Dor Turgeman to Rangers on brink of collapse as escalating Israel-Iran conflict sees Maccabi rip up transfer rules
Record Sport first revealed the Maccabi Tel Aviv man is a target for the Light Blues as Russell Martin looks to strengthen ahead of a new era at Ibrox.
Advertisement
Rangers' new American owners 49ers Enterprises have been long-term admirers of the 21-year-old having previously attempted to bring the 21-year-old to Leeds United.
READ MORE: Rangers facing Panathinaikos venue switch for Champions League tie in major boost for travelling fans
READ MORE: Rangers told exactly what Jamie Vardy wants with 49ers on double duty for 10 club transfer battle royal
And with Cyriel Dessers reportedly inching towards an exit for AEK this summer, a new striker is top of the agenda after Andrew Cavenagh and the 49ers pledged a £20million investment into helping Martin and new sporting director Kevin Thelwell in the market.
Advertisement
Record Sport revealed Rangers have been in talks over the deal for the £4m-rated Israeli international - but the picture appears to have changed amid Israel's rising conflict with Iran and the ongoing war in Gaza.
Sport 5 report that the club understand that selling key players from Israel "would not be a smart move given the current situation" as the club know it will be difficult to attract players from overseas.
It is claimed that Turgeman "certainly" will not be sold before the club's opening of the Champions League qualifiers next month as they prepare for the first leg against Cypriot side Pafos on July 22.
Cyriel Dessers
It is also noted that Maccabi will "significantly raise the asking price" of players until they feel like they are in an "optimal" position to jump into the market again - with Turgeman among those who are unlikely to be shown the door.
Advertisement
It leaves the new owners at the club with a decision to make over recruitment with their own crucial Champions League qualifier around the corner.
Should last season's top scorer Dessers leave the club, new boss Martin could be left with Danilo and Hamza Igamane as his options up front as he attempts to navigate the tricky route to Europe's elite competition and a guaranteed £30m prize pot in the league phase with Panathinaikos up first.
Follow Record Sport on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for all of the up-to-the minute breaking news, video and audio on the SPFL, the Scotland national team and beyond.
You can get all the news you need on our dedicated Rangers page, and sign up to our newsletters to make sure you never miss a beat throughout the season.
Advertisement
We're also WhatsApp where we bring all the latest breaking news and transfer gossip directly to you phone. Join our Rangers community here.
Tune in to Hotline Live every Sunday to Thursday and have your say on the biggest issues in Scottish football and listen to Record Sport's newest podcast, Game On, every Friday for your sporting fix, all in bitesize chunks.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


USA Today
16 minutes ago
- USA Today
What did Sophie Cunningham say about Detroit and Cleveland? Midwest cities dunk on WNBA star
Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham sparked a bit of controversy on Tuesday when discussing the WNBA's expansion plans for Detroit and Cleveland. After the league announced that it will place new teams in Detroit, Cleveland and Philadelphia this week, Cunningham questioned the league's choices of Detroit and Cleveland specifically over more tourist-friendly cities like Nashville or Miami... or, uh, Kansas City. "I don't know how excited people are to be going to Detroit or [Cleveland]," Cunningham told reporters ahead of Tuesday night's WNBA Commissioner's Cup championship game. As you can imagine, the respective cities of Detroit and Cleveland were not too thrilled with her sentiments. In fact, the literal cities of Detroit and Cleveland responded to Cunningham's comment on social media. Whew, Cleveland pulling out a clip from a previous Caitlin Clark presser of her praising the city is a pretty good retort. While Cunningham is certainly well within her right to wish the WNBA expanded to other cities (and, yes, if you ask us, Nashville and Miami do sound like great destinations for a W team), her bringing up Kansas City, Missouri, out of nowhere, which is close to her hometown of Columbia, does kind of negate her point. Unlike Nashville and Miami, Kansas City is not a major American tourist destination... just like Detroit or Cleveland. However, Kansas City is a proud community of sports fans who would rally around a WNBA team ... just like Detroit or Cleveland would. If the conversation is about which city players would want to live in ... we're assuming contracts and competitive advantage will dictate that over most else. Sure, if you want warmer weather year round, Detroit and Cleveland aren't your picks. There's no debate there. If you want to win, they may well be excellent destinations for WNBA players once those teams get off the ground. Cunningham is fine to prefer other cities, but that doesn't make Detroit or Cleveland any less deserving.


