JOEY Barton will miss Rangers' pre-season training camp in the USA and meet up with the squad only a week before the season begins.
The Ibrox club begin preparations for the new campaign with a 12-day trip to the United States that begins on June 27.
Press Association Sport has reported that the midfielder's contract officially starts on July 1 and this is the date he had always intended to begin his stint in Glasgow.
Read more: Joey Barton set to face familiar foes as Rangers announce friendly with Burnley
Reports on Thursday had suggested that Barton would miss the trip due to difficulties obtaining an American visa with a criminal record.
But the 33-year-old's pre-arranged media commitments are believed to be preventing him from taking part, as he is currently in France working with talkSPORT for Euro 2016.
Rangers manager Mark Warburton is happy with Barton as he has been keeping himself fit since leaving Burnley, but the situation means he won't join up with the Gers squad until they return from the USA on July 8.
The Ibrox club begin their campaign against Motherwell in the Betfred Cup on July 16, giving Barton only eight days of preparation, and he may train with the club's youth team while they are away.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article