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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Even by the Huns’ standards, the appointment of Chris Graeme as a director is a moment of profound and epoch-defining stupidity.
What. The. Actual. ****?
What business expertise does he possess? What money is he investing? Does he have a track record in turning around struggling companies, or in sports administration?
This appointment tells me King isn’t serious about rebuilding them.
He wants his money SDM p****d up against the wall back, asap. This appointment is all about getting their wired-to-the-moon fanbase onside – a critical mistake of Ashley’s…
And if STV’s Peter Smith is lurking… you were quick to fire “cultural” questions to Peter Lawwell the other day…
I await with interest what questions you will ask of this complete zoomer of a man, given his published record of incredibly personal and vicious attacks on Celtic staff (and including, hilariously, his Nixonian “enemies list”).
Glad to see our faithful buying up the briefs for the Cup replay next Wednesday.
Imagine how embarrassing it would be if Rangers v Alloa in a virtually meaningless league game got a bigger crowd than Celtic v Dundee Utd as we aim for a rare treble.
I can imagine King at his pals, perhaps justifiably, scoring a few points. Even more so as our club has reduced the prices as a jpositive gesture to attract support.
And we may have even captured the first of our 3 trophies by then too.
I do hope our support start to show they are more than just for europe types.
The justification that we don’t want to contribute to the SFA is a ridiculous notion. We are on for a treble. If we back the team then we can win this together.
Like in the cup at Love St with 10 men in 1980 or v Hearts in the centenary semi, or even v Arabs in centenary final or v Rangers in 1980 final.
Or am I misskng what being a supporter is all about ?
Joe Filippis Haircut @ 18:51…
Brian Graham of St Johnstone (on loan from Dundee United) was given and accepted a 2 game ban for diving to win a penalty in the Perth sides 1-0 defeat of Inverness in their December league match at McDiarmid Park.
Connolly did dive in my opinion and should be handed the same punishment.
Cannot win when you are the Celtic Board. Speak out and its a waste of time that doesn’t go far enough, we should be raking them over the coals or we should be letting them know we will not tolerate the crap anymore. Don’t speak out and they are forelock tugging, old firm apologists who are just salivating at the prospect of the huns return.
Get a grip people. Do you think Celtic would get away with an all guns blazing scathing attack on the football blazers ruining, not running, Scotish Football. Fat Salary can demand names of SFA panel members leading to them having to be taught anti terrorist techniques on how to open mail and vary their daily routine without sanction we would not be so lucky.
Despite our position as the biggest team in Scotland, and the only reason there is a TV deal of any kind in the first place, we have no real power in the football hierarchy. We can be on all the committees and working groups we want but still only have one vote when it comes down to it. In the background the bowling club mentality still stalks the corridors of power ready to screw us over if given half a chance.
Celtic have spoken out, maybe not to everyone’s satisfaction but a public statement nonetheless. Lets just remember the world as it is, not how we would wish it to be.
Good evening friends.
Gordon. I wasnt aware of Brian Graham of St.Johnstone so I am wrong in my original post and I eat humble pie. However, I still think we get the thick end of the stick. H.H.
And Owen what? We should just get to the back of the us and stop complaining?
I laughed at the outcome of the latest SFA stuff and laughed even more at celtics almost childlike statement. Celtic pretending they are fighting back(but not too hard). Sfa doing what they have always done.
A rigged game, run by racists for racists and a club willing to play the role of victim dos it’s good for business.
Oh dear!
Suprisingly Roger Hannah on SSB said he will be astonished if VVD does not win his appeal,
FourGreenFields
So BT want you to turn down the volume and pretend nothing is wrong?
Coneybhoy,
You have mail mate. HH
Martybhoy59 do you think so? Do you remember super salary walking away scot free from the so called shame game along with the players and leaving NL as the sole punished person?
Neganon2
Did I say we should not complain?
Did I say we should just accept our place?
You have just proved my point.
Celtic speak out. It is a “childlike statement” and “pretending to fight back”. If they had not issued a statement you would have written the same post only attacking them for not speaking out.
I know you have no respect for anything that Celtic try to do, maybe you should extend some of the sympathy you reserve for journalists who liked to demonise Neil Lennon and Celtic, for the club itself.
As for “oh dear” that ranks up there with “sighs” as you most patronising comment yet.
Celtic fans organised protests and boycotts. They’ve done something similar.
We wanted to remove a board full of fans more interested in the status of being a director. They wanted to appoint them.
They are now in a worse position than we were in 1990. Will this sitcom ever end?
PeatWorrier @PeatWorrier 2m2 minutes ago
Blogged: “Roll of Honour…” http://lallandspeatworrier.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/roll-of-honour.html …
10 MARCH 2015
Roll of Honour
It is a short, technical-seeming judgment, and like many brief, technical-seeming judgments, it is more significant than it appears. In Donnolly and Walsh v. Procurator Fiscal, Edinburgh, Lord Carloway and his colleagues had to decode a decision by two of his fellow judges, to grant leave to appeal against a conviction in Edinburgh Sheriff Court. So much, so banal.
Where matters get more interesting, however, is that the appellants, William Donnelly and Martin Walsh, were convicted by the sheriff of having committed offensive behaviour at football under the Offensive Behaviour and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012. The sheriff found that Walsh and Donnolly had belted out “Roll of Honour” at a match between Hibs and Celtic at Easter Road in October 2013, concluding that this behaviour was caught by one of the Act’s broad prohibitions, and was likely to incite public disorder.
Donnolly and Walsh are attempting to challenge their convictions under Article 7 of the European Convention on Human rights, which provides that:
No one shall be held guilty of any criminal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a criminal offence under national or international law at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the criminal offence was committed.
