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.
[calameo code=0003901719d82038831a9 lang=en page=126 hidelinks=1 width=100% height=500]
996 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- ...
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- ...
- 27
- »
5-1
Pumping…
Think Robben must be on some of those supplements spoke of
Lightening !!
….pfayr supports weeoscar
21:27 on 13 June, 2014
Ryecatcher
Liverpool should take some of those supplements then
————————————————-
They did Alonso. Garcia & Reina !!
Boyce will do well if he puts his head down – done well with Werder Breman initially but fell away when home sickness etc set in – excellent footballer
We should sign Joe Gormley 8-)
BASSA!
I had 4 – Juan
5. Brilliant by Robben.
Manure supporters will be liking what they’re seeing.
If only they’d taken VVD?
Ryecatcher
Your constant BS just irritates me
Sorry I couldn’t resist
I’ll go back to shaking my head at your baseless guff
Summa…
I believe The Englishman would be cutting his nose off to spite his face and would be depriving himself of his favourite past time.
Les Pays Bas tres points.
A warning to all men. You see what is happening when you are listening to much of Shakira, by some called music.
Hmmmmm……..
Real Madrid owe me money, says blood-doping doctor Eufemiano Fuentes
The Spanish doctor at the centre of the Operation Puerto blood-doping trial says Real Madrid owe him money.
Eufemiano Fuentes Photo: AP
By John Percy5:07PM GMT 22 Mar 2013 25 Comments
Eufemiano Fuentes is on trial in the Spanish capital accused of overseeing a doping operation for cyclists, but has said he has also worked with athletes in other sports, including football.
Leaving court on Friday, Fuentes told Spanish radio he was “interested in collecting on a debt from Real Madrid”.
When asked if the debt was for medical services he rendered to the Spanish league champions, Fuentes responded: “I can’t answer that.”
Fuentes added that he could not remember from what year the debt dated but that he wanted to collect now because it was an old debt that was about to be voided by the statute of limitations.
Fuentes’s lawyer, Tomás Valvidielso, said the debt “had nothing to do with Operation Puerto” and was from “2007, 2008 or 2009”.
Related Articles
Fuentes willing to name dopers 21 Mar 2013
Sorensen: I used EPO in the 90s 18 Mar 2013
Cricket ready to test hair for drugs 15 Mar 2013
Brailsford hits back at doping talk 13 Mar 2013
Rasmussen: Leinders ran my doping regime 08 Mar 2013
Tennis to introduce biological passports 07 Mar 2013
Festival of cycling FreeCycle: a unique opportunity Prudential
Real Madrid spokesman Marta Santisteban said the money Fuentes referred to is from his participation as a witness on the club’s behalf in a trial against the French newspaper Le Monde for having published that Real Madrid and other Spanish clubs had their players use banned performance-enhancing drugs. Le Monde lost the case, had to rectify and pay for damages.
“Fuentes is asking to be paid for his travel and lodging expenses when he was called to act as a witness, and Madrid has no problem with paying him when he produces the necessary receipts,” Santisteban said. She did not know why Fuentes was called by Madrid as an expert witness.
Fuentes is one of five defendants being tried on charges of endangering the public health with improperly performed blood transfusions since doping was not illegal in Spain when police began their investigation in 2006. It has since been criminalised.
So far, only cyclists have been implicated in the Puerto case, even though Fuentes has testified that he had clients from other sports, including football.
Real Madrid are not the first of Spain’s top-flight clubs to be linked to Fuentes recently.
In February, a former president of Real Sociedad, Iñaki Badiola, told sports daily AS that the Basque club paid for their players to be doped from 2001-07 and pointed to Fuentes as a possible supplier. Real Sociedad have denied the allegation.
La liga the most over hyped debt fuelled league in the world – coming home to roost now
Ramos & Cassilas look as if they’re still pissed from CL celebrations.
Ryecatcher
Lastly
Re Liverpool
Two man team with a pub team defence and a moderate goalkeeper who get awarded an inordinate amount of penalties
Bottle merchants to boot
Re supplements …it’s the only way they’ll win anything …just some friendly advice
Johann
La liga …debt ridden yes
Over hyped….think that mantle belongs to the EPL …
This is what you call fitba
Great double save Casillas to stem the humiliation
5PAIN
Spaniards getting ragdolled
Pfayr….
Bit of an irritating bastard at times…..your sanctimonious self mate……
You don’t half post some inane stuff at times but hey …..only a blog.
Stop being so anal and let go……
Life can be good.
No way
5-1
Pf Ayr – agree just wait till that bubble bursts
#carnage
I was going to do a treble today, Mexico Holland an Chile i swear. Didn’t bother though, gutted.
Spain being ………..smashed.
Heading out now
looks oot clogs and gouda*
Evening all.
Hope you had a good day, personally, I had a cracker.
Eddie, I will have a word with WC, and I will do what I can to get you into the seat I was sitting in the next time something like that happens.
Bertie sittng beside me, belting out stroy after story, the stuff of your boyhood dreams.
Thanks to Alex Gordon and his good lady for their hospitality, and of course to Mr and Mrs Winning Captains.
But mostly thanks to Bertie.
I got home and Mrs Doc asked why I’m late home from work, I told her I had spent the afternoon with Bertie Auld! She looked at me in that funny, “youre a liar” type of way, sniffed my breath to see if I was drunk, asked what I had really been up to. Only when I showed her the blog and a picture of me and Bertie did she believe me.
“If you fell in the Forth you’d come oot wi a Salmon in yer pocket”:-)
I still had to paint the kitchen though!
LuckyBhoyCSC
Torres is muck. A joke of a striker
Pfayr….
Pour the rest of the bottle down the sink mate…..
That’s my friendly advice……
You shouldn’t get so upset when you bet Spain and they get shafted …..
Hahaha
Geordie Munro
They look like a spent force,a ageing cash rich
squad who have done it all…their bellies are full,
they have their medals, their time has gone.
Torres brings hs epl form to brazil
johann Murdoch
Think you’re mixing up La Liga with ” best league in the world “…
Spain, wow, and it really could be more, just in the last five minutes!
That Dutch guy with World cup……sure he used to work in the Odeon Ruglan main st.
Keep on thinking that Torres will eventually find his form again one day, but maybe not :O)
Aff oot….
Thank feck….
Could almost have been double figures. Spain lucky to get off with 1-5
Big Diego Costa desperately checking Bosman rule for International Football.
No Juan could have predicted this.