Sevco fans organisations are increasingly being asked to step up and fund key areas of the club as the wait for Dave King to invest goes on.
Today it’s the turn of the Sevco Fans Fighting Fund, originally set up to combat “the enemies” of the club, who are offering to give what remains of their cash to the board at Ibrox so they can build a spectators stand at Murray Park.
This comes hot on the heels of the elections for Sevco First, with those who were successful including Richard Gough – a close friend and prominent support of Dave King and his regime – former MP Brian Donahoe and a number of supporters who have spoken out in favour of using Sevco First funds to support the club’s running costs as they continue to struggle financially.
Several high profile fans, and even some fan groups, are wholly opposed to these organisations using their funds to pay the clubs bills; they were setup to be wholly independent, and there is anger at Sevco First, in particular, who were created to scrutinise the activities of their boards and who’s cash is supposed to be used for the purchase of shares to better hold them to account.
There is talk that the club approached this organisation recently, with a view to obtaining a £500,000 loan, which was to be used for day to day running costs. Key members were wholly opposed to this, but it’s not clear how the election of the new board has changed the equation.
Sevco currently requires anywhere from between £5 – £10 million in “soft loans” per season, in order to simply pay bills as they come due. Mark Warburton believes he has been given assurances of funds to strengthen the team if they are promoted. He recently talked about wanting five additional players – high quality signings at that – in order for the club to be ready for SPL football.
If it’s delivered (don’t hold your breath; it won’t be) this will send the wage bill soaring ever higher, and will put enormous strain on the club’s finances, with rewards for top flight football in Scotland coming nowhere near what will be required for the club to break even.
Many of us have spoken, at length, about how this club is going to struggle to get through next season. King has spoken about how it’s the supporters who will pay for the profound changes that need to be made at the club if it is to “challenge Celtic.”
A more accurate statement would be that this cash is needed if the club is merely to survive.
He talks about them needing to “outspend Celtic fans” if they want to be the top team, in ignorance of the truth that in the last 20 years of Rangers’ existence their turnover exceeded that of Celtic on only a couple of occasions and that even when they were on top, it only ever got over £50 million once, even on those seasons when they were in the Champions League.
It’s the size of Celtic Park that gave us that decisive financial advantage, and when we are once again filling the ground for the big European nights it will continue to.
With Sports Direct holding their merchandising for the next seven years the chances of them actually catching Celtic are slim bordering on non-existent and King has shown no inclination to actually spend his own money.
Many Celtic bloggers have speculated (with good supporting evidence) that King simply doesn’t have the personal wealth to finance even the early stages of their recovery; his hostile takeover of the club has been spectacularly underfunded right from the start.
The supporters will have to pay through the nose for keeping the Ibrox operation on rails, but even their cash simply isn’t going to be enough.
King and his board are literally in a race against time, and with no way to win it.
Building a stand at Murray Park seems like a lunatic idea on the surface of it; a vanity purchase which will bring very little benefit … except in giving scouts from other clubs somewhere to sit and watch the “cream of Ibrox youth” … who were hammered by Falkirk in the Development League this week.
The value of their current playing squad, when totalled up, wouldn’t reach the value of marquee player Virgil Van Dijk, who we sold for a fortune in the summer.
They are not going to be able to wring huge fees out of teams.
Organisations like Sevco First and The Sevco Trust might not like this – and many of their members actually hate it – but this is their future, right here. Whether it’s borrowing from fan organisations, increased season ticket prices to the point where it gives their buyers a nosebleed, and whatever else gets money from the pockets of supporters into the expenses accounts of board members or overpaid players … it is the fans who will have to do it all.
I applaud them for that. I really do.
Some of them aren’t content to wait around for sugar daddies.
This isn’t a criticism of the Fighting Fund, or Sevco First … they’re doing their bit.
King hasn’t put his hands in his pockets yet.
Don’t expect him to do it in the future.