BILEL MOHSNI has expressed his desire to remain at Rangers at all costs in the face of strong interest in his services from the Middle East.
Baniyas Sports Club, based in Abu Dhabi, are understood to have had an initial approach for the 26-year-old defender rebuffed with reports suggesting that they are preparing to make an improved offer.
Ally McCoist, the Rangers manager, has already signed two central defenders this summer in the shape of Darren McGregor and Marius Zaliukas and the likelihood is that Mohsni would be able to secure a lucrative deal with the side from the United Arab Emirates Pro League.
However, his representatives have made it clear that he does not want to be transferred from Ibrox under any circumstances with the club endeavouring to return to the top level of Scottish football by winning this season's SPFL Championship.
Asked whether a bid had been submitted by Baniyas, licensed FIFA agent Jerome Dakad told Herald Sport: "This is true, but the player does not want to leave Rangers. He wants to take the club back to the Premiership. End of story."
Mohsni has become a firm favourite with Rangers supporters since arriving as a free agent last summer, doing enough during a trial spell to merit a two-year contract. He earned a call-up to the Tunisia squad at the end of last season and featured in friendlies against Belgium and South Korea ahead of the World Cup finals.
Prior to leaving for international duty, he made it clear just how eager he is to help Rangers into the top flight following their financial collapse more than two years ago.
"My dream is to take the club back up to the top and into Europe where it belongs," said Mohsni. "I'd prefer to be at Ibrox 100 times more than playing for a club in the lower half of the English Premier League. That is despite the fact I would earn more money down south."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article