How Lewis Ferguson Agreement Paves Way for January Move as Behind-the-Scenes Rangers Talks Revealed

Of all the deals that didn’t get done during Rangers’ extraordinary summer of transfer activity, none may sting quite as much in hindsight as the one involving Lewis Ferguson. The Bologna captain and Scotland international came agonisingly close to completing a move to Ibrox before the window shut — not in the sense of vague interest or speculative contact, but in the sense that personal terms were reportedly sorted, the player himself was fully on board, and the only thing standing between Ferguson and a Rangers move was a bid that Rangers themselves never actually submitted.

That’s the account given by Ferguson’s father, Derek — himself a former Rangers player, alongside his brother and Lewis’s uncle Barry — speaking on the Open Goal podcast. And it’s an account detailed enough, and specific enough, that it has reopened the conversation about whether this deal could yet be revived when the transfer window reopens in January.

According to Derek Ferguson, his son had reached the point of agreeing “everything” required for a move to Rangers, describing it as the right time for a change after four years established as a key player at Bologna. “The thing with Lewis was, he agreed everything,” Ferguson Sr said. “I’ve said that it was time for Lewis to change, he’s been there for four years at Bologna and it’s time for a new challenge. Most things were agreed. But there was never a bid put in. They had agreed a lot of stuff behind the scenes with Lewis.”

That detail — an agreement in principle on personal terms, but no formal bid ever landing with Bologna — is the crux of the entire story. It wasn’t Ferguson turning Rangers down, nor Bologna refusing to negotiate; by his father’s telling, it was Rangers themselves who never followed through on their end of the process, even after clearing the personal hurdles with the player.

Ferguson’s own motivation, per his father, was straightforward: the pull of playing under Derek McInnes, the manager who gave him his big breakthrough as a teenager at Aberdeen. “He was up for going to play under McInnes,” his father said. “He loves Del and has a lot of respect for him. He was prepared [to go].” Asked whether he’d tried to talk his son into taking more time to consider such a significant move, Ferguson Sr revealed he’d actually urged caution rather than encouragement — telling Lewis directly that a move to Rangers was “a hell of a challenge” and that it was ultimately his career and his decision. Lewis, by his father’s account, wasn’t interested in second-guessing himself: “He said no, I’m up for this, I’ll take that challenge on.”

If the personal side of the deal was as settled as Derek Ferguson suggests, the obvious question is why Rangers never pulled the trigger. The answer, by his own admission, comes down to money. Bologna were said to be holding out for a fee in the region of £17m for their captain — with some reports putting the figure as high as £20m — a price Ferguson Sr acknowledged was “probably” the biggest sticking point, adding a wry observation about how much Rangers had already committed elsewhere in the transfer market this summer: “you see they have forked out quite a few bob now.”

It’s a fair point given the scale of Rangers’ overall summer spending, which stretched to 14 incoming signings by the time the window shut, including big-money deals for the likes of Lawrence Shankland and deadline-day arrivals Kevin Kelsy and Badredine Bouanani. Against that backdrop, committing £15-20m more to a Bologna midfielder — even one McInnes clearly rated highly enough to have personal buy-in from the player himself — appears to have been a bridge too far for a club already stretching its resources across a wholesale squad rebuild.

This isn’t the first time speculation has swirled around a Ferguson return to Ibrox, and reporting from earlier in the summer actually paints a slightly more cautious picture at that stage of proceedings than the one Derek Ferguson has since described. Back in June, sources close to the club indicated that, despite growing reports of interest, Rangers were not actually in concrete talks with Bologna or Ferguson over a move, characterising any deal as far from close and not even a stated priority for the summer at that point — even while acknowledging Ferguson was a player well liked by the Ibrox hierarchy. That earlier caution suggests the “concrete talks” Derek Ferguson has since described developed relatively late in the window, closer to deadline day, rather than representing a season-long pursuit that simply never closed.

It’s also worth noting the family connection runs deeper than most transfer sagas. Lewis Ferguson actually came through Rangers’ own youth academy as a boy before being released at 13, going on to make his name first at Hamilton, then at Aberdeen under McInnes, before completing a move to Bologna in Italy where he has spent the past four years, working his way up to captain the Serie A side. A homecoming of sorts, then, layered on top of the McInnes reunion angle, and on top of a family lineage — with both his father and uncle having represented Rangers as players — that would have made the emotional resonance of any eventual move considerably greater than a standard transfer.

Here’s where the story takes an interesting turn. Despite everything outlined above suggesting a deal that came agonisingly close to happening, Derek Ferguson himself poured cold water on the idea of a swift revival when the window reopens in the new year, delivering a blunt verdict: “ship has sailed.”

It’s a verdict borne out by results on the pitch, too. Rather than fielding a player Rangers had all but signed, Bologna have instead continued to rely on Ferguson as a central figure in their own plans — he has started in both of the club’s opening Serie A league fixtures since the summer window closed, offering little sign of a player angling for an exit or a club looking to cash in. If anything, that muddies the previously reported argument that Ferguson himself was firmly focused on a departure; four years of established first-team status and the captaincy at a Serie A club is not nothing to walk away from, even for the pull of playing under a trusted former manager.

The broader context here matters too. Rangers already look set to retain Nicolas Raskin at least until January, after a proposed move to Besiktas fell through when the Turkish side failed to meet Rangers’ asking price for the Belgian midfielder. McInnes has reportedly encouraged Raskin to simply focus on his form in the meantime to maximise his chances of a big-money exit whenever it eventually arrives. Add in the sheer number of fresh midfield faces Rangers have already brought into an increasingly crowded squad this summer, and the practical case for immediately reigniting a £15-20m pursuit of Ferguson come January looks considerably weaker than the emotional case for it.

Still, football has a way of reopening doors that look firmly shut. A difficult second half of the season for Bologna, a change in Ferguson’s own circumstances, or simply Rangers freeing up funds through outgoing sales in January could all shift the calculus. For now, though, the most concrete thing that can be said is that Rangers were closer to landing Lewis Ferguson than most fans ever realised — and that, for the time being at least, both his father and Bologna’s current team sheet suggest that particular ship really has sailed.