Last week, when I did two articles on Sevco and their European license issue someone asked me under what circumstances UEFA might well look favourably on any application, asking for a “special dispensation.” I told him that it would depend on what Sevco’s business plan was. When I thought about it more I realised something.
They will have to present UEFA with something that lays out, in detail, how the club intends to move towards profitability and break even. They will have to demonstrate financial sustainability; not only some vague notion made up of if’s, but’s and when’s but an actual analysis of where the club is and where it’s going and how it’s going to get there.
Good luck with that. In its five years of existence Sevco has never turned a profit. It’s been losses, year on year. In the last ten years of the existence of Rangers they did not turn a profit. The club hasn’t been in the black since the early years of David Murray, not even when Donald Muir of Lloyds was sitting on the board enforcing something like sanity. I mention that only because one of the directors at the time was Dave King himself.
This is no small thing. How the Hell are they ever going to convince UEFA that that they can turn this around, and make it work, when history tells such a different story? Even the club’s public statements flatly contradict the idea, with talk over “over-investment” and doing “whatever it takes.” There is no sanity to this kind of talk, but sanity isn’t what that club is all about.
There is only one way that I can foresee them getting a license, and that’s if the governing body right here in Scotland pleads their case and gives UEFA a pile of steaming bullshit to sift through. Because taken on the evidence the chances of them being granted it otherwise are virtually nil. There is no case they can make that should convince anyone.
This club doesn’t even know where to start, and the real irony is that if the governing bodies did grant them a license, with the usual caveat that they’d need to hit financial targets their own hubris would guarantee they’d fail them.
We have to keep our eyes peeled for the fix, and other clubs are watching. They need to keep their eyes peeled too. But ultimately even a fix won’t save them, except to give them a taste of Europe before the governing body takes it away from them for a while and inflicts draconian punishment on them that counts them out as challengers for even more years.
King has no idea how to fix this. Everything he’s done suggests he sees this as a short-term deal. He hasn’t the first clue how to turn this into a business that makes money, that can satisfy license requirements and can live within its means.
I don’t like him, but I can’t hold this against him. Nobody can answer those questions. Nobody can make this Ship of Fools sail right, which isn’t to say that it can’t be done. But the mentality of the club itself stands in the way of that and always will.
Another funeral is inevitable.
Maybe Rangers III – if such arose – would have the sense to live right.
For more information on FFP and the possibilities, check out this article. It’s a beauty.