Ibrox released it’s accounts yesterday, and like the morons that they are a couple of their online agitators decided to tag myself and Phil Mac Giolla Bhain in their promotion of them.
They might as well have worn signs saying “come and rip our delusions apart, please” because although I’d have gotten around to it anyway, they made me really keen to dig in deep.
I’ll give you the headline fact right now, in flat contradiction of what the media is reporting; they posted a loss. Of course, they did.
But I’ll get to that later on. I’ll do the deep dive at some point during the day, but for the moment let’s look at the other claim that is doing the rounds in the media, and it’s a rather bizarre thing to be boasting about.
They are pushing the line that they now have a bigger wage bill than Celtic. Of course, these were the accounts from last year and so that might have changed, but think about what it is that they are promoting here.
These are last season’s accounts. Last season when we won a treble, they finished bottom of their Champions League group with zero points and the worst record in the history of the tournament, and they were forced to sack a manager.
And all the way through the season they lied about being financially outgunned. I mean, let’s not make any bones about it. They lied.
Every time they suffered a major reversal they went crying to the media about how far ahead of them we were financially, and all the time they knew that they were running a wage bill that was larger than our own.
If you wanted to highlight a clear sign of a completely dysfunctional organisation, that’s as good as you could get; they are spending more money than their rivals and its their rivals who are the runaway success.
Most organisations wouldn’t just be sacking one person but conducting a wide-ranging inquest into a failure like that … they are spinning it as some sort of success story instead. They, like their fans, might as well make signs saying “Look how stupid we are!”
Their fans should be appalled by that fact. Appalled by it. They are celebrating it instead. It’s great news apparently. It’s the proof of how far they’ve come, according to them. It’s also proof of how stupendously dumb they are over there.
This blog and others keep on writing the same thing about the Ibrox operation; they are facing one of two possible futures.
In one of those futures, they accept their status as a smaller club than Celtic and live with the full impact of that, or they can spend their way to a similar fate as that which befell the club whose grave they crawled out of.
No organisation can survive as they are right now, spending what they cannot afford to. I know there are a lot of their fans who refuse to believe that; they have, after all, been able to convince themselves that they are the club called Rangers.
What astonishes me are the number of Celtic fans who still don’t believe it. Which part of “Rangers died doing exactly what Sevco is doing right now” is hard for them to grasp? If they keep behaving this way they will wind up in real, serious trouble, the sort that could erase and undo the whole operation over there.
A bigger wage bill than Celtic, on smaller turnover. That is lunacy, and that they get so little value for their money makes their obvious pride in that crazier still.
What a club that is over there that they think that’s success, that they cling to such things so tightly, that they think that makes them special … and in a year where we won a domestic treble.
You could not make that up, that is literally too mad for fiction.
I will refrain from looking at the RIFC Accounts, as it will just get me annoyed!
But, I vaguely remember when Dave King chased off Mike Ashley from ibrox,
[followed by millions of pounds of compensation paid to Sports Direct],
and there was mention of achieving break even.
That was in 2015!
8 years later it seems that RIFC STILL has zero motivation – or ability – to break even.
With the Beale spending and pay-off, combined with a lack of player sales,
it means that sevco really needs to win the league – to better manage another
funding shortfall, by securing the guaranteed CL monies next season.
There could be an almighty avalanche of ‘strange’ ref / VAR decisions involving sevco
and CFC before the end of this season…
[And whilst our Board snoozes at the wheel.]
The present Ibrox outfit has not been sustainable since it was incorporated. Whilst the position is disguised to a great extent by income received from the copious share issues, the cumulative trading losses must be somewhat in excess of £150 million and, as there is no Financial Fair Play regime in force in Scotland, our football authorities will do nothing to curb the club’s excessive spending, though UEFA is clearly interested in what’s going on.
The Ibrox club faces no existential threat so long as the directors, and/or others, continue to put their hands in their pockets to fund it; though Douglas Park has pulled out, Bennett seems willing to contribute from his own resources, and others may as well, though it seems unlikely given the trading history since the new club began that there is much money to be made, so I see little chance that any foreign consortium or oligarch being willing to throw money at it (and of course UEFA might take an interest if too much money was spent).
The deludamol addicts of Ibrox think of themselves and their club as some sort of master race (Phil Mac Giolla Bhain has used the word Herrenvolk). I see no way that they’ll ever settle for being even equal to Celtic.
To boast about having a higher wage bill than Celtic is to admit to foolishness, and clearly “Rangers” is inherently unsustainable. But will the board see sense? And will the supporters? I don’t expect so.
Q.E.D. ‘Follow, follow the money’.
The obvious question to be asked is who therefore is underwriting the losses?
