AberdeenBud Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 (edited) Rangers have to keep an eye on their spending or face financial woe again Michael Grant Chief football writer Monday 1 July 2013 I T is a simple question with an answer which manages to be both surprising and somehow all too familiar: which Scottish club has signed the most players this close season? WELCOME ABOARD: Nicky Clark is just one of seven new arrivals at Rangers this summer, with perhaps more to come before season starts The answer is the same club that has suffered the greatest financial implosion of them all, but can still look as though money burns a hole in its pocket. Rangers. Two questions regularly being asked around the game right now are "where are Rangers finding the money" and "are they heading for trouble". At the time of their £22m share flotation in December, it was well enough known that the club was losing £1m a month. That was a staggering revelation and a damning indictment of the business model implemented by Charles Green's consortium. Rangers shifted a phenomenal number of season tickets last year and the take-up for the share issue was impressive, too. But for the new regime to be haemorrhaging so much cash every month beggared belief. Ever since, there have been plenty who feared – and just as many who hoped – the club was sleepwalking its way back into insolvency. To them, it still looks very much as though Rangers must be living beyond their means and repeating, albeit on a much smaller scale, the failures of judgment that got Sir David Murray into such catastrophic trouble in the first place and left him passing the buck to Craig Whyte. In fact, there have been cost-cutting drives since the share issue. Carlos Bocanegra, Dorin Goian and Neil Alexander have just been moved out, taking around £45,000 off the weekly wage bill. Although Craig Mather is the interim chief executive picking up most of the money Green was on, Imran Ahmad will not be replaced as commercial director, which amounted to a considerable saving. Neil Murray, Tommy Wilson and Pip Yeates left as chief scout, reserve coach and physio respectively, with only the scouting role earmarked to be filled again (because a good scout will eventually pay for himself many times over). Some other staff around the club have also gone. Around £1m has come off the maintenance bill. But it still costs around £1.5m per month to run Rangers and it works out that only around £1.1m is coming in. Season-ticket sales for the coming campaign stand at almost 28,000 after the deadline for renewals last Friday, with the figure expected to reach around 36,000-37,000 after they go on general sale. That amounts to about £10m to add to the £7m-£8m left in the bank from the share issue. But the fact remains: Rangers are running at a loss, and at a loss taken seriously enough within the club for jobs to be under review with the likelihood of a number of redundancies around Ibrox. They have to put a brake on spending. Mather has been asked by the board to cut costs and, inevitably, one of the routes he must go down is a cold, dispassionate look at which areas are carrying some expendable fat. To those of us on the outside there seems to be only one answer to that: the playing department. Rangers have a squad of more than 30. This summer they've signed Scotland's No.3 goalkeeper from Kilmarnock (giving him a substantial wage rise), two of the best players from two top-six clubs (Motherwell's Nicky Law, Jon Daly from Dundee United), a Honduran internationalist (Arnold Peralta), and experienced former players Steven Smith and Richard Foster. None of those could remotely be described as extravagant deals and the wages are lower than the outrageous £6000-per-week plus bonuses given to Ian Black. But it still amounts to a considerable outlay for sledgehammers to crack a nut. Rangers are still only in the third tier, remember. Although moving on Goian, Bocanegra and Alexander (Kane Hemmings has been the only other departure so far) means the players' wage bill will come down, it is still way above the target figure of around £4m. Ally McCoist has wanted a centre-half all summer but signing an eighth new player, which would increase the size of his squad by four bodies since the end of the season, would be impossible to justify if staff who have been a part of the furniture for years get a tap on the shoulder and their P45. Throughout the vast majority of his career, McCoist knew only big squads at Rangers, lots of players, options for every position. It is those who are most ingrained in the club's customs who are bound to find it hardest to adjust to austerity, even after the destruction of last summer's exodus and the Scottish Football Association registration embargo. Frankly, he has already built a squad which should be comfortably good enough to win not only SPFL League One but the SPFL Championship, as well, without the need for further additions. But if he does try to land a defender, it surely isn't going to happen until more players have been moved out. Rangers know they are still losing too much money, just as McCoist knows the manager doesn't operate within a bubble. When it comes to pressure to make savings, no-one's exempt. Edited July 1, 2013 by AberdeenBud 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AberdeenBud Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 The questions the Bears should have been asking a long time ago. http://www.scribd.com/doc/150985937/Insolvency-Questions-for-Craig-Whyte 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny van Axeldongen Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 “@Martin1Williams: Dorin Goian receives just short of £430,000 after agreeing to have his #Rangers contract terminated Celtic fans are Goian Wylde (again!) