10 years ago today Jimmy Calderwood was manager of Aberdeen. If a nostalgic journalist troubled the Tanned One on what his old club could do to prevent Celtic disappearing further over the horizon, can you imagine him saying: “The board need to bridge the gap with Celtic, spend big and put Aberdeen back where they belong”?
It would be a ridiculous suggestion. Celtic turnover circa £65m more than Aberdeen, trying to match the champions in any meaningful way would jeopardise the club’s 112 year history.
Calderwood, isn’t so daft. But Walter Smith, who 10 years ago was Rangers manager, now advises Newco to spend big in order to catch and stop Celtic. Newco will turnover around £50m less than Celtic.
Football clubs who are engaged in a competitive struggle, either cut their cloth to suit their circumstances, or are destined for insolvency. Of the tens of thousands of registered football clubs in the world, Newco, more than any, should be wedded to a strategy of matching expenditure to income. They should know better.
Live within your means, pay your bills, build up a track record of responsible trading. Develop youth talent to the best of your ability, plan seasons in advance, and you have an excellent chance of improving as a football team year-on-year. Whip up unreasonable expectations, become a serial loss-maker, crave short-term hits like an out of control addict, and your chances of sustained development are zero.
It beggars belief that in 2017, not five years since the shadow of liquidation walked up Ibrox’ marble staircase listing every asset in the building for sale, that a hugely experienced authority is putting a futile trophy hunt before the financial security of the club.
The ball is rolling on this now. The vast majority of fans only hear “Spend, spend, spend”. Responsible voices suggesting Newco spend what they earn, irrespective of the consequences on the league table, will be abused as heretics (been there).
David Murray’s ‘speculate to accumulate’ narrative needed Rangers to be competitive at the top end of an inflating market. It worked while these conditions were in place but fell apart when the market in England softened in 2001. Rangers could no longer sell their duds at a profit and the game was over. It’s not been a viable strategy in Scotland for 15 years. The subsequent crash and burn was inevitable (although liquidation wasn’t).
Any team wedded to a strategy which requires them to spend money they can ill afford, to achieve an outcome which is beyond their reach, is destined for insolvency.
Is competing for second place really that bad that you need to risk it all to ‘stop Celtic reaching 10’? Aberdeen, Hearts and Motherwell seem to enjoy their football in this reality, most fans pitch up week-after-week despite lesser ambitions. I haven’t heard a single voice of reason on the financial strategy across the city from within their own ranks.
You know how this story ends.
330 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- »
Skijoring, Ice Stock Port, Snowshoeing, Military Patrol, Bandy, Snow Ball Fighting.
Which team is more likely to partake in one of the above events rethre than playing football on their winter break 2017?
MWD
“We wish the new Rangers Football Club every good fortune.”
Walters Myth 2012
BOURNESOUPRECIPE on 10TH JANUARY 2017 1:13 PM
What happened to ‘the Protestant air of superiority’ money?
———————————-
He’s skint!
MWD
Regards me sending email to the Sun who claimed rangers 2012 hold the current 9-in-a-row record.
Hello Gerry,
Thank you for contacting us with the mistake you noticed in the paper, I’m sorry this has happened and I would be happy to assist.
I have passed along your correction to the appropriate departments. Thank you very much for letting us know of the error today Gerry.
I hope you keep enjoying The Sun Gerry. If you require any further assistance, please do not hesitate in contacting me, or anyone here at The Sun, we will be happy to help.
Kind regards,
Ian
Online Customer Services
MOONBEAMSWD
He’s not,you know.
Murray effed off minted,having cherry picked the good parts of his failed business and left the taxpayer the tab for the rest.
Aberdeen, Hearts and others have realistic expectations because they are people.
Newco have unrealistic expectations because they are peepul
Paul,
Just why should any Celtic fan give two monkey’s if THEY spend. spend, spend THEIR way to oblivion?
I can live quite happily without THEM.
TWISTSNTURNS
Cheers,bud. Do the homework,you take the speculation out of it.
According to Sky Spurts …
Stoke City have made a formal bid to buy West Bromwich Albion striker Saido Berahino, according to Sky sources. We understand the offer is considerably less than the £20m offer from Tottenham made 18 months ago
No doubt Warbs delving down back of settee in Blue Room to come up with an offer ???
Watty urges the skint to keep spending into oblivion.
Total legned.
BLANTYRETIM IS PRAYING FOR THE KNOX FAMILY on 10TH JANUARY 2017 1:03 PM
BRHT or Anyone
With the Portugese cup final being held in the Estadio National on 27/05/2017 do you think there will be restrictions in place re any visit arrangements for 50th anniversary
I know that previous visitors have had access onto playing surface. will there be any restrictions this year to keep the playing surface in good condition?
don’t be daft STEVE,if they couldn’t keep us off 50 years ago ,how they going to do it next year.
ps .will your DA get the bench again for the LIONS?????
