By Andrew Scott

THE Scot has been linked with French giants Racing 92 and Montpellier but it is believed that Racing are in the driving seat with a deal worth a reported £700,000 a season.

“He’s obviously a very talented guy and lots of clubs will be looking at him” Gordon Hood, Russell’s agent said in an interview.

Hood believes that Finn will relish the challenge of playing in a new environment and that the time is right to move at this stage of his career.

“Yeah he (Finn) wants to challenge himself, I think going into another team environment and working with another coach will lead to different challenges there. I think it will improve him as a player and so I think that’s not a bad thing to do at this stage of his career.”

The Glasgow Warriors and Scotland fly-half announced that he would be leaving Glasgow at the end of the season on Sunday night.

Russell, 25, has been with Glasgow for five years now and has won the league with them; he has also earned over 30 caps for the Scotland team, recently featuring in the narrow loss against New Zealand on Saturday.

Hood comments that: “The game at the weekend shows exactly how far Scotland have come and its good that they are attracting interest from other parts of the world and other successful teams

“I think its Scottish rugby’s job to look at bringing through the next Finn Russell, Stuart Hogg, Hamish Watson or whoever that might be and it would great if these guys could stay and Finn will be gutted to leave Glasgow but being at one club all your career is probably not what Finn was going to do. “

Hood believes that if Russell wants to develop as a player then he needs to look no further than Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend to see how he developed his game by playing abroad.

“Gregor has played in South Africa, played in France, and played with Northampton Saints.

“I think he didn’t want to dabble but experience different coaching structures and different teams across Europe and across the world. I don’t think Finn will be different in that sense either.”

Russell however may not be the last of Scotland’s gems to leave the Pro14 and play down south or abroad at the end of the season.

English Championship club Bristol have reportedly made an offer to Jonny Gray whose contract runs out – like Russell’s – in the summer.