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ally88 Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 tedi the beast you lot are the experts 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hellbhoy Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 you lot are the experts And your lot are the dafties 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aofjays Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 In what? Spotting beasts I assume. That is what it wrote afterall. Remember though, what a Sevco fan writes, and what a Sevco fan will later claim they mean, need not necessarily bear any relation to each other. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wunfellaff Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 So they sacked the physio a while back to save cash......good move.... National Club Licensing- First team football Criteria Regulation 6.2. http://www.scottishfa.co.uk/resources/documents/ClubLicensing/Part2:National/Part%202%20Section%206%20-%20First%20Team%20Football%20Criteria(2).pdf Sevco,as a new club,do not need to meet Gold standard criteria. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hellbhoy Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 Spotting beasts I assume. That is what it wrote afterall. Remember though, what a Sevco fan writes, and what a Sevco fan will later claim they mean, need not necessarily bear any relation to each other. It's the Rangers way now apparently say one thing then only to change it now and will mean something else in the future and if that fails get Tedi involved to argue a point that was completely irrelevant to the point in question and hope it will disappear because Tedi will bang on and on and on till you get bored . 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ally88 Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 In what? bheasting. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hellbhoy Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 bheasting. Seek medical attention Ally ! you obviously need it or do the best thing and get banned ASAP please. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~~~ Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 bheasting. that's not even a real word 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~~~ Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 Latest comment from the Sevco CEO "Many Rangers fans and staff still feel aggrieved at the clamour to punish their own club after it experienced financial difficulties of its own last year. The feeling among some is that certain penalties issued back then were too harsh after the Light Blues were voted out of the SPL and left to start again in the Third Division." Can anyone spot what is wrong within that quote? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Koop Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 Latest comment from the Sevco CEO "Many Rangers fans and staff still feel aggrieved at the clamour to punish their own club after it experienced financial difficulties of its own last year. The feeling among some is that certain penalties issued back then were too harsh after the Light Blues were voted out of the SPL and left to start again in the Third Division." Can anyone spot what is wrong within that quote? It doesn't make sense. Is that a partial or full quote you've got there, Enrico? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CityDave Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 Urban Dictionary understands We Are The People http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=We%20Are%20The%20People 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~~~ Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 It doesn't make sense. Is that a partial or full quote you've got there, Enrico? http://rangers.co.uk/news/headlines/item/4371 For some reason they are deciding to comment on the Hearts situation 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apache Don Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 It's the Rangers way now apparently say one thing then only to change it now and will mean something else in the future and if that fails get Tedi involved to argue a point that was completely irrelevant to the point in question and hope it will disappear because Tedi will bang on and on and on till you get bored . That happened to me that did. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AberdeenBud Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 Latest comment from the Sevco CEO "Many Rangers fans and staff still feel aggrieved at the clamour to punish their own club after it experienced financial difficulties of its own last year. The feeling among some is that certain penalties issued back then were too harsh after the Light Blues were voted out of the SPL and left to start again in the Third Division." Can anyone spot what is wrong within that quote? Jesus wept, this is the CEO talking FFS. What hope is there for the newco to engage the rest of Scottish Football in a sensible and adult manner when he is spouting pish like this? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shiltrum Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 Bitter. Naw the description you were looking for was FACTUAL see you sevconians, Dearie Dearie me!, no doubt you will be famiIiar with the phrase delusions of grandeur. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hellbhoy Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 That happened to me that did. you are not alone and should we start a self help group to recover from internet abuse from Tedi ? . 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saor Alba Posted July 2, 2013 Share Posted July 2, 2013 Urban Dictionary understands We Are The People http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=We%20Are%20The%20People It's been done to death already. Here - http://www.pieandbovril.com/forum/index.php/topic/167655-big-rangers-administrationliquidation-thread-all-chat-here/?p=7482575 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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