Shared business plan? Not in a million years

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I see comment in today’s Telegraph about a shortage of staff to facilitate a club which occasionally hosts circa 50,000 fans at Ibrox.  Let me put some meat on the financial bones of that particular project.

During 2010-11, the last season Paul Murray and Dave King were directors at Ibrox, Rangers spent £27.7m on wages with the bulk of that, some £21.5m, going on players and football management, while £6.2m went on non-football related wages.

That same season 37,599 season ticket sales were bought, all at ‘full price’, of course, which brought in £12.9m (this is net of vat, remember).  That was a bumper European season for Rangers.  They qualified for the Champions League, where they faced Manchester United, Bursaspor and Valencia.  They then dropped to the Europa League, where they beat Sporting Lisbon before going out to PSV Eindhoven.  Total ticket sales, including all cup, European, away support and individual match sales, came to £19.9m.

Newco’s revenue from all ticket sales and hospitality sales last season was £12.4m.  They also paid £1.629 in equipment hire and plant depreciation, this figure is not coming down, while costs for police, insurance, rates, water, electricity, gas, IT, office consumables, cleaning and the odd onerous contract was £16.4m

So consider: the last non-football wages at oldco was £6.2m and total ticket and hospitality sales last season at newco was £12.4m, while a recent peak for season ticket sales at oldco was £12.9m.

The only way modern football is a viable business at a stadium which regularly holds circa 50,000 people is with the support of healthy retail and merchandise deals, and with regular group stage European football.

Newco don’t have access to Europe, as they are a newco, and they don’t have healthy retail and merchandise deals.

If they eventually qualify for Europe they will need to eliminate seeded teams at every round to progress to group stage football.  They are not in as healthy a position as they were when Charles Green took over.  Green and his cronies had their business plan spiked, before those onerous contracts kicked in, by way of compensation, ironically, leaving the new regime with the prize they planned for, but it’s a battered looking trophy.

Now they have as much money as tub thumping can generate and Sugar Daddies are prepared to pony up.  No one has yet explained how this club is a viable entity.

For the record, we don’t share a business plan.  Not in a million years.

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  1. At the risk of repeating myself…

     

     

    I now notice the Daily Record is printing the word ‘hun(s)’ in the same notation as expletives:

     

    “The h*** are deed”

     

     

    Note. No newspaper (ha) was purchased in the making of this comment!

  2. ‘For the record, we don’t share a business plan. Not in a million years.’

     

     

    ###

     

     

     

    Perhaps not.

     

     

    But possibly one or two objectives.

     

     

    The fervour around the cup game suggests the Celtic Board would be missing a trick if they don’t try to maximise the potential income stream from the Old Firm franchise.

     

     

    And, while it’s nice to have principles, business is business as Del Boy used to say.

  3. The only ex-Celts I have a real issue with regarding their anti-Celtic outlook are Andy Walker, Chris Sutton and Craig Burley.

     

     

    Walker despises the club because he conned Macari into giving him a contract when he was finished as a top league player. Fergus knew it and cancelled the contract. Walker has never forgiven the club since, which really does betray his lack of honesty.

     

     

    Sutton has it in his head that his pal Neil Lennon was somehow forced out of Celtic, or at least that he had no choice but to leave, and has had a downer on Ronny Deila since day one because he took Neil’s job.

     

     

    A couple of months ago I would have included John Hartson, but he has redeemed himself because he is a big enough man to come out and publicly declare that he had got it wrong in his initial assessment of Ronny.

     

     

    The likes of Provan and McLeod have certainly put the boot into Celtic on occasion but at least these guys do oft times speak up for the club and in that respect, I believe that even when they have got it wrong, they are at least honest with it.

     

     

    The least said about Burley the better. At least he has been dumped by Sky as even they were taken aback by his very personal comments about Celtic and its players.

  4. Canamalar

     

     

    Re Beau Peep Andrew Christine is a drinking buddy of mine. He is the artist, Roger Kettles is the writer/story teller.

  5. sixtaeseven - Gardez la Foi on

    Business plan?

     

    Business plan?

     

    We don’t need no stinking business plan!!!

  6. Tom McLaughlin

     

     

    09:04 on 10 March, 2015

     

     

    Chris Sutton and John Hartson took umbrage, not so much at RD’s appointment, but at NL’s departure purely out of self interest.

     

     

    They were former team mates and that would have given them easy access to the inside track at CP. That increased their marketability and value as pundits. So it wasn’t personal, purely business.

     

     

    John Hartson has now realised that it would now be in his own interests to build bridges with RD. nece the mea culpa. Chris Sutton is just a bit more stubborn.