New York Post
25 minutes ago
- New York Post
Trump's racking up wins — and rewriting the book on diplomacy
The least diplomatic president in US history is scoring diplomatic victories. Over the last couple of days, Donald Trump has gotten NATO to agree to a defense spending target of 5%, and backed Canada off imposing a digital-services tax on American tech firms. He's done this while being loathed by many of his foreign interlocutors. In fact, Trump has executed a near-complete inversion of the typical diplomatic formula. He's not nice. He's not conflict-averse. He's not euphemistic. And yet he's gotten results. The NATO commitment, in particular, is potentially historic, and could materially strengthen the position of the Western alliance for the long term. Trump is violating the usual rules of persuasion. Abraham Lincoln famously said: 'It is an old and true maxim that 'a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.' ' Trump doesn't hesitate to pour on the gall, often in ALL CAPS on Truth Social. The leading 19th-century French diplomat Talleyrand said, 'A diplomat who says 'yes' means 'maybe,' a diplomat who says 'maybe' means 'no,' and a diplomat who says 'no' is no diplomat.' Trump says 'go to hell' as the start of the negotiation. He persuades by pressuring. He coaxes by threatening. He de-escalates by escalating. He wins friends and influences people by convincing them he thinks they're freeloaders and losers. A lot of this is a function of his personality and his experience as a Gotham real-estate developer with a nose for power dynamics, a knack for showmanship and a willingness to court risk. It's hard to see how his style of international politics will be replicable by a more traditional political figure. But undergirding his approach is a key strategic insight into the gap between US military and economic might and that of its allies, and how this meant there was a vast unexploited potential for the United States to throw its weight around. When the US president is talking about pulling the plug on NATO, or cutting off trade talks with Canada — as Trump did in response to the proposed digital services tax — it's going to get everyone's attention. The bull standing outside the door of the china shop is a powerful incentive to get along with the bull. The United States has jawboned European countries about their defense spending over the years, but always in a 'we are all friends here' fashion. Defense Secretary Robert Gates issued warnings, cast in terms of how the United States might one day lose its patience. The Biden team didn't have it in them to force the issue. One expert told The New Yorker of her effort to convince Biden officials to get tougher on Germany over its low level of spending. They demurred. 'We don't want to overpressure them,' the expert recalled them saying. 'They should do it on their own time.' Get opinions and commentary from our columnists Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters What Trump has shown is that 'over-pressuring' can sometimes be the right amount of pressuring. Amazingly, prior to the NATO summit on spending, the secretary-general of NATO sounded like a Republican senator trying to keep on Trump's good side in a text message to the president: 'Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win.' There's, no doubt, a limit to Trump's way of doing business. It's true that Machiavelli said it's better to be feared than loved, but he also warned against being hated. Operating this way will build up resentment of the United States over time. And Trump so far has gotten his most notable results using his leverage against dependent friends and allies, not China or Russia. Still, there's no denying his unconventional effectiveness. The late political scientist Joseph Nye contrasted so-called soft power with hard power. 'This soft power — getting others to want the outcomes that you want — co-opts people rather than coerces them,' he wrote. Trump wields soft power with an edge, co-opting through an element of coercion. Twitter: @RichLowry


San Francisco Chronicle
25 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
From Russia to Israel: Meet the Nets' new international draft class
NEW YORK (AP) — The wall across from the elevator leading to the Brooklyn Nets' practice court features a map of the world, where the home countries of their players and executives are noted. Whoever has to update it had plenty of work after the NBA draft. The Nets had five first-round picks and they scoured the globe to find the players for them. There's a Russian who played professionally in Spain before heading to college in Utah. Guards from France and Israel. Two players who represented Israeli national teams. 'To be honest, it's fantastic the way it just worked out,' said Sean Marks, the team's general manager, who is from New Zealand. 'I mean, if you think about it, the game of basketball is such a worldly game, played all over the globe. You've heard about how the rest of the world is catching up to one of America's games. I won't comment on that. What I will say is there's talent everywhere and that's our job, is to bring in the best talent regardless of race, ethnicity and so forth.' The new players were introduced Tuesday at the Nets' practice facility. The class includes No. 8 pick Egor Demin, a Russian guard who spent a season at BYU; No. 19 Nolan Traore of France; No. 26 Ben Saraf from Israel; No. 27 Danny Wolf from Michigan and No. 22 Drake Powell from North Carolina, whose rights Brooklyn acquired from Atlanta in a trade that still must be completed. Some of them knew each other long before they sat at the same long podium along with Marks and coach Jordi Fernandez — who is from Spain and coached Canada's Olympic team. Saraf and Wolf had practiced together before playing for Israeli teams. Demin, who spent time with Real Madrid's second team before college, knew all about Traore after he poured in 45 points against Barcelona in the semifinals of an under-18 tournament before Demin led his squad to victory in the championship game. 'That was really scary for us to get to this game knowing who he is,' Demin said. Now the Nets will see what they can all do together, though it might not look pretty with so many young players coming to a team that went 26-56 last season. Marks said the only expectation will be that the players go out and compete. 'There is a learning curve for sure, there's no question in that,' Marks said. 'You're looking at four 19-year-olds up here, so I have two boys myself older than them. So that just puts it in perspective, like just how young this group is and to me that's exciting. When you see the continuity we can have with this group and how they can build and how they can flourish over the next three, four, five years, it's going to be exciting.' Brooklyn is the most populous of New York's five boroughs and by itself would be one of the five biggest cities in the U.S. It features large Jewish and Russian communities, so Saraf, Wolf and Demin quickly could become fan favorites. 'It was amazing. Got a lot of messages and a lot of love from the Jewish community here,' Saraf said. 'So it's going to be really exciting and I appreciate all the love I'm getting like in the streets and from the fans.' Wolf felt some of the same love with one of the loudest cheers of draft night in Barclays Center, the Nets' home arena, when his selection was announced. He credits his time playing for Israel in the under-20 European championships for a big jump in his game that made him a viable NBA prospect. The big man spent his first two seasons at Yale, not playing much the first one, then finished strong at Michigan after transferring. 'I think my basketball journey's definitely been up and down,' Wolf said. 'It took definitely a few different steps to get where I am today.' He, Powell and eventually Demin, while playing on NCAA Tournament teams, were somewhat easy to find. It took a little more work for Traore and Saraf, so Marks credited the Nets' scouting staff for identifying them. ___