“I want to play for Rangers” – Player goes public with desire for Ibrox transfer
Robbie Ure hasn’t closed the door on a future return to Rangers, with the in-form Swedish-based striker admitting openly that he’d love to go back to Ibrox one day, even as he rules out any move happening in the immediate future.
Ure’s story with Rangers began at Auchenhowie, the club’s academy base, where he spent a number of years coming through the youth ranks, predominantly turning out for the club’s B team. He signed a contract extension in June 2021 that kept him at Ibrox until the summer of 2023, and it was during that period that he got his first taste of senior football, making his debut in August 2022 in a League Cup tie against Queen of the South. That debut proved to be a memorable one, with Ure scoring inside the opening minutes of the match — a dream start for the then-18-year-old, in a game Rangers went on to win 3-1.
Unfortunately for Ure, that early promise didn’t translate into a sustained run in the first team. He had to wait almost three months for his next senior involvement, coming on as a late substitute away at St Mirren that November, and ultimately made just three competitive first-team appearances for the club in total. In May 2023, with regular game time hard to come by, Ure opted to reject a new contract offer from Rangers, and by September of that year he’d completed a move to Belgian giants Anderlecht.
Life in Belgium didn’t work out anywhere near as smoothly as Ure might have hoped. He managed just a single first-team appearance during his time at Anderlecht, a disappointing return for a player who’d left Rangers specifically in search of regular football and a new challenge. It was a tough lesson in just how difficult it can be for a young player to break into a new environment, particularly at a club the size of Anderlecht.
Since making the move to Swedish side IK Sirius in March 2025, though, everything has changed. Ure has established himself as arguably the best striker in the entire Allsvenskan, Sweden’s top division, producing genuinely eye-catching numbers in front of goal. He became the first Scottish player to score four goals in a single Swedish top-flight match, netting all four during a dramatic encounter against defending champions Mjallby that finished 4-4. Across a run of matches for Sirius, he found the net 11 times in as many games at one stage of the season, and by the end of July had racked up 31 goals in 49 appearances in total since arriving in Sweden — form that’s helped fire Sirius to a commanding lead at the top of the table, despite pre-season expectations of a more modest, mid-table finish for the club.
That kind of prolific form hasn’t gone unnoticed. Reports have since emerged of concrete interest from both Chelsea and Manchester City, who have reportedly held talks over a potential move for the young Scottish forward — a remarkable turnaround for a player who, just a couple of years earlier, had managed only a single senior appearance during an unsuccessful spell in Belgium. With interest also reportedly coming from elsewhere across Europe, a summer transfer for Ure looks increasingly likely, even if the specific destination remains genuinely uncertain.
Ure himself has been fairly candid about the interest building around him, acknowledging that it’s a natural consequence of playing well in a strong league, particularly after a standout individual performance like his four-goal haul against Mjallby. He’s said he’d be open to considering a transfer if the right opportunity presented itself, while stressing that nothing had been decided and that it remained a long transfer window with plenty of time still to play out.
Despite the growing interesom elsewhere, it’s Ure’s comments specifically about Rangers that have generated the most attention among supporters back in Scotland. Speaking to the BBC, he was clear that a return to Scottish football wasn’t something he was currently considering, given his focus on helping Sirius push for what could be a genuinely special season domestically. But in the same breath, he made his long-term feelings towards his boyhood club unmistakably clear, saying he’d love to return to Rangers one day, while stressing that, for now, his priority is testing himself and seeing what level he’s capable of reaching elsewhere first.
He’s also spoken about the emotional weight of his original decision to leave Ibrox as a teenager. Asked directly by Sky Sports Scotland’s Dharmesh Sheth whether he felt he had “unfinished business” at Rangers, given that the club was effectively all he’d ever known up until his departure at 19, Ure agreed that was a fair characterisation. He described the original decision to leave as a significant one, both for his career and for his family, but said that with the benefit of hindsight, it appears to have worked out for the best. He added that, should the opportunity to return to Rangers ever present itself further down the line, it would be something he’d give serious thought to.
Ure has framed his time away from Scotland as a deliberate developmental choice rather than simply an opportunistic move. He’s explained that his decision to head abroad in the first place stemmed from a desire to test himself, both as a footballer and as a person, after a couple of years in Rangers’ under-21 setup during which he’d seen older players around him plateau and fail to break through. Joining Anderlecht, he’s said, gave him the chance to experience senior men’s football in Belgium’s second tier while continuing to train at a high level, laying the groundwork for the kind of rapid development he’s since shown in Sweden.
That same outlook appears to be shaping his current thinking on a potential transfer. Ure has described his time abroad as being about finding out exactly which level and which league suits him best, while continuing to prove himself along the way — a process he considers still very much ongoing, even amid growing transfer interest from clubs considerably higher up the football pyramid than Siri
For Rangers themselves, the picture is complicated by the club’s other recent transfer business. Having already brought in Lawrence Shankland this summer, and with the club now looking increasingly likely to retain Youssef Chermiti rather than sell him, Rangers’ need for another out-and-out striker appears less pressing than it might otherwise have been — making an immediate reunion with Ure a less obvious priority for Derek McInnes, even setting aside the question of whether Rangers could realistically compete financially with the calibre of clubs reportedly showing interest.
For now, then, this looks set to remain a story of mutual affection rather than an imminent transfer. Ure has been unambiguous in expressing his hope of one day returning to the club where his career began, and it’s clear the sentiment would likely be warmly received by supporters who watched him make such a promising start on his senior debut back in 2022. But with his immediate future more likely to be shaped by Sirius’ remarkable title challenge in Sweden, and by interest from considerably bigger clubs elsewhere in Europe, any Rangers reunion looks, for now, like a longer-term prospect rather than something likely to materialise in the current transfer window.
