I know many of us are annoyed that a Celtic player, who didn’t appeal for a foul, is not being charged for inappropriately looking for one, is headline news today. This is all a consequence of Sky Sports pundit Neil McCann’s insistence that John Guidetti cheated, while he simultaneously acknowledged Guidetti didn’t actually claim for a penalty.
TV analysis can enrich viewers’ appreciation of the game, but it has to carry a degree of responsibility too.
Those of us from Scotland will be familiar with the summertime noise of a scramble – pennies dropping all around you. It’s a wedding-day tradition, when the father of the bride throws coins into the street for kids to collect as he and the bride leave for the ceremony.
Today’s story in the Record, lifted from a fans’ group, that newco Rangers receive approximately 75p for every £10 spent with Rangers Retail, the joint-venture between the football club and Mike Ashley, must have had pennies dropping everywhere.
These figures are for last season, so predate whatever new arrangement Ashley was able to negotiate for the return of stadium naming rights. We’ve covered this point before, but it’s worth reiterating:
Football clubs are in fact a series of business units. Few make a profit over any business cycle but there are profitable business units inside every club, including retail, trackside advertising, media rights and kit deals.
Football operations almost always lose money. The considerable cost of operating a stadium, recruiting and employing footballers (and occasionally a manager on an onerous contract) isn’t met by ticket sales, even at community football level.
The club accounts detail how much financial control Ashley has over newco’s profitable revenue streams, from retail, to kit supply to trackside advertising. The true consequences of forming the with investors looking for a financial return, as newco did in 2012, should now be apparent.
If the club has a future it will have to survive pretty much on ticket sales alone. As we’ve covered before, when you need to pay circa £17m p.a. to open the doors at a club which will occasionally house 50,000 spectators, and your gate receipts and hospitality sales totalled £12.3m last season, you have a chronic problem.
Even if ticket sales doubled in value, there would still leave only around £7m to pay for football operations, a figure the likes of Kilmarnock can survive on, but you have to wonder if a ‘Rangers’ brand is viable at that level?
Does this sound like a viable football club to you? If so, let’s see how it looks after Ashley has his pound of flesh for financing the second half of the season. No wonder fans are so keen to stop him.
I see newco have appointed WH Ireland as their nominated advisers, a name you may be familiar with. Back in May 2012, Kitalba, with an astonishing degree of understatement (“It couldn’t be clearer”), noted here in the comments section the breadcrumb trail between Craig Whyte, a whole series of his companies and associates, and the aforementioned WH Ireland. It’s worth a 15 minute read.
It’s the big Glasgow derby tomorrow and Celtic sponsor Magners have offered us two premium seats in the Jock Stein Stand. All you need to do to win the seats is to email me the name of our opponents, at celticquicknews@gmail.com
Competition closes at 22:00 tonight, so check your email thereafter. Tickets can be collected from the ticket office before the game.
Planning is underway for Mary’s Meals to build a kitchen Chibwata Primary School, Dowa, Malawi, which we in the CQN community have committed to paying for. We have already built three school kitchens in Malawi this year, so I am sure we will complete this one sometime over the coming months.
Sorry, the MyDonate page is now open for business!!
Many thanks.
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5-1
3 mins to make it 7!
Cmon Bhoys!
HH!!
The kids are scoring quicker than the tweets are arriving……….
Tallybhoy
19:48 on
2 December, 2014
3 mins to make it 7!
You bad.
Thanks for the KO time for tomorrow lads, even the 6pm one!
It’s 6 !!!
90+1 GOAL!!!! Nesbitt bundles in from close range to make it 6-1 at Murray Park!!!
6-1!
Nearly there Bhoys!
HH!!
Big cup,
I noticed that too. I haven’t read every report but that wasnt mentioned.
Compare and contrast to a frickin bus catching fire….
Wine chat…
Apothic, from gold ole USA. £7 Costco, £10 Tesco.
Full bodied wine, knocks spots off of Barolo.
Give it a try
P
One more.
FT at Auchenhowie:)))
Sevcos rosemarys babies 1 Celtics bhoys 6
onlooker
19:29 on 2 December, 2014
I love listening to them hurt in’ ……. Fekin’ brill……would have been even better, though, if it had been an unequivocal dive…… They might have ‘burst a gut’ …… They are all plukes on the backside of humanity ….. !!!!!!!! …hahahaha
6-1 will do!
Very well done the young Hoops.
HH!!
Score??
Only dampner was the official site refering to them as R*ng*rs
a wee *THE* is not a lot to ask.
tallybhoy,
Yer terrible man, their only kids ;)))
jude2005 is Neil Lennon \o/
1-6 to the good ghuys
leftclicktic
The Celtic hierarchy will always refer to them as R*****s.
HH!!
Geordie
compare and contrast:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/five-arrested-after-celtic-fan-trouble-at-motherwell-match.1386844613
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/police-arrest-14-including-two-14-year-olds-after-trouble-at-livingston-v-rangers-mat.1416232893
Big cup.
