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The Ibrox Exodus Is Underway With The Media Pretending It Was Their Own Idea.

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You have to laugh, don’t you? You have to laugh at the mainstream media and the way it tries to put the most pro-Ibrox spin on every single thing that happens over there. Today they announced that five players have left the club, and some of the usual cheerleaders are putting a brave face on it. But this is largely nonsense, as most of us are well aware.

In fact, these guys are not leaving because the Ibrox club is cutting them loose. Four of the five – Roofe, Lundstram, Jack and Barisic – were offered new deals, although Roofe and Jack might have been offered them on greatly reduced terms. Lundstram and Barisic, they very much wanted to keep and in fact Clement sat at a press conference not that long and told the fans that they were going to stay and he expected an imminent announcement on that.

The media has never explored the implications of that, but they are obvious; this guy has not been able to sell his vision to some of the players, or he’s not won his battle with the bean-counters over what these players are worth.

Whether you and I might laugh at the idea that these guys were worth keeping that’s not the point; their own manager thought they were.

They aren’t the only departures; one of the stories from this week which I’ve not written about yet is about how their CEO has scampered off to Saudi Arabia; this should not have come as a shock to a single person at Ibrox, although it sounds as if it has been greeted with stunned disbelief.

But Keith Jackson, of all people, was well ahead of them on this when he wrote, two years back, about how Bisgrove, who was then the financial genius behind that assortment of tiny sponsorship deals which turned their shirt into something from Formula One, was a big fan of fancy cars (his sports car was the envy even of some of the players) and high living. It’s no surprise that he would see the coming carnage at Ibrox and opt for the big money elsewhere.

The signs of that carnage are all around us too. As Joe McHugh pointed out this morning, Chris Jack has already been working to prepare the club’s fans for hard times. In his piece about the departure of Bisgrove, and the impact it will have on the club, he has talked about how the Ibrox chairman sat down with the staff to talk to them about “efficiencies.”

He has a damned cheek. He knows full well that the £10.5 million they lost – the first time that the media has even bothered to admit this – as if it were the fault of the people who operate in the pools room, or on ticket sales or elsewhere.

“That deficit, reported in the figures to the year end June 30, is unsustainable for investors and Bennett has focused heavily on reducing the financial wastage that he has uncovered since succeeding Douglas Park as chairman,” Jack wrote.

But that deficit was run up by the football department, not by those staffers. And it is the bloat in the football department which remains the biggest threat to the “investors” who find themselves having to sink ever more money into the black hole of that club. They had the biggest football wage bill in the country; they boasted of it. So, it’s down to them.

And in the end, they are going to have to find a way to plug that hole and to stop spending money like that’s going out of fashion. More to the point, they cannot afford for assets like Lundstram and Barisic – who was supposedly the subject of bids from Turkey last summer, which they allegedly refused even as his contract was ticking down – to walk out of the club for free, and that’s exactly what has happened to them in this case. Yet again.

Their strategy is all over the map, and really why would it be anything else? All of it is predicated on one thing, set towards one goal; catch Celtic.

It is interesting that the chairman has pointed out that the “investors” are no longer willing to carry the can. When he’s talking about economising and such, doesn’t that chatter, and something so redolent of austerity, suggest that instead of the tens of millions in rebuild cash the fans anticipate spending that hard times are ahead instead?

The hacks can pretend all they want that things over there are normal.

If this is normal, you’d be moved to wonder what a crisis looks like, right?

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16 comments

  • Tony B says:

    Bbbbut I thought Lundstram was “the greatest on earth”.

    These huns are sooooooo stupid.

  • WoosterBhoy says:

    Phillipe Flop has started the rebuild;

    “Meanwhile, Ibrox defender Leon Balogun, 35, has signed a new deal for the 2024-25 season.”

  • Brattbakk says:

    Their fans will probably be happy to be rid of that lot but they’re under the illusion that they’ll be replaced by something better whereas I doubt they’ll be replaced at all. Clement probably knows that hence offering new contracts.

  • John C says:

    For years they’ve lived outside of their means.
    For years, the SMSM has never questioned it.
    The SFA et al have never put their ear to the door.
    Loss after loss after loss, I do genuinely wonder what these “investors” get out of it?
    I often though Dave King only came in, in order to claw back some of his cash after the died.
    But I don’t know what he walked away with.

