Amido, Dave King-gap too big to bridge

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A meaningless win is always better than a meaningless defeat, but in the larger scheme of things, yesterday’s game against Liverpool is no more significant than last month’s games in Germany.  They are about building fitness and, if necessary, trying new things.

Amido Balde was the winner yesterday.  Some were already writing the player off, not because of any performance inadequacy, but because he was not being deployed competitively.  Victor Wanyama joined two years ago but spent the first six months of this stay warming the bench with Brown, Ledley and Kayal ahead of him.

Five months ago Rangers International FC PLC released their interim accounts, noting that their recurring operating expenses of £2.371m, were £1m per month more than their income.

£1m per month!!  To a club which has no bank borrowing facility!  Yet the alarm bells didn’t ring everywhere.  Roll on five months, 34,000 fans have been separated from their cash in return for season tickets, and now the alarms are ringing all over the place, not just the Celtic online media.

This is not news to anyone reading Celtic Quick News but in life, it’s often not so much the message as the messenger that’s significant.  That the mainstream media feel it’s appropriate to ‘tell it as it is’ about Rangers International’s finances, is a measure of how acute the situation is.

As we’ve been saying here for years, it takes close to £20m p.a., before you employ a footballer or coach, to run a football club which can accommodate circa 40,000 spectators on a regular basis.  Add your football budget onto that £20m and you have an idea of the cash needed to be a ‘top’ Scottish club.

Rangers International’s interim revenue for seven months was £9.5m which annualised up would be £16.3m.  There is a huge structural gap which no one has been able to even remotely suggest a way to bridge.

Now Dave King has told the Herald what we’ve been saying for a while, “Celtic are building reserves by selling top players that they won’t need until Rangers are back (sic) competing with them. The way our finances are being run we could end up with a gap that is too large to bridge.”

It takes hundreds of employees to run a football club at a busy Ibrox Stadium.  There are policing, rates, utility, insurance and stewarding costs, which you can’t do anything about.  Even if they double income, they’re still going to be left with a fraction of Celtic’s football budget.

As Dave King suggests, this is not a short and medium term problem, the gap is already too large to bridge.  King is wrong on one factor, Celtic will not store reserves awaiting a challenge from Rangers International (or a successor club), they are managing player assets as part of an on-going Champions League development strategy.

The other lot are finished, I tells ya’, finished! This is Private Fraser doing his Dave King impersonation:

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  1. Quonno

     

     

    I remember in early 91 being at a Save our Celts meeting in Shettleston and James Farrell was asked what had happened to the money, he replied, somewhat apologetically ‘we spent it’. The reply was less than well received

     

     

     

    Jimbo

  2. Papa John

     

     

    I was one of the “orphans” he took to the 1971 LCF. Aye, THAT one!

     

     

    The man was a legend. Wasn’t it rumoured that there was going to be a Jinky stained glass window in the newbuild?

  3. Not too many mentions of the stamp on Tony Watt near the end of the game where he had to be subbed as a result.

     

    On replay it looked like an Elbows special to me, late and a stamp.

     

    Enrique I believe.

  4. Saint Stivs

     

    16:28 on

     

    11 August, 2013

     

     

    Don’t want to get in too deep.

     

    However, United Ireland cannot happen without consent of majority in six counties.

     

    Even if demographics keep shifting in North and change complexion of majority, how many will turn out to be what Jim Sillars famously described in a Scottish context as being ninety minute patriots.

     

    Before anyone jumps in I was brought up in a fairly Irish Nationalist if not necessarily Republican household.

  5. dettolandtheblackash on

    Hi guys -am looking for a couple of tickets for Aberdeen game next week-did not receive any in the ballot- If anybody knows of any spares -could you please let me know?

     

     

     

     

     

    Thanks

  6. I was in the main stand with youngest brother at the Partizan game.

     

     

    Half a dozen priests sat around us. So I tried hard not to swear.

     

     

    The young Father Dougal next to me, says Ive never been before dont know much about the game, only came along cos the older priest persuaded me, so can you help me understand whats happening.

     

     

    As the score went up and down, and we were in, out, drawing, extra time, out again, in again, with every passing goal the priest would ask me “what does than mean now ” ……..

     

    and I would tell him.

     

     

    We get to 5-3, I am jumping about like an eejit, but still, was it 7 minutes to go.

     

     

    Priests are all happy as well, and you can tell their praying for the win.

     

     

    We lose the ball, was it big roy, they break , they score”

     

     

    aw ffs, says I

     

     

    the priest says “dont tell me, i think thats us out”

     

     

    well with an added f in it.

  7. 2:1 to the dandy dons, if they hold on and

     

    beat us next week,6 points behind…..sack the board.

  8. What is the Stars on

    Quonno

     

     

    I am amazed anyone in the Republic would vote for Sinn Fein

     

    Apart from Brits Out they have no policies as such

     

    So they have no policies of any relevance to the Republic where NEWSFLASH the brits are already out

     

    And as for Mr Amenesia Himself,The bearded one,I was never in the Ira Adams

     

    How can anyone take him seriously

  9. Having gone two goals down the young Celts fought back today to beat a very strong Manchester City team 3-2 at Lennoxtown. Our young Australian made his Celtic debut in this match and is just back from the match – he’s completely buzzing and delighted to have now worn those famous hoops. He had a volley cleared off the line so nearly got his first goal too. Willie Wallace rates the boy very highly and he seems to be doing really well at the club. Fingers crossed.

  10. twists n turns on

    Smoke bombs from Aberdeen end. Need to think about shutting that section down I guess :-)

  11. Still suprised Paddy McCourt hasnt got a gig at a club yet.

     

     

    Aberdeen this season would have been a smart move for the Derry Pele.

  12. What is the Stars

     

    16:40 on

     

    11 August, 2013

     

    Quonno

     

     

    I said neither yea nor nay about folk voting for SF in South.

     

    I merely gave an answer to a question on SF numbers in the Dail.

     

    As far as politicians are concerned. A plague on all their houses.

     

    In the early seventies a firebrand was going around places like Andystown advising people not to pay rent but buy food and clothes for their kids.

     

    Come a wee cushy job in the Sunningdale Assembly he is alleged to have signed letters advising the same folk that their rent arrears would be deducted from their welfare benefits.

  13. prestonpans bhoys on

    Saint Stivs

     

    16:45 on

     

    11 August, 2013

     

     

    Been told he’s training at Easter Rd, after watching that mince today I would put him in straight away.

  14. Thought I read that soccer in the USA is coming to the end of season so timing isn’t right for Paddy just now.

  15. GlassTwoThirdsFull on

    Just listened to the OTB Sunday Supplement. Good one from Cowan – Dave King says they will go into administration by Christmas unless there is an injection of money into the club. So that’ll be another charity game then!

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