RANGERS may have had to wait 18 months for today’s news from the Court of Arbitration for Sport but the decision to terminate the contract of troubled midfielder Carlos Pena has been justified.

The Mexican was dismissed by the Ibrox club in 2019 following a series of examples of dishonesty over his abuse of alcohol.

Pena complained to FIFA that Rangers had breached their contract with him and the three-person panel found in favour of the player.

Rightly feeling aggrieved, Rangers appealed to CAS in Switzerland and have finally been cleared of any wrongdoing thus avoiding having to pay a seven-figure sum.

As much as it is cause for celebration, it closes the door on a largely forgettable period of time in the club’s recent history.

Pena pitched up at Ibrox in the summer of 2018 under the recommendation of former boss Pedro Caixinha who had come up against his Leon side while managing Santos Laguna in Mexico.

Remarkably, Caixinha openly admitted he was aware of the player’s alcohol issues and the gamble he was taking with the signing when he spoke to the Rangers Review last year.

He said: “When I arrived in Mexico at the end of 2012, Carlos was the most incredible midfielder. He was a goalscorer, up and down, defending and attacking.

“He was a massive player with a lot of technique and physicality.

“After that he passed through some problems. He couldn’t deal with what he achieved.

“He passed through one stage where he was having drinking problems. It was totally known.

“And when we contacted the previous teams and coaches in Mexico they told us he still had a little bit of the problem but it’s much better and he has a will to change everything.

“I’m not going to lie to you that he came totally clean. No, he didn’t arrive totally clean for us, but we cleaned him.

“If you remember one of the last games we played against St Johnstone, which we won 3-0, he scored twice.

“That was the Carlos, the real Carlos we were looking for.

Rangers Review:

“Suddenly, after we worked for two months or two and a half months to reach that level, we had the semi-final and Carlos was down again,” he lamented.

“So this was a problem. We needed to keep him extremely close.

“He’s a very kind guy, too kind, and he needs to have you close to him.

“He made a tremendous effort to get to that level but after that, he came down again so you need to track him and follow him on a daily basis.

“He’s definitely a great player, but this is the history of Carlos.”

The line that Pena didn’t arrive “totally clean” should have been a red flag for Rangers' power brokers at that time, particularly given the fact that £2.2million was to be wasted on acquiring his services and then a rumoured £30,000 a week more on wages.

Aside from brief glimpses of quality against the likes of Partick Thistle and St Johnstone, Pena will go down as one of the biggest flops in the club’s 150-year history. He was nowhere near the physical level required to make an impact.

The club have learned from their mistakes, not long after giving Caixinha the freedom to take control of his own recruitment, Mark Allen was appointed and the club continue to operate with a sporting director to this day. Such mistakes would simply not be made in the current framework where the wisdom of crowds comes into play on any transfer.

As for Pena, his career since departing Rangers screams of a troubled individual and that of a wasted talent.

Rather weirdly, the 32-year-old touched on his time in Govan in an interview in Honduras earlier this month where he claimed he somehow “saved” Rangers.

Ultimately, this was a disastrous transfer in what was an equally disastrous spell for the club.

This piece is an extract from today’s Rangers Insider newsletter, which is emailed out at 5pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Rangers Review team.

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