MYSTERY still surrounds Ryan Kent’s departure from Fenerbahce in Istanbul nearly five months after the former Rangers winger had his contract with the Turkish giants terminated by mutual consent.
Kent joined the 19-time Super Lig winners on a free transfer after leaving Ibrox back in 2023 and played 18 times and scored one goal for them in all competitions during his debut season.
However, the former Liverpool kid gradually fell out of favour under Ismail Kartal, who took over from Jorge Jesus as manager less than a month after he arrived at the Sukru Saracoglu Stadium.
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The former £6.5m player started in a Champions League second qualifying round match against Lugano in Switzerland back in July and helped Jose Mourinho’s side to record a 4-3 victory.
However, the ex-England Under-20 internationalist was forced to train by himself and his contract was terminated by mutual consent in October after it emerged the 28-year-old was considering going to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to have his situation resolved.
FIFA advise their member clubs that making a player train by themselves could be considered “abusive behaviour”.
Speaking ahead of the Europa League last 16 match between Fenerbahce and Rangers in Istanbul tomorrow night, Aydin admitted that is unsure why he had to move on.
“There are still lots of question marks about that,” he said. “First of all, it's not about Mourinho, it's about the previous manager Kartal.
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“Everybody was very optimistic when Kent came. I don’t think he was dropped from the squad for performance reasons, because he played badly in games. He didn’t play poorly when he was given a chance to show what he could do.
“There have been a lot of rumours about there being disciplinary issues. People have speculated that he clashed with the manager or with his fellow players. There has been a lot of talk about what took place, but nobody knows exactly what happened. He just vanished.
“What I can say is that Kartal, the previous coach, is a very nice guy. Some managers fight with their players and fall out with them. But that was not the former coach’s character. He was a player’s manager. That is why there is talk about there being disciplinary problems.”
