The explosive Fabio Silva row that saw Rangers new boy hammered in front of TV cameras and made his dad erupt

Rangers loan star Fabio Silva's dad had to step in to defend his son after a bizarre row between him and Anderlecht boss Brian Riemer sparked by an access-all-areas TV documentary on the Belgian club.

The £35 million starlet has joined the Ibrox club on loan from Wolves in what is regarded as a major coup for Philippe Clement's side. Silva was first sent on loan to Clement's homeland last year and spent six months at Anderlecht, but things went wrong when their current boss, Danish coach Riemer, took charge.

Anderlecht invited cameras into their dressing rooms for a fly-on-the-wall TV series Mauve and an episode showed Riemer screaming at Silva for a defensive mistake that cost them a goal against Brugge. Riemer later dropped Silva and explained: "I only want players who want to fight and die for Anderlecht."

That infuriated Silva and his father Jorge, who was a former international defender who won the Portuguese League with Boavista and played against Celtic in the 2003 UEFA Cup semi-final. And he revealed he had to personally step in to defend his son, who then immediately moved to PSV Eindhoven on loan for the rest of the season instead.

Silva senior said: "At first he really enjoyed the style of football that Anderlecht played. We deliberately chose to go to them on loan because of the way Vincent Kompany had them playing, but he left and eventually, Brian Riemer came in and everything changed.

"Fabio is not Cristiano Ronaldo who dribbles past four or five opponents before scoring a goal. He needs support. But instead, he was receiving long balls, difficult balls or no balls. And they hoped he would perform a miracle.

"The match at Brugge was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Yes, the manager