Credit where it’s due, season ticket sales at Ibrox near 17,000, with so many people trying to force the club into the gutter, is an achievement, and ignore anyone who doubts this figure. Respect to those fans who have remained ‘loyal’. The information was released to the stock market, so sales will definitely be north of 16,500. It’s not worth lying to the stock market over such trivialities.
In the short term, this means the club will be able to meet its loan repayments, if they choose to do so. Don’t ignore the possibility of a game of brinksmanship over loans made by fans hostile to the board. Lenders could be forced take insolvency steps to recover their money, which would be politically awkward, so the club might be able to hold onto this cash.
It also means they will survive the summer and start the new season, which in itself, will encourage others to buy season tickets. The eventual figure may reach 20,000.
With adult tickets costing an average of under £300 before vat, that’s circa £5m hitting the budget so far. Visits from Hearts and Hibs next season, in what counts as big games at Ibrox these days, will provide additional income, which will go towards offsetting the drop in income from lower season ticket sales. Controlling investors are looking to raise £8m from a share issue, so where does that leave Newco?
Based on figures produced by the club in their 2012-13 accounts, income, including a contribution from circa 36,000 season ticket sales, was £19m, while operating expenditure was £32m, leaving an annual shortfall of £13m. Since then, costs and well as income, have fallen.
The £8m share money still leaves them short by a margin that’s likely to be at least £5m, probably more, so further funding should be required by early next year, possibly in the form of a secured loan.
From this position, assuming they compete successfully on the pitch, Newco are short odds to survive long enough to make it into the Premiership for season 2015-16, albeit, still carrying an enormous structural overspend.
It’s also likely that Dave King’s plans, however limited they were, have been torpedoed. Newco will limp on as an unrecognised and unloved rump of a football team, largely owned and controlled by people who have done everything in their power to hide their identity from fans. We can only speculate………
Know your place
King’s most damaging intervention in recent months was to assert that Newco should be spending enough money to compete with Celtic, which after original Rangers went through liquidation is hard to fathom. Newco Rangers must surely learn to live within their means, whether that involves competing with Celtic or fighting off relegation. Those now running Newco can insist all they like that they are custodians of the heart and soul of Oldco, but only the colour of the shirts will bear any resemblance with the former ‘bears’ in the decades ahead, should they survive long enough to enjoy them.
The financial fundamentals have not changed. It will cost between £17m and £20m to operate a football operation at Ibrox, before you employ a footballer. Rates (possibly rent in future), policing, insurances, utilities and the hundreds of staff required for a stadium which can accommodate 50,000 people leave little room for shortcuts. Jettisoning the vanity project that is Murray Park is a no-brainer. Get rid of it, cut costs and bring in some cash.
Football on this scale in Scotland is only possible with regular Champions League participation. Celtic could not operate at anything like their current levels without reaching the Champions League group stage more often than not, or by receiving an investment of cash to recover the situation, should the bogey come off the rails.
This scenario has gone for the Rangers group of clubs. Celtic’s dominance has come while they have sorted out their finances and, right now, are not in debt. Should things go wrong one season in the future, they have the bank facilities available to roll the dice again. Should this go wrong they have investors available to step in, just as they did in 2001 and 2005.
Dave King’s plan may have been unfathomable, but his motivation is not. He knows too well that a subservient Rangers will be unloved and will eventually wither and die, just like the supremacist, version.
Don’t even try to fight long-term fundamentals. They are fundamental! Accept it.
The one and only Bertie Auld is due in the comments section below for a live chat starting at 1pm. Tune in.
Visit the CQN Bookstore to get Tommy Gemmell to sign your personal copy of his tome, All the Best.
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Ooft!
Who is the Cameroon defensive coach?
Claudio Gentile?!
HH!!
Sideshow Bob signs for PSG,i must be missing something here….
summa of sammi….
18:35 on 13 June, 2014
Speak to a few Brazilians about what they think of the World Cup. Where I live in the States we have a huge Brazilian community of the “middle class variety”. Talk about moaning!
Gary67
10:00 on
13 June, 2014
Thunder Road
09:53 on 13 June, 2014
More like a slap than an elbow to me. Yes he looked, he wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t, his arm was out for leverage and protection against player battering into him. Looked worse than it was, dangerous but not malicious, yellow card probably right decision. All IMO of course.
Sorry Gary67
Had to go off oot!
That look that he had was fair enough but in that split second as he took stock of the situation, he decided to stick his elbow out instead of taking a step and a jump to actually win the ball.
He did not have to take a step and jump and was entitled to stand where he was, but he saw the Croatian player coming and as a result, the way he stuck his elbow out meant it was not for leverage and that Croatian player, who was already committed to a challenge was going to run right into that raised elbow.
He was fortunate that it was just his neck that smacked against Neymars forearm and not his jaw, nose, eye or dentistry that met that waiting elbow.
To me, it was dangerous play and i think it was actually malicious as well…..with a wee touch of sneekiness thrown in!
If it had been a notoriously physical player or “hardman” then i think it would have been scrutinised more(and not just by little ole me!)but because it was Neymar it was perhaps just treated as a forwards challenge instead of what it was(imo)…..but as you say…..opinions!
bada
i posted as much last night – a bomb scare at times. Perhaps the will use him in a more forward role.
the=they
TBJ says Wee Oscar Knox is in heaven with the angels
18:18 on
13 June, 2014
Bobby
I agree about chiles but how do you know he gets paid millions
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/oct/31/adrian-chiles-profits-basic-broadcasting-up
£17k a week for elbows? Good grief.
these modern football boots are more like slippers
bring back toecaps, leather nailed in studs and dubbin
What a miss by little pea
3 goes at the world cup sweepstake.
