Today, as Sevco plays out its latest little farce, with the non-offer offer for Hamilton’s Greg Docherty they are furiously scrambling to get players out the door.
Hamilton are not an English club; their directors follow the news up here, their directors know the score, and although some will suggest that the long-term link between that club and members of the Sevco board raise questions – and they do, but no-one seems keen to ask them – they also have season ticket holders to placate and their current shareholders are entitled to a good return.
No-one in Scottish football can be ignorant of the fact that Sevco has no money. No-one can be ignorant of the fact that they have failed to deny rumours of impending administration. No-one can be ignorant of the enormous risks that would accrue from agreeing to any sort of “pay nothing up front and then pay in instalments” offer.
Even Brighton knew better than to accept that; they allowed Murphy to travel to Glasgow as a loan player. They will not agree to a transfer until there’s cash in the bank.
So before Sevco can even attempt to close transfer business, their club has to try and move some dreck out of the door. That is proving just as hard as this website said it would be. Incredibly, the club has actually brought some of its flops from yesteryear back from loan … that should tell you what their chances of signing anyone decent is.
The press is doing its level best to help them with this deal; Docherty is said to “favour” a move to Ibrox because he is a Sevco “boyhood fan”. That didn’t stop Lewis Morgan signing for Celtic and it did not prevent Jamie Walker from taking the road and the miles to Wigan. If Cardiff put down an offer which Hamilton can accept – here’s a clue, it’ll be worth more than zero up front – then I don’t think he’ll wait around for the NewCo to up their game.
They know that, and having seen a couple of top drawer Scottish kids slip the net already – and it’s all the more galling that one has ended up at Celtic Park – they will not want to miss out on this one, but that will depend on them satisfying their SPL rivals that they can actually pay for the footballer. And until they clear out some of the dross there’s no chance of it.
The Sun this morning has them trying to get Herrera off the wage bill; good luck with that. For openers, he’s already said he’s not going anywhere, which kind of kills that hope stone dead. For another, it’s not exactly news that they want shot of him.
He has been offered to club reps far and wide; not one of them is interested in him. The same applies to Dalcio, who is perhaps the worst signing in the history of the Scottish top flight. People who’ve seen him say there’s nothing there, at all.
All this adds up to trouble for them, as far from shrinking the wage bill they’ve actually increased it by bringing back loanees before they’ve moved some of the more useless members of the squad on. Guys like O’Halloran and Dodoo are now back at Ibrox, along with Halliday. This is a club that seems determined to spend money it hasn’t got.
But this window is the Last Chance Saloon for them. They need to reduce that wage bill and bring in fees for some of these players, or the costs of running the club through to the season ticket money comes in are going to be too high. On top of that, there will be a serious risk of the season ticket cash being significantly reduced if they don’t improve their performances and show some signs that they know where they are going
The trouble continues to pile up over there. In the meantime, Scott McDermott of The Record is over in Florida with them doing back-of-a-fag-packet calculations about what they would need to do to win the bizarre friendly competition they are in.
You could not make this stuff up.