Well there’s no guessing what the story of the day was yesterday; Sevco finally showed their hand.
They are on a cost cutting run of massive proportions.
Players and staff are taking three month wage deferrals.
Everyone at Ibrox is hoping it gets them through.
Through to what though? The new season?
Pandemics come in waves.
The first is usually pretty bad. For those countries which do not take it seriously, the second is worse.
If our government ends our mitigation measures early it will hit us like a sledgehammer towards the end of the year.
We might not see football for a while.
Sevco is counting on season ticket sales.
This membership scheme nonsense.
European football. A full campaign, being played with no interruptions. And deferring all salaries – about £6 million if my estimate isn’t wildly wrong – is crazy in this scenario.
The bill is just going to be waiting for them on the other side of this. They are spiralling here.
The press has painted this as altruism. It stops them from asking “why now?”
It’s because there is literally nothing in the coffers. Sevco has finally run out of money.
Understand what I’ve just written there. They have run out. There is nothing left.
Even administration would be impossible at the moment with zero assets and no income.
So wage deferrals are the only way they can survive, and that will stop the bank from emptying this coming month. They may have enough for general running costs but I’m betting that doesn’t last long. Sevco is a gas tank on empty, and you can’t drive a car far less fly a plane on that.
Deferrals do not solve this problem. I cannot say that enough times.
They can push it down the line but it does not solve it.
Eventually they are going to have to face up to some hard facts and start making some real cuts. Even if everything works out well for them and they get through this period and football starts up again … would you want a pile of debts waiting on the other side?
Nobody will be doing a share issue, or “investing” for at least 18 months. The pipedream of Far Eastern saviours has proved to be exactly that.
Listen, the directors are no longer prepared to carry the water here; if they were there’d be no need for this move. This is going to hit Ibrox like a tornado when it touches down. If I were one of their fans I wouldn’t be sleeping well at night if I was sleeping at all.
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