The continual overspends year on year since they ‘Phoenixed’ back into Scottish Football
is an eye watering amount. Must be in the region of £100 Million in 12 years.
Now some of those debts were to Ibrox donors with relatively deep pockets, who should have known better as
their investments usually ended up being converted to worthless share confetti. It’ll be a cold day in Hell if and when the Klub can afford to buy back these shares. ( The inflated Capial / Share value of the Klub hides a host of ancillary problems for Sevco). Just as well they are not on the standard Trading Markets and subject to oversight by nosy Regulators).
However not all these losses were converted to paper pipe dreams. A big wedge must still be owed to nameless individuals or ‘Groups’. Who are they and what Organisations can be relied upon to keep feeding the ‘Beast’ ?
That’s the real story the ‘meedjia’ should be investigating rather than. publishing Sevco PR.
I wish rangers every success in their business model. Great to see them in profit AGAIN, fans must be so proud of their financial successes.
Great what you can do/say in your accounts without broker/stock market scrutiny.The media of course push the positive narrative and the majority of their thick fans can sleep at night.
The penalty kings of world football, making friends along the way.
James can you advise if they are still on the UEFA Watchlist, which also included Arsenal? And if so, what sanctions if any can UEFA apply? I’ve never heard anything about that ‘watchlist’ since it was first mentioned a couple of years ago.
What astonishes me is the number of Celtic fans that still don’t believe it . Which part of Rangers died doing what Sevco is doing right now is hard for them to grasp ?
Only yesterday I had to correct and educate a Celtic fan with a post on one of the day’s articles for mentioning ‘Rangers’ three times and he wasn’t talking about pre 2012 deceased ‘Rangers’ either…
His name was Damien and other than those three glaring errors his post was pretty sound –
So it clear that there are Celtic supporters out there that are living the lie as much as The Sevco Huns and their acolytes in The Scottish Football Media…
Any Celtic fans in ma company that refer to Sevco as ‘Rangers’ are swiftly re educated – And rightly so as well !
All confidently aided and abetted by our SMSM nodding dogs and loyal servants ….every single time . They are not interested in telling the public the truth , they are more interested in spreading propaganda as twisted lies and misinformation sells better than credible news . All of which is moulded to suit their own agendas ,each and every day …..
Had to actually read that article twice James, as the level of stupidly within the scum ranks has really hit a new high, and fair play to all the scum cheerleaders in promoting the facts.
Gloating about a bigger wage bill and getting pure failure in return?
And the follow up story is to actually increase the wage bill and still ending up with failure to even make CL and 8 points behind ourselves, and a squad full of shite?
So plenty for the scum to remain happy about.
Football is a massive business that has to be ran according.
Especially for all Scottish clubs, trying to operate without the get out clauses that big TV incomes brings.
So operating with overspending upon player’s wages and all without any assets within the value of the player’s to cover the investment within them upon wages, is such a dangerous way to operate, that resulted in there liquidation first time around.
Remain well on course for history repeating itself, and good enough for the scum.
Sustainability still isn’t being achieved, so mounting debts are still being occurred potentially, especially when the outlay remains bigger than the income?
And the scum remain so thick to gloat?
When there is this level of stupidity on show, can only conclude as to what can be the reason for promoting such stupidity, even by thick Hun standards?
Could it be due to such anti board feelings currently, that seem to surface nearly every season around this time?
Hoping for wreck less spending in January, just in the hope we might come down to there level?
We remain with possibly the most valuable assets in player’s value upon the pitch and even growing, especially compared with the outlay in fees and wages.
We are actually starting to see them investments during the summer starting to grow in a number of cases already, with some yet to even start blooming as of yet.
There still maybe a feeling that more should have been spent with the amount within the bank, but a process also comes with the spending.
The scum doesn’t have that in place, and never succeeded in getting anything in place either during the summer.
So there is still a demand to throw extra money at the pile of shit that’s already stinking that shithole out of it?
Is that really the club we want to become?
Not a chance to it happening, quite content in remaining a TIM, as God forbid the time of ever looking at the thick gormless Huns and feeling any form of jealousy?
I’m not an accountant but I think I can read a simple sentence. I’d point out the one near the bottom of page 24 of The Rangers’ accounts.
“Loss for the year…£4,144,000”
Simply put BhilltheTIm – And while I know that you wouldn’t want it…
You ain’t no chance of a job with The Scottish Football Media any time soon !
Celebrating having a bigger wage bill, while being absolutely pumped in every competition they entered probably gives a real indication into how deeply the psychological scarring from the death of their club has actually damaged them
HH
This mob are such bare faced liars that it is incredible that sevco fans dont challenge these lies!! Serves them right, hopefully they see the truth when its too late to do anything about it. Tick tock, tick talk.