Outrageous mate.
sipsini
They’re old enough to vote and to get married!
:-)
Hope you and the weans are well. Caesar still doing the power walking?!
HH!!
Celtic Football Club @celticfc 8m8 minutes ago
“FT RANGERS” 1-6 CELTIC A stunning Glasgow derby victory for Celtic’s Development Side at Murray Park. (MH)
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****
A very impolite method of describing the hun!!
FTR angers.
Cosy Corner Bhoy.
Sorry but I ain’t bringing wine to the BV for drinking, I’ll be drinking it in my hotel room before I go to the Blane V.
Oh Sevco Sevco they are done
when it’s freezin and no sun
All the Zombies they’re in dispair
The joy of Six for the Tim’s is Rrrerr !!
Blatantly stolen from the 7-1 song but enjoyable none the less ! Zombie nation !
Roon Yeez !
Someone questioned on twitter Broonie being at the young bhoys game tonight when we are playing tomorrow.
IMHO
What a boost to the young troops having to play behind closed doors at Auchenhowie and getting led through the front gates by your 1st team Captain & leader.
67heaven.
Agree ,however they still set the terms of reference.
they orchestrate the agenda and because it is not challenged (properly and robustly) it goes down as ‘same old Celtic always cheating’
The next stonewall penalty that we are denied will be set in the debit column ,no in depth analysis will take place asking how the ref could miss it and it gets put into the adage that they ‘even themselves out’
That’s why we are Paranoid in Paradise.
The Onlooker
UoF Statement on Retail Deal – 75p in every £10 goes to club
“Since the release of the accounts for RIFC PLC, the focus has rightly been on the almost immediate requirement for more cash simply to pay bills and also the boards wish to raise £8m in equity finance despite recently turning down a valid, fully funded offer for £16m. However, having had the accounts analysed by qualified accountants, we feel it is important to bring Rangers fans’ attention to the absolutely disgraceful reality of the retail deal which has been entered into with Mike Ashleys Sports Direct.
We have become accustomed to David Somers’, Comical Ali style proclamations about our club. He stated recently that Rangers “make quite a lot of money” from the Sports Direct deal but that is not how the accounts read in our analysis. In fact, despite the loyalty of the Rangers fans seeing £7.6m spent on retail in the year covered by the accounts, the club’s share of that spending is a paltry £590k. That means that for every £10 spent by Rangers fans on merchandise, the club receives only around 75p. The accounts also reveal that Rangers Retail has an obligation to purchase stock at a higher price than it is able to be sold at.
In the second half of the year covered by the accounts it appears that the portion of profit due to the club is an unbelievable £2k.
For comparative purposes, the much maligned JJB agreement, our previous retail deal, made the club a minimum of £4.8m a year over the term of the deal, over 8x the amount we are making from Sports Direct.
Crucially, it is also not clear whether the club has yet received a penny of the £590k it is due or whether it is still retained within Rangers Retail. Indeed, from inception it would appear that the club has only received £100k in dividends from the venture with Sports Direct. Mr Ashley has loaned money to strengthen his stranglehold over our commercial operations, whilst funds due to the club through Rangers Retail, over which Sports Direct has effective control, are retained.
We have always feared that the deal Charles Green did with Sports Direct was dreadful for Rangers. Mr Somers’ ridiculous defence of it, on behalf of this discredited and incompetent board, can be added to the list of reasons why he, the Easdale brothers, Norman Crighton and Derek Llambias are rightly distrusted by the vast majority of our fans.
In light of the information revealed in the accounts we urge fans to stop buying merchandise from club stores, which are now under Mr Ashleys full control or being shut down, and Sports Direct. Your loyalty is being abused and the club is not benefiting from the money you are pouring into Mr Ashley’s pockets.”
As 67 heaven would say,hahahahaha.
The Rangers youth policy seems to be as functional as the rest of the club.
oldtim67
You old preloader
sispini
“having had the accounts analysed by qualified”
well there’s a novelty
Ooopppppssss !!
Red keech down 1 nil !!
Oh my sides ur splitting !
Where’s a catcher in the rye when you need one ;)
accountant
leftclicktic
20:02 on
2 December, 2014
Someone questioned on twitter Broonie being at the young bhoys game tonight when we are playing tomorrow.
IMHO
What a boost to the young troops having to play behind closed doors at Auchenhowie and getting led through the front gates by your 1st team Captain & leader.
——–
Agree 100%.
Ashley has the Huns by the short and curlies
They’re skint …he has cash and seems to be the only show in town for them
He’ll squeeze what he can from them regardless of they’re stupid ineffective protests
sipsini
Seen on twitter earlier
” if I was hector I’d be interested in the 375% rise (£7m profit) in merchandise sales when they only get 7.5p a £1″
“It’s ingenious. Fans buy retail – Sevco make 75p. Fans boycott retail – Sevco lose £9.25”. #TennerDilemma
Only 6-1 Deila OOT
Bbboooooo ! 1-1