    For years they slagged Fergus for the “biscuit tin mentality”….yet thanks to it, and for us replenishing it, we had jaffa cakes for the years they weren’t in the SPL and beyond, while they’ve had budget brand rich tea’s. (If you’re reading this, feel free to swap out for your favourite/least favourite biscuits…I like jaffa cakes!!! 😉 )

  • John McDonald says:

    ‘‘Twas ever thus!…..’tic in Canada.

  • Eamonn Little says:

    In the words of Bob Dylan “A hard rain is gonna fall”over there,and it could easily become a tailspin.We really need to start punching in Europe again.No one expects us to win a European trophy now but to at least regain a bit of respect in that arena,cos domestic competition from Ibrox is looking less likely with each passing year.

  • Davie says:

    5 a side next season.
    Has Bisgrove jumped before the auditors scrutinise this year’s finances.
    There is no Bassey, Aribo or Patterson income this financial year.
    They had banked on direct entry to the champions league, well going through a couple of qualifiers is no guarantee of income.
    Diamonde has to be purchased under the loan agreement, what numbskull sanctioned that.
    I do hope Lawell and Nicholson don’t sit back laughing as we need to strengthen and go for the jugular.
    Hail Hail

  • John mcghee says:

    Well lets all sit back and watch there 2nd club go the same way as the oldco cheats 6 feet under and see what the scumbags in the media make up will they say it was the 2nd cumpany just like the first eh shower of scumbags in the scottish media full of scimhuns rats..get it right up everyone of them..CHAMPIONS GLASGOW CELTIC FC 1888..WE WON OUR TITLES WITHOUT CHEATING OUR BUYING ANOTHER CLUBS TITLES AND CUPS..CLOWNS

  • Jim M says:

    When Gordon Strachan took over after Martin O’Neil left in 2005 due to Geraldine’s illness he had to vastly reduce the wage bill and start to rebuild the team , when Neil Lennon was managing celtic the money from the sale of Aiden M,Geadie was used to rebuild almost an entire side .
    Sevco fans don’t realise the enormity of the situation they are about to embark on .
    As mentioned, year after year they are posting massive losses even in the years of champions league money and millions on player sales .
    Sevco are in 1 hellava state right now , the realisation is going to be 1 extra large bitter pill to swallow that its probably going to go down sideways.
    This is their reality now , cash poor , no player assets and another yearly audit ,no profits, just the usual minus multi millions.
    We rebuilt our success from 2005 upwards, going from strength to strength, almost 20 years ago , their pain has only just begun , administration is a very real proposition as who in the right mind would invest in that absolute basket case of a klub .
    The lie and the 55 will be gone sooner rather than later and that may be their tipping point as when celtic are unquestionably the most successful team in Scotland the sevco fans will have nothing left and as rat’s do will be first off the sinking ship and sevco will be where they should have been left , dead and buried.
    The imposion of the mk 2 version should be very enjoyable to view despite the pathetic efforts of the ever irrelevant media trying to spin to many plates that even a seasoned entertainer could even imagine doing .

  • Kevmungo88 says:

    Unfortunately I need to pass Castle Greyscull to go to work on a regular basis. The place reeks of mothballs and that ‘big hoose’ red brick facade is like something from the 17th century. Its in my will that I want that place flattened and sevco number? Never to return.

    • Matt says:

      Castle greyscull is where He-man lived. He was the good guy (celtic) Skeletor the bad gut (rangers) lived at snake mountain. You pass snake mountain everyday.

    • He-man says:

      Greyskull is where the good guys live… You want Snake Mountain.

  • Gerry says:

    As we all focus on what our manager’s summer business will be, the rebuild at Sevconia, is underway!

    By the end of this summer, it’s very possible that we could be looking at Sevco, through the ‘completely broke,’ window !

    With Bisgrove, as lead rat, deserting a sinking ship, one can only wonder, how long our smsm will continue to paint rosy pictures of Ibrokes.

    It’s now, even more imperative, that we get our business sorted properly, to ensure our domestic dominance continues.

    Sort that, and maybe our participation in the new European format, can be hugely positive and take care of itself.

  • Thomas Daly? says:

    HMRC,ADMIN,SKINT,ROLL MAN,CORNER SHOP,FACEPAINTER,WATER BILLS,ETC,I SMELL CLOSURE ON THIS,ANYONE,PAY WHAT YOU OWE,HAHAHAHAHA!

  • Clachnacuddin and the Hoops says:

    Another great article of journalism there James…

    Such beautiful Schadenfreude for that cripple that bummed and bragged these now infamous words…

    For every fiver they spend, I’ll spend a tenner –

    There again he was the chairman at LIEBROX !

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