Beyond economics: How Much Will Selling Alan Hutton Cost Us?

[ascender 352]

i am quite confused by this man. in the last statement we are a selling club, and in the statement before it we are signing new players. clearly the choices are a) keep alan hutton and dont buy a,nyone extra or b) sell hutton and reinvest in other players. thats not quite a selling club, its just a choice. while we cant afford to spend 8 mill on an Alan Hutton, there is absolutely nothing that says we have to sell him. i think just blindly deferring to this idea that we have to sell is just cynicism masking itself as realism. the implication is that if we didnt have Alan Hutton to sell we would be going under, which doesnt seem to be the case.

 

Yeah, it was a bit vague! What I meant by that was that if we get 8M for Alan Hutton, that 8M could bring in 3 or 4 players to strengthen the overall squad.

 

I was almost playing devil's advocate though. We clearly don't have to sell Hutton and the guy is on a 5 year deal with us, so there's no pressure. The truth is, I have no idea what the future holds for our club at the moment. I don't know what SDM is thinking and what his plans are. The fact that the offer from Spurs appears to have been accepted, does that mean we need the money to service the debt to make the club more appealing to buyers? Do we need the money so that WS can strengthen the squad? But more importantly, what are our ambitions now? I really don't know what direction the club is going any more and exactly what level of success SDM will be happy with.

 

FWIW I think its encouraging that any of our players is so highly regarded within the English game as has been evident in the media this season. I'm also encouraged that Hutton doesn't want to leave at the moment.

[bmck 117]

agreed, man. i was really trying to play the other side because i think it pushes exactly the kind of questions in the second paragraph to the fore. i dont think the fans ambitions should ever be the same as the owners - fans are supposed to be the catalysts for progress, but i think there is just such a terrible cynicism now that our expectations have been disproportionately lowered.

[calscot 0]

I think every club is a selling club at the right price; Rangers have been offered about 17% of their turnover for a player - there is no way we can raise that kind of cash as a matter of course.

 

It's similar to Man U being offered about 50M for a player, except that the richer you are the more disposable income you have - Man U made a huge profit last year, whereas we made a loss and then borrowed a quarter of our turnover to spend on players.

 

We need to pay that money back, and hopefuly the CL money, and maybe winning a title, will eat into some of the growing debt. However, it's obvious: we can't spend like that again for a second year and then a third, without risking the huge and dangerous levels of debt from the Advocaat days.

 

I believe downsizing to be a complete myth: all we have done is to stop overspending. The reason we have less money for transfers than in Smiths previous tenure, is that wages are far, far higher, while our income has not grown at the same rate - basically down to Bosman and Sky.

 

We cannot sustain spending more than we earn - unless we have a benefactor who is willing to throw his own money away to get a better Rangers team in return. We have no right to expect Sir David to assume that role.

 

Murray made big mistakes and continues to make smaller ones, but give him credit for using his own money to put Rangers back on a finantial footing where the debt to be serviced is no longer damaging to the playing staff budget.

 

However, from now on, keeping the debt managable to me shows plenty ambition for the future, not lack of it. None of us wants Rangers to go down the same road as Leeds Utd. The long term future of the club demands the board be prudent with our money.

 

I'm not sure what the Mint will do with the Hutton money (if it ever comes), but I think he has learned that being overly parsimonious can actually damage the finances. You have to keep the team at a certain quality in order to be successful - which results in more income.

 

With that in mind, in his shoes I'd be budgeting for repayment of the debt from the normal course of business turnover, and allow extra-ordinary items like the cash from players, to be reinvested in the playing staff when required.

 

However, unlike the Boumsong affair, there is no immediate need to invest all the money at once this time. One player now, and two or three in the summer would make more sense.