Rangers And The Sad Truth
You could spot the warning signs a mile off.
Rangers were purchased by Charles Green and his cohorts back in the summer of 2012. The club/company would be liquidated and were sent to division three. The majority of the teams stars left and the new board had to rebuild.
Rangers returned from the ashes but didn’t seem to learn from the painful experiences they had just been through.
Green and co would start the new era the way the last one ended, by being reckless and rash by overspending. They promised the world, just to get more money from the clubs share issue. Then they cashed in and left the club in total disarray!
The previously mentioned share issue generated £22m. Rangers announced a new five year shirt deal with Puma and a one year sponsorship with Blackthorn. In the two years since liquidation Rangers had sold 32,500 season tickets in season one and then 34,000 this term.
Yet it was announced after the first 13 months of existence the new Rangers company that it was running at a loss. Not just a wee bit of a loss but a loss of £14.4m!
Its also believed that Rangers have a squad wage bill that sits between £6m and £7m a year.
What on earth is that all about?
See what happened was that Rangers decided to continue to operate as a Premiership outfit. Despite not needing a huge 27 man squad and not needing so many over-paid average footballers.
The club should have went with a model of a few experienced SPL stars, a group of exciting young stars and then some players from a league above themselves. They should have been more suited to their surroundings and not looked at possible cup triumphs.
Looking at the first team squad and there is absolutely no need for Steve Simonsen, Stevie Smith, Sebastien Faure, Emilson Cribari and Kyle Hutton to be there picking up a wage. I am sure many a Gers fan could add a few more onto that list.
Financial director Brian Stockbridge has no business remaining at the club. He oversaw this calamity and still managed to take home a very handsome wage.
Rangers also have to take a step back from paying out thousands or tens of thousands on PR firms or on too many finance gurus. Take the club back to basics. Don’t fear a fan backlash, they really would prefer a club with a secure and healthy future.
Now Chief Executive Graham Wallace has asked playing staff to take a 15% wage cut, a request that was emphatically rejected. Not a huge surprise when most have only been at the club between six months and a year and a half. They will have also noticed what happened the last time the players worked on with pay cuts.
But maybe a sign to the players would be for the board to come out and explain just whats being done to get the club back on a long term plan that will see the club succeed in the future. Also a sign that they are committed to the cause too, with board members also taking significant wage cuts.
Questions have to be asked of Ally McCoist. Yes he has taken a 50% wage cut and this should be applauded. But his spending on mediocre players has to be looked at.
Now I hate to see anyone lose their job but does a club in the third tier really need their own online TV channel, a team of online journos, a video analysis and the like? I am not sure.
Then you add to that a bloated backroom staff including numerous scouts, youth coaches, medical team and sports science department. Can all that be justified in the lower leagues of Scottish football?
Remember TV money and competition winnings will have gone down dramatically in the past season and a half. Plus there hasn’t and won’t be any European cash to rely on.
So yes its sad that Rangers once again find themselves in difficult financial times but quite a few of us spotted it coming almost as soon as the new regime walked into the doors of Ibrox. They weren’t there for the good of Rangers football club.
For Rangers to survive they need to adapt to their surroundings, live within their means and learn to walk before they can run. Long term plans need to be put into place and deadwood needs to be moved on and not replaced by equally woeful signings. Trust your youth and trust your fans!
Posted on January 16th, 2014 by scott
Filed under: Article
Spot on. They should be looking at the squad and asking who will be good enough for the Premier. I was told by MISTEr Dingwall many years ago I was not welcome on his site because Imentioned something similar whe all the Dutch players were there. We spent millions of pounds and won nothing. Now we are doing the same thing and cannot even look forward to seeing any improvement. I would keep Smtih and bring back Boyd and get rid of any one who is only there for the money. Temps and Daley inparticular.