S & S & BMCUW
From previous thread
Hi Fella’s
Thanks for the mention you 2 Sevilla you ever in johnstone noo or you stlll on yer honeymoon :) you have been in Europe more times in 1 year than sevco in there entire history :)
Boaby last time I seen you was with the Johnstone contingent CQN brigade shooting the breeze over an Indian some very clever blokes thems from Johnstone just ask acgr or his bro pedro :)
MELBOURNEMICK 1228
Another uplifting tale from The Peninsula.
Well done to you and yer team who keep it lit in faraway lands-and even hand out THE HOOOOOOPS to unsuspecting newcomers!
Here,it’s free,ye joooooost hiv tae support Celtic. Brilliant.
PS
Hun Zinternational Reformation FC will always be around in cloaked form forever one way or another.
They may incurrr a 1000 liquidation events but will forever reform disguised in their deidco clothing with 50,000 bigots fawning and adoring them.
MWD
Fav uncle
Ha,,,, ☘☘
EMBRAMIKE
What,like Father Dougal “looking for spare change,Ted?”
Can’t find the link for that. Nuisance.
FAV UNCLE
The Holy Goalie is a LION.
MWD
There’s no bigot like an old bigot…
SANDMAN
Evidence of the Legnedary Legned poster is surprisingly difficult to track down.
I’ve got a screenshot of it,but as it’s untitled, I can’t post it.
I can mail it though. Which when I were a lad,was the same thing(!)
It all reminds me a bit of his legnedness’s finest moment,discussing his team’s upcoming CL campaign a few years ago.
They lost all three home games the previous year by 4-1. And he talked about how the standard of performance in those two games was not good enough.
When someone quiveringly enquired about the third game,Cardy told him it was three breakaways and an offside,so it didnae count!
Btw,that team also went bust.
MURDOCHAULDANDHAY 130
Aye,it’s a legendary curry shop,that one. I’ve always enjoyed a pleasant evening in Johnstone,back from when I was a student
Damn difficult to get there nowadays,and still be back for work next day. Sadly.
(Difficult to get back at all when AYRSHIRETIM is in your company…)
Paul67
What Walter Smith was good at was spotting players who would make his team stronger and in an environment where free money was freely available it did not make sense for Smith to develop a development approach.
In his first spell at RFC from 91 to 98 the football world in financial terms was his lobster, so it is not surprising that on his return in Jan 2007, even although the bank had started to reduce the amount of free money it provided SDM, that Walter once again eschewed the development approach and spent spent spent, to the tune of £12m .
(RFC’S accounts for 2006 show the debt was at a manageable £6m (although we don’t know how much debt was hidden or moved to MIH accounts to acheive that result). )
That £12m funded the sacking of Manchester but reaching a UEFA Europa League final via dogged football shows Walter did know what dogged football bought in could achieve.
However the Europa League, as we all know does not bring in as much to reduce debt as the CL and to get at that in 2008 you need to spend even more.
So it was that Walter spent another £17.4m in Aug 2008 to form the team that won the three titles with CL access from 2000 to 2011 raising reported debt level to £31m.
To be fair Walter also sold Hutton , Celluar and Cousins for £19.5m to bring his net spend from 2007 to £10m (excluding wages).
What is interesting is that by Aug 2008 HMRC had delivered a number of Determinations relating to ebts to Rangers, starting Feb 2008 including one for Walter for a payment by ebt in 2002/03 tax year when he was at Everton.
Also noteworthy is that a number of Walter’s signings eg Mendes, Davis, Celluar were paid by ebts, so chances are Walter was well aware by Aug 2008 that HMRC were disputing this method of payment.
A Decision that could have been made in Aug 2008 was NOT to spend on some of the new recruits and use the receipts from the £19.5m for Hutton etc as a contingency against having to pay HMRC, but such a decision would of course meant reduced chance of CL money.
The other factor to be taken into account in Aug 2008 was the belief that the bank would still provide free money ad infinitum but that belief proved wrong with the bank crash in Oct 2008.
The obvious analogy here is of the frog in the saucepan except the heat was turned up drastically in Oct 2008 and has stayed high since.
That Walter does not seem to appreciate that is intriguing. Does he simply not appreciate those days of free money and tax supplements are gone or is it an unwillingness to recognise his part in the downfall of RFC?
Typo.
2009 to 2011
Auldheid,
How many legitimate teams did wacky watty field on the way to Mancheste, to put it another way, how many of those games would have been awarded to the opposition had registration irregularities been known.
Twisty..,
A lot more than 9 months ago.
AGCR and Corky,
Belated happy birthday
Good article, Paul. This type of thinking from this type of person is incredible, yet completely predictable.