This article shall not prejudice the trial and punishment of any person for any act or omission which, at the time when it was committed, was criminal according to the general principles of law recognised by civilised nations.
Article 7 has a bit of history in Scottish criminal jurisprudence. The old catch all common law offence of breach of the peace was gradually worn down and clarified by the courts, anxious that the vagueness of the offence would not satisfy European human rights criteria. In Smith and Donnolly, still the decisive word on the definition of breach in Scots law, Lord Coulsfield noted that “the Convention requires that any law creating a criminal offence must meet a certain standard of clarity and comprehensibility.” It is not enough that the convictions of Walsh and Donnolly can be hung on section 1 of the 2012 Act: in order to satisfy Article 7, the criminal offences created “must be clearly defined in the law.” In the language of the Strasbourg court:
“… this requirement is satisfied where the individual can know from the wording of the relevant provision and, if need be, with the assistance of the courts’ interpretation of it, what acts and omissions will make him criminally liable.” S.W. v. The United Kingdom [1995] para 35.
Do the offences created by the football legislation pass this test? In the particular circumstances of the case, was the applicants’ right to know, with sufficient clarity, of the nature of the crime, in terms of Article 7 breached? I would be surprised if Walsh and Donnolly prevail here. The crimes set out in the 2012 Act are arguably at least as clear as Smith v. Donnolly’s definition of the crime of breach of the peace as “conduct severe enough to cause alarm to ordinary people and threaten serious disturbance to the community.” But leave to appeal having been granted, the High Court will have to embark on its first substantial review of the football legislation on human rights grounds since it was so hastily passed by Holyrood. One to watch.
Evening Burnley.
Who cares about Rangers? Why compare them to us? Hopefully we will get a good crowd.
Neganon2
Please scroll past my comments in future.
Mike Ashley’s representation severed and replaced on the Hun board by an obsequious, slimy charcter of the entitled, glory-chasing young Hun generation who’s first sexual stirrings were due to Souness’s tight shorts and who knows nothing of football beyond the counterfeit surreality of their bloated, cheating 90s victories.
Magic.
Actually looking forward to him pomping himself up on TV with that pouty wee collagen-puffed mouth of his that would be better suited on a transexual rent-boy down the New York docks.
At least King Dave had the courtesy to appoint a figurehead for the Zombies that is the embodiment of everything despicable about them.
By the way, we need to be careful here because going by his companies net worth – £1026 – the billionaire is out and a proper thousandaire is in:
http://companycheck.co.uk/company/SC394158
‘Bleak times ahead for Celtic…’
Yup. ;))
Big Ronny on council Tv….brilliant…
Its not as if its an isolated incident….you could put a dossier together of Craig Thompson’s finest moments…..he has been at it for years.
You would have thought ,the board would have said something before now.
HH
Annette fae wishaw…. Give her a job…
Neganon2
I was only quoting Hannah, personally I will be astonished if he does walk free going by their previous against our club
Sandman…thinking you been reading Last exit to Brooklyn too much …laughing…
Whats wrong with the back of the bus?
When i was at school thats always where the cool kids sat
B-)
@mattleslie74 @McNallyMirror Here he is welcoming back a sectarian bigot who got 6 months prison for threats. http://t.co/7pbWFbJC5y
Burnley78
The size of next week’s crowd will be interesting. Looking at the website many tickets are still available.
Contrary to that someone mentioned earlier that the ticket office was very busy.
It’ll be very disappointing if the support don’t turn out, for what should be a cracking contest.
martybhoy59
The fact they haven’t cited Butcher means they will apply common sense.
We may well criticise our board, and at times correctly. Now we have the opportunity to observe what happens when you put a ‘real fan’ on the board. Should be interesting.
I wonder when his first consultancy appearance on STV will be?
The only way that the SFA can get out of the mess that chambers has landed them in is to uphold VVD’ s appeal. Anything else would be ludicrous, that said ……..
Having wrote that……..http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/13040832
Are the Sports Direct advertising banners still plastered all over the bigotdome?
The board being built at Ibrox will ensure that their bigotry and sectarianism will revert back to the old days, it is the only way they will keep the knuckledraggers on side. Clear evidence in their recent games that this will be fully condoned. Now more than ever Celtic need to engage a strong PR company as this mob will be relentless in using the media in their attacks against us.
Just remembered something about the “Shame Game” and the huns escaping punishment.
I seem to recall that the huns players received a glowing testimonial from the referee himself at the hearing. He “didn’t feel threatened at all” was the comment,iirc, but of course it was all Celtic’s forelock tugging, back of the bus, old firm apologist board’s fault that he said this nothing to do with the campaign by journalists to portray Neil Lennon as some wild eyed thug who “brings it all on himself” and was notoriously “feisty” and could “rub people up the wrong way”.
Nothing to do with an agenda against Celtic no sirree it was all Celtics fault. They bring it on themselves dontcha know.
BCW
Logic would dictate that mate -;)))
Owen – Neganon? In every point he makes, he references ‘back of the bus’- he loves ‘playing the victim’ – and he hates the board – why? – probably because they usually sit at the ‘front of the bus’, or so he believes.
‘gg
Either that or they will adjust their mics around the pitch , rather than confront the racist / bigots .
The Broony hater on clyde, is nearly greetin…
For goodness sake don’t agitate the Negster.
Ruggyman
Had me in tears of laughter
BGX
19:32 on 10 March, 2015
Sandman…thinking you been reading Last exit to Brooklyn too much …laughing…
===========================
Ah, now you just remined me – haven’t read the book but saw the movie version a few years ago – powerful and harrowing; well worth a re-watch come to think of it; get it on the to-do list.