Calgary Bluenose
[…] the news was digested – many fans & bloggers immediately began to question some of the additions made to the squad over the summer & why some players rot away on the bench while collecting handsome pay checks […]
excellent appraisal of everything we as fans could see coming under normal business practice if you have to cut costs the first thing you look at is the back up staff and management not the front line workers mccoist has three assistant coaches by the lack of tactics fitness and team progression the fans are questioning the quality of their input this is the first area that should be addressed in any cost cutting excercise the second should be all the so called experts who are advising on how to cut costs
Thanks for the comments guys.
Bill – As long as you aren’t saying anything offence or illegal then you are more than welcome to contribute here. Your assessment of the Advocaat era turned out to be true. If only Murray had your visions of the future.
James – Totally agree with you on cost cutting exercises.
@Bill Dickson
I’m not sure you quite understand either the point of this article or the problem facing the new rangers. You say rangers should keep only players good enough for the top division? You’re in the THIRD tier – keep the players good enough to win you that league and stop overspending.
At this moment it is more likely that rangers will not make the top flight due to administration. And there’s no getting out of it a second time…
Football clubs CAN get out of administration a second time! and if administration does befall the present club at Ibrox, this will be the first for them! the old club failed to exit administration which they entered on Feb 14th 2012, thus were put into liquidation 4 months later! but if you believe old Charlie Green (who does?) you can exit liquidation as well!
ego is a big thing thing to overcome. accept where you are. undefeated seasons are not necessary. don’t worry about the other guys. you are not there and it is beyond your control. short term focus was/is to look good, dominate, get to premier asap to stop an extended run,while steamrolling the competition to show everyone how mighty the gers are. blinded by pride and short term goals. someone needs to accept reality, win your leagues at a minimum cost, albeit with some losses and ties, to achieve the bigger goal of avoiding extinction….again!
It is obvious these cuts are needed but just as importantly where is the new investment that this board promised?! The share price reached a new low of 24p last week whilst recovering slightly this – with one of the original investors dumping their 3million or so shares this week too!.They can obviously see no short-term resurgence in the stock and we have to ask just WHO will invest in an IPO or similar vehicle this time after at least £6 million was robbed from the previous injection?! And will existing shareholders allow the dilution of the value of their stock via another share issue?!! Troubling times lay ahead – and our manager hasn’t seemed to grasp any of this!!
The TRUTH !
How ironic you used that word in the title!
Charles green did not buy rangers.
Charles green bought the assets which were left after Rangers went bust.
The assets consisted of Ibrox, Murray park, Albion car park and the logos etc.
Charles green started a new club –
. . .named Sevco Scotland Ltd and changed Sevco to The Rangers FC Ltd.
Then he started a new company to run the New club.
The new company is named Rangers International Football Club PLC.
Sevco were allowed into the SFL 3 ahead of Spartans.
Sevco previously applied to start their first ever season in the SPL, but that was rejected by the SPL clubs, so Sevco were subsequently given the preferential treatment by the SFL to start their 1st ever match in a Ramsden’s cup match – v – Brechin City, whilst Rangers 1872 still held the licence which was transferred to Dundee and not Sevco.
The TRUTH is out there, just not on your website !
i am so glad to see the bigots team in total financial rag ‘n’ ruin,you lot are a buncha scumbags cheats ‘n’ bigots a pile adross
Ok here is the thing whether or not you believe that Rangers are an old club or new that is your opinion. I tried desperately not to mention anything about history. As I am not interested in this debate, its not relevant to this blog article.
Sevco/Green stated in the summer of 2012 that they transferred/bought ‘assets, business and history’ The old company was killed not the club. That is there opinion, not mine. You picked up on one issue I mentioned about buying Rangers instead of there assets but both are of course linked.
Now SPL frontman Neil Doncaster said ‘it is an existing club, even though it’s a new company”.
UEFA also recognise that Rangers are the same club…
http://sport.stv.tv/football/clubs/rangers/205975-european-clubs-body-downgrades-rangers-status-but-recognises-history/
Now I am sorry if one simple line caused so much stress to you but come on let it go. It really has nothing to with this article.
Really not sure whats bigoted about the blog or the comments but cheers for the input.
Double contracts and rich dutch players