They simply CANNOT admit that the success they had was down to spending money they didn’t have – around £250m by my calculations.
Did Smith REALLY say they didn’t have any debt when their problems started? Errr, was it not around £80m in 2004? And that’s without the unpaid taxes they got billed for shortly after!
That the MSM allows this garbage to go unchallenged (and in fact encourage it!) is almost equally worrying.
I just checked the Celtic website.
There is a tweet at 1.19pm in the away ticket page saying the Albion Rovers game is sold out
Ah well Kodi box to watch that game .
Doris
Ewan
Fleur
Gabriel
Holly
Ivor
Jacqui
Kamil
Louise
Malcolm
Natalie
Oisín
Penelope
Robert
Susan
Thomas
Valerie
Wilbert
All threats to Hun Zintrenational Reformation FC.
Cyber pint to anyone who knows why. :@-)))
MWD
Dallas Dallas
I put a nice wee build on my box called Wookie. I chose the Wookie retro rather than latest build as it gives you more control over Exodus settings to use track.tv for keeping track of TV\Movies watched also.
It has everything you’ll ever need in one place. In fact probably too much as I went through it once installed and deleted some of the stuff I don’t need.
MWD
auldheid
I am pretty sure the write-offs by MIH of Rangers FC indebtedness amount to a total of £109 million in two tranches. The most recent Creditors Report by BDO (December 8 2016) shows Rangers FC PLC 2012 (In liquidation) debt as just shy of £170 million with dwindling assets (the result of continuing legal fees) now less than £15 million. After 2008 Rangers FC were doomed, the overall inhouse and it has to be said outhouse debt guaranteed to overwhelm them. Murray and Smith were the two of the chief architects of that debt, the others at the Bank of Scotland. Smith still seems to confuse a current account deficit, (BOS/Lloyds) with debt going through the roof, though that is another story. Had something similar occurred in 1872 as opposed to 2012 they would have languished in a Debtors Prison, where they belong.
Highly Rated why not a starlet
MAybe if you read link you find out he has
been part of Rangers U20 Development squad since summer
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-transfer-news/rangers-sign-highly-rated-raith-9596603
Moonbeams , thanks for that advice.
I’m Midas in reverse when it comes to technical things, everything I touch turns to a disaster.
The guy who set up the Kodi for us will, courtesy of some beer, do it.
Thanks again for the tip.
MURDOCHAULDANDHAY on 10TH JANUARY 2017 11:08 AM
looks we must have all been sleeping when Celtic & Jock Stein were the 1st to 9 in a row or did it happen at all ? One is beginning to wonder :)
*and the following didnae happen either:
• 14 – Skonto Riga (1991–2004)
• 14 Our old friends Lincoln Red Imps, (2003–2016) oh wait that’s a mickey mouse league ))))
• 13 – Rosenborg (1992–2004)
• 11 – Dinamo Zagreb (2006–2016)
• 10 – Dinamo Tbilisi (1990–99)
• 10 BATE Borisov (2006–15)
• 10 BFC Dynamo (1979–88)
• 10 MTK (1914, 1917–25)
• 10 Pyunik Yerevan (2001–10)
• 10 Sheriff Tiraspol (2001–10)
3 of the above also knocked us out of a European tournament and 1 beat us in the qualifiers so cannae be that bad.
Not even 1st in their own country and 11th all round, some world record.
Over 8000 tickets for Albion Rovers sold within 24 hours. Madness.
MWD,
names of storms to bring the roof down at the crumbledome
DALLAS DALLAS
Here is link on how to install.
Always a good idea to clear data in Kodi first before following.
Remember an chose retro option before finally clicking install.
The latest version gives you less control over all the apps and widgets you can configure yourself.
MWD
BROGAN ROGAN TREVINO AND HOGAN on 10TH JANUARY 2017 11:52 AM
Scaniel
Not conscious of any e-mail or message yesterday. Where did you send it?
***************************************
e-mail was regarding another e-mail I sent on 7th November regarding Lisboa, 2017. Sent it to jjoe@hotmail.co.uk (Address picked up here on CQN). Didn’t get a reply to my original eee, so was just checking I, and my daughter, was not on your list. (You posted on Saturday you were still waiting to hear from some people). O Nov 7 I had asked if there were any vacancies…….was the same day you recanted the amazing story about your father’s adventures regarding the Racing Club game which unfortunately was lost when all the CQN pages disappeared that day. A tale worth repeating, methinks.
Aff oot to tend to the donkeys….they don’t feed themselves you know, ….at least, not in the winter.
MWD- On the creditors’ list?
BECELT
Cyber pint in the ether. :@-)))
I think they are all on the banned list.
BadaBing close but more dangerous.
MWD