Japan
S Korea
Honduras.
Why is God angry with me?
Good Luck to Adrian Childes why should he be any different from lots of others who earn big bucks from football.Football today is all about money those who have it and those who havnt it is no longer the game of the working classes it has become the plaything of the very wealthy. H.H.
So the yes / no debate on adrian chiles rages on.
JFH
Dear oh dear. Anyway you’re quite funny sometimes.
Two up, 62 to go.
Cmon Spain and Chile.
HH!!
ElDiegoBhoy. Thanks for that fella.H.H.
Chiles is one of the good guys.
http://www.cafod.org.uk/News/UK-News/Who-Wants-To-Be-A-Millionaire2
Captain Unbookable new Clyde Manager….
JFH
He’s a really annoying little shit, not that Im standing up for the rest of them, but just because he’s a “genuine wba fan” why should we have to put up with the crap he constantly serves up ? Dont think for a minute he’s a working class lad made good. Get him to feck, and the rest o them for that matter. Alba for me
HH
ernie lynch
Despite him being an annoying twit as a presenter I’ve always had a wee soft spot for him because of his background.
Holland back 4 very inexperienced
The great thing about Chiles is he’s not Tanner.
twentyfirstofmaynineteenseventynine. Thats your view fella which you are entitled to however,I like him and enjoy his views on football and the questions he asks the pundits. H.H.
Joe Fillippi
So much of modern football is contaminated. Oligarchs, kleptocrats, spivs, drug barons and ordinary decent criminals – they’re all part of the soccer circus today.
Mind you I like to think Celtic is still clean.
I see Mexico’s goal scorer, Oribe Peralta, who is in a rich vein of form was just bought for $10m by America, the biggest transfer in Mexican football history.
However, he was bought from Santos Laguna, who I thought was our “associate” club where we would be offered promising players. OK it was a fee that was eventually a bit rich for us and he has turned 30, but it would have been nice to be asked.
Do we still have these agreements? One was with a Belgian club, was it not?
My saints day (namenstag auf Deutsch) today, for what it’s worth.
One day I will make a pilgrimage to Padua.
Joe Filippis Haircut
18:55 on 13 June, 2014
Good Luck to Adrian Childes why should he be any different from lots of others who earn big bucks from football.Football today is all about money those who have it and those who havnt it is no longer the game of the working classes it has become the plaything of the very wealthy. H.H.
=========================================
The sad but 100% accurate truth.
Only my affection and cellular, DNA level attachment to Celtic keeps me in any way interested in it.
It makes me feel a little sick (literally, physically sick) when I’m reminded of the fact.
And still we all queue up like lemmings to watch these overpaid and over rated players, managers and pundits.
I think at the bottom of my misgivings about Celtic going to the English Leagues or elsewhere it is the thought of us, over paying as it is already for players, getting bloated and ugly on the same filthy racket that has ripped the soul out of so many Clubs South of the Border.
fritzsong. I agree however,to be a winner at the top table in football you need deep pockets.H.H.
Had computer problems for the last week. Only got back on line this afternoon. Missed all the reports about the great night in Greenock last Friday. The Lions were in great form.
Delighted to have caught up with Paul, BRTH, Papa John, Vhman and a few others. Need to get in touch soon Paul re. the two things we spoke about. Please send me your address by e-mail.
Good Evening Timland.
Really sorry I missed the bold Bertie today, work
commitments and all that.
Tonight I think Spain are a good thing,if not I will be
poorer than I was this morning.
This is the first World Cup ever that I really won’t care if England win. I’ve just realised it doesn’t matter a fiddlers fart one way or t’other. If they win, they celebrate, they brag, they go crazy for 50 years. But you don’t have to listen to them.
WatchingfootballwiththevolumedownisagreatwaytoviewtheworldcupCSC
or
JeezoIthinkIfinallygrewupCSC
I’ve never really understood the aniosity towards Adrian Chiles.
It seems to me he gets it just because he’s the Englishman in possession of the presenter’s chair.
I’ve always found him a genuine footy fan – a committed Baggie – and he strikes a pretty decent balance between expert and layman analysis.
He also came out with the great summation a few tournaments ago that ‘the World Cup – always the best 4 weeks of any football fan’s life’.
Of course he’ll plug the English point of view – as he is English, and 55 milion others have such an interest, doh!
But if you have to hate, then hate. However I prefer his guileless, honest fanboy appraoch to Lineker’s sleekit superiority complex any day.
or the ‘animosity’…
A rather unpopular prediction.
Much has been said about the potential competitiveness of next season’s Scottish Championship. Bollocks!
THEY will win it by no l3ess than fifteen points.
More to the point, regardless of THEIR supposed financial woes, THEY will playetrs buy of sufficient quality to ensure that THEY do so.
To me it isn`t hate of Chiles, or the vast amount he makes. Personally I think he`s pure crap. Others obviously see it differently. I just don`t like listening to him or watching him.
And I still think he looks as if he`s jobbied in his (probable) y-fronts.
tictaewin
That’s my middle name after my maternal great grandad.
Never knew him but he was a lovely man they tell me.
Try and get to Padova one day – you won’t be disappointed.
HH!!
The answer to one simple question tells you all you need to know about last night’s penalty.
Would it have been given at the other end?
If you dont want to listen to the pundits turn to bbc 4 (sky 116) mozart concerto -very soothing