     

     

    I wouldn’t judge either of them on that basis.

  7. 67Heaven .. CHALLENGING THE LIE ..I am wee Oscar / Neil Lennon.. Ipox belongs to the creditors on

    igc

     

     

    So, what you are saying is that the dr is finally telling the truth

     

     

    “The h*** are deed” …… :)

  8. jeromek67,

     

    Best paper toon ever, I’ve been going through old books on the website I linked earlier, come real quality stuff in there, they should make a movie or animation of it.

  9. In the final years of the 19th century, hundreds of Irish immigrants volunteered their labour to build the new Celtic Park to honour their fledgling club and to accommodate the ever growing crowds who wanted to see it play football.

     

     

    In 2015 we have reports of Rangers supporters organizing volunteers to provide their labour to rebuild Ibrox. This serves to prove that Rangers really are a hundred years behind us in every way.

     

     

    PS. If I were one of those volunteers – heaven portend – I would be seeking guarantees, indeed proof in the form of documentary evidence, that Rangers actually do own the stadium, lest I later discover that my seat and toil were expended in the name of a Green, Whyte or Ashley who were now leasing the stadium to the club I thought owned it.

  10. Cathedral View on

    If the call from Ibrox for volunteer tradesman is indeed true then alarm bells should be ringing loudly at whoever is responsible for licensing that venue.

     

     

     

    cv

  11. sixtaeseven - Gardez la Foi on

    We don’t need no education

     

    We don’t need no plan at all

     

    No dark sarcasm in Timmy blog posts

     

    Bampots, leave us Huns alone

     

     

    Hey Bampots, leave us Huns alone

     

    Dave King is all, we’ll fix bricks in the wall

     

    Dave King is all, we’ll fix bricks in the wall

     

     

    SlowDayAtWork CSC

  12. 67heaven .. challenging the lie ..i am wee oscar / neil lennon.. ipox belongs to the creditors

     

     

    09:11 on 10 March, 2015

     

    igc

     

     

    So, what you are saying is that the dr is finally telling the truth

     

     

    “The h*** are deed” …… :)

     

    ::::::::::::::

     

    The h**ns are deedless, surely.

  13. sixtaeseven - Gardez la Foi on

    How can people turn up at Ibrox and carry out work if they are claiming unemployment benefit?

     

     

    Bwahahahahaha

  14. weet weet weet(GBWO) on

    in 1961, rangers travelled to wolverhampton to play wolverhampton wanderers in the European cup winners cup. true to form, their supporters ran riot through the town destroying everything in their path. in an article appearing in the English press shortly afterwards they were described as ‘coming across the border like marauding huns’. thus, a humorous accurate and nonsectarian term of endearment was created for the rangers.

  15. weet weet weet(GBWO)

     

     

    09:34 on 10 March, 2015

     

     

    ‘in an article appearing in the English press shortly afterwards they were described as ‘coming across the border like marauding huns’.’

     

     

     

    ####

     

     

    Which paper?

  16. I would happily donate my time helping on building related work at Ibrox and even bring my own equipment, all of which I would provide free of charge. If I was a bulldozer driver.

  17. johann murdoch on

    Ard marcha

     

     

    Yes there is insurance risks – health and safety risks too ( working at height etc ) risk assessments / method statements -welfare facilities for workers – competency of contractors to carry out the work -programme -cosh regs -etc etc

     

    Hh

  18. 67Heaven

     

     

    Well the paper is noted for “for its courageous journalism over the past four years”

  19. The Green Man on

    The worlds worst bigoted fans…..don’t like being called huns….awwww

     

    What a shower of rabid fish rioting cretins.

     

    Their stupidity is like a health tonic to me….give me more, im drunk on it.

     

    Idiots, Fools, and Fantacists….and Huns.

     

     

    HH

  20. When Celtic Park was being rebuilt in the 90s, Fergus had problems with the safety certificate. It transpired that a few of the building workers, whose allegiances lay elsewhere, had deliberately sabotaged the work. It was so serious that the grand opening of the North Stand before a pre-season friendly v Newcastle United was in doubt due to the refusal of the certificate.

     

     

    Fergus called in the builders and read them the riot act. He told them that if the damage is not repaired, at the builders expense, he would not be paying “one thin dime” and that he would sue them for millions.

     

     

    A handful of builders were sacked on the spot and replaced by new workers who carried out the repairs and the safety certificate was duly granted in time for Billy Connolly to cut the green ribbon in front of the massive new structure.

     

     

    Huns will be huns, even if it means prostituting their pride in their craftsmanship.

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