Nils Koppen reveals Rangers legends plan as part of club rebuild as promoted Ibrox chief unveils Academy blueprint

Nils Koppen has admitted he is going to turn to former players to help bring back the Rangers DNA within the club’s academy.

The newly-appointed technical director has stepped up from his role as director of recruitment at Ibrox. The Belgian will continue to oversee the club’s transfer strategy but will also have an overall responsibility for the mens’ academy, medical, football operations and performance and analysis departments. Koppen sees it as a key aim to get more players through their academy and into the first-team and he wants to bring in former Light Blues stars, who have been there and done it, to help produce their stars of tomorrow.

Koppen said: “First of all, we need to fill in the key positions within the academy to ensure we will be ready for the future, so we can be a productive academy so we can bring players through to the first-team. A lot of work has been done in recent years within the academy but we can’t be satisfied with the general output of the academy. We still need to improve, take steps and keep on creating room for our own academy players to take the step to the first-team.

“One of the objectives will be to sign the best players in Scotland to maintain our best balance. I am sure we have got a lot of good talent already in the building. One of the things I am looking at is to add in some ex-professional Rangers players to increase that level of DNA and to that level of detail. Players who have been in this building, have been a part of it and know what it is about. That is going to be key in the years to come.

“As I have said before, this is a very unique place. By bringing people back with a Rangers background, who know what it is about, will be quite a crucial one going forward.”

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