ian1964 10,591 Posted October 30, 2016 Share Posted October 30, 2016 ...with the men in charge happy to keep going back to the well -Michael Gannon. by MichaelGannon QUESTIONS must be asked as to how long the Ibrox club can keep making big losses and ventually mount a serious challenge to old foes Celtic. CLUB financial statements may as well be written in a foreign language for all the sense they make to the average punter. When it comes to annual accounts it’s like reading War and Peace in Swahili after a night on the swally. But you can usually tell the tone of these things by the time they are put up on the club website. Out in the morning, then everything’s hunky dory. Punted out at midnight and it’s Defcon Five, head for the hills. Teatime on a Friday? Somewhere in between. Rangers have been the masters of the strategically-sent website statement in recent years. For a while no-one dared to go to bed without a peak online. Mercifully it’s been largely a different story since Dave King’s troops marched into Ibrox and started cleaning the place up from the inside out. But there’s no doubt the 6pm shot at the end of last week was a mixed bag. Put in English, Gers have slashed their losses in half to £3.3m. Turnover is up £6m to £22m and attendances have shot up from 36,000 to more than 42,000. Sounds decent enough. But, dig deeper and there’s still growing concerns about this going concern. On and off the pitch. It’s clear the Ibrox club is still surviving of handouts. King and the Three Bears – Douglas Park, George Letham and George Taylor – are having to stump up on a fairly regular basis to ensure the club stay afloat. They’ve just had to write a cheque for nearly £3m to get the books signed off ahead of next month’s AGM. Another £850,000 is needed to see out the season and there’s every chance they will need to stump up again to negotiate next season. It’s not ideal and at some point the club will need to stand on its own two feet. The main thing that will put Rangers fans’ minds at rest is the fact that despite the continued losses, the men in charge seem happy to keep going to the well. They also seem content enough to keep giving their manager dosh to spend. So while the accounts might not exactly be singing and dancing, it’s the numbers on the spreadsheets that will stoke up the pressure on the playing side of things. Gers fans are not daft. They hoped to challenge Celtic this season but the reality has dawned pretty quickly that their old foes are out of sight. Celtic’s turnover was £50m last season – and that was in a bad year. Rangers are light years behind the Parkhead side when it comes to finances. Mark Warburton can be excused for using that excuse as it’s not a fair fight. But it works both ways. He’s got more dosh available than Aberdeen, Hearts and St Johnstone combined. Rangers should not just be aiming for second, they should be romping it. Gers fans are – rightly – starting to wonder what would Tommy Wright or Derek McInnes do with £10m a year to spend on wages? McInnes has managed to drag Aberdeen to around 70-odd points a season on a quarter of that amount. Wright has made Saints a top-four force on barely a million a year. Those guys would love to have boards who let them run up losses of three million bucks a year. So it’s a boot where it hurts to see a rival bringing in players on 10 grand a week when they have to beg for every extra shekel. Warburton’s boardroom are pulling out the stops to wring out every single penny to make his side competitive. There’s a limit to how long Rangers can go on making losses off the pitch. King says the amount of dosh needed from directors next year will be dependent on the club’s performances. So it’s clear Rangers cannot afford to fail on the pitch. The board need a side getting 80 points a season in the league, late stages of cups and group stages in Europe. Right now all that looks a long way off. Warburton faces flak from the stands but it’s pressure from inside and outside of the boardroom that will decide his future. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/opinion/sport/rangers-continue-survive-handouts-men-9154812 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gisabeer 409 Posted October 30, 2016 Share Posted October 30, 2016 i dont buy this rag and have no wish to see any of the shite it publishes. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RANGERRAB 3,397 Posted October 30, 2016 Share Posted October 30, 2016 Oh dear big bad Rangers are now second in the league and the usual suspects aren't happy. The difference between us & them is we have people who put money into the club. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
boabie 230 Posted October 30, 2016 Share Posted October 30, 2016 " For a while no-one dared to go to bed without a peak online. " "Peak" ??? Really ? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhunter 0 Posted October 30, 2016 Share Posted October 30, 2016 He’s got more dosh available than Aberdeen, Hearts and St Johnstone combined. Rangers should not just be aiming for second, they should be romping it. Gers fans are – rightly – starting to wonder what would Tommy Wright or Derek McInnes do with £10m a year to spend on wages? McInnes has managed to drag Aberdeen to around 70-odd points a season on a quarter of that amount. Wright has made Saints a top-four force on barely a million a year. thank God DK etc. got in when they did MW over to you. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete 2,499 Posted October 30, 2016 Share Posted October 30, 2016 Were Celtic not 19million in debt a couple of years ago? How much is that now? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhunter 0 Posted October 30, 2016 Share Posted October 30, 2016 Were Celtic not 19million in debt a couple of years ago? How much is that now? 2 very lucky CL entries have kept them out the shit 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuGers 477 Posted October 30, 2016 Share Posted October 30, 2016 Were Celtic not 19million in debt a couple of years ago? How much is that now? Less now that they got some nice land gifted to them from the council. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RANGERRAB 3,397 Posted October 30, 2016 Share Posted October 30, 2016 Or is their jerry-built stadium now causing them some concern ?? Wee whispers I'm hearing. Do you know the San Giro costs nearly £1m p.a. maintenance ? Rather a lot ? Anyway let's put out a wee anti-Rangers story. Keep them masses happy eh ? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuGers 477 Posted October 30, 2016 Share Posted October 30, 2016 Or is their jerry-built stadium now causing them some concern ?? Wee whispers I'm hearing.Do you know the San Giro costs nearly £1m p.a. maintenance ? Rather a lot ? Anyway let's put out a wee anti-Rangers story. Keep them masses happy eh ? It would have been too easy to say that Rangers have done well to half their losses in a year, with more improvements to come as half of those figures are based on Championship participation. Nah, let's just completely focus on the perceived negatives. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.