The On Field Impact of Administration

[Juancornetto 1]

As a slight diversion I thought it would be worth looking at the footballing consequences if we are indeed placed into the hands of administrators.

 

The first thing I would like to clear up is what happens to our squad given that we are post Transfer window...so you would think that the squad we have now will be the one that we finish the season with, or will we?

 

The answer is yes AND no. We can now see why Whyte was so keen to get contracts issued to the "marquee" players - McGregor, Whittaker, Davis and Lafferty. This makes them assets which hold a significant value and the administrator will want to yield a return if and when they are sold. This cannot happen out with a transfer window unless all of them go to Russia where the window is still open but this is unlikely. What is more likely is that these players will be asked to accept lower wages by an administrator in an effort to reduce running costs (pegged at £3.5m per month).

 

The fringe and short term contract players however are a different story. This includes:

 

Papac, Wykde, Aluko, Bocanegra, Edu McCullloch, Broadfoot, Healy, Little and possibly Goian. These players will also be asked to accept reduced wages, some will accept while others will refuse. The ones who refuse will be offered to terminate the contracts and accept a small settlement or will have their contracts terminated and become free agents. We are likely to see a lot of players coming out and giving "I feel let down by the club" statements and it will generally be pretty unpleasant. It has been suggested that some players who arrived in the summer or January have "administration clauses" in their contracts which would allow them to leave as free agents immediately. I hope this is not the case as we would find ourselves seeing out the season with 16 and 17 year old kids filling in the blanks.

 

The youth players will not be immune from the cuts but some of them will find themselves in the first team to replace some of the above. This could yield an unexpected bonus further down the line...just look at Motherwell and the success rate of young players coming through post administration.

 

Points wise we will be deducted 10 points immediately we enter administration and this currently puts us at 51 points, 10 clear Motherwell in 3rd.

 

Unless we have exited admin by the summer all of our assets will be sold to raise cash for creditors. We could be looking at our entire first team being sold with no possibility of buying players to replace them. This would be disastrous for season 2012/13 and doubly so when you consider another 10pt deduction will be levied by the SPL. If the Chairman can steer us out of admin before then this can be avoided.

 

Administration will have a lasting effect on the squad for years to come, we have all but conceded the league this season and unless we are out of admin by July we will be 10pts behind before a ball is kicked.

 

The fans will be key to the on field performance in this period. If crowds drop cash flow will be squeezed and the administrators will be forced to inflict deeper cuts than if we continue to see 40k plus crowds. Any notion that money you put into Rangers now goes to administrators is completely false and potentially very damaging to our on and off field chances.

 

None of this may be necessary and we may enter and exit very quickly, or even better not enter admin at all. One thing is for sure though...Rangers will not be Champions for a fourth consecutive season.

[der Berliner 3,725]

Some of my questions would be:

 

- what did happen to the Motherwell squad(s) when they entered administration not that long ago?

 

- who is considered to be on a deal worth cutting? And does the administrator will be looking for squad cuts in the know that a vastly reduced team will reduce gate receipts et al? We're not speaking about the 8k that may regularly visit Fir Park, but the difference between 50k and 35 k a game.

[GovanAllan 0]

All good stuff JC nice to see someone take a step back a look at the situation we are in instead of pointing fingers and getting involved in the blame game.