department. We wish Nils every success in his new role

Six months later he is a goner, turning to Linkedin to seek out exciting fresh opportunities on his career journey.

I think from now on the word firesale’ will be alien within Glasgow Rangers FC whenever our players are moved on. Thelwell and Purdy won’t take any sh*t from other clubs wanting our players on the cheap!

— Ricky134 ??????????? (@Ricky1349516041) June 1, 2025

Just like in previous regimes the signings made by Koppen will prove very difficult to move on highlighted by Oscar Cortes.

Koppen attended the December 2024 Transfer Room in Mexico where clubs try to offload their duds and came back with a loan deal for the out of favour Lens winger who had made four substitute appearances for the French side.

After a handful of appearances at Ibrox Cortes was injured, during the summer a further loan was taken with an obligation to buy added at a fee believed to be around £4m. Last season the Colombian ace played for 274 minutes across 10 appearances and was left out of the Europa League squads.

With Nedim Bajrami, Jefte, Robin Propper, Mohamed Diomande and Hamza Igamane all signed last summer the new Ibrox manager will have his work cut out trying to turn that lot into £20m superstars.

Dan Purdy is expected to replace Koppen, brought in from Everton by Kev Thelwell who was appointed by Paddy Stewart.

Well done with the recruitment Nils. That looks like 3 signings with real quality we’ve made. I had also hoped for a number 9 but wasn’t to be. We move on.

— J?hn B?ch?n?n (@johnbucky81) February 2, 2024