Yesterday, as the Ibrox club released its financial accounts, the BBC bent over backward to soften the story by highlighting a peculiar milestone: the club is finally “litigation-free.”
It’s a remarkable thing to even try to boast about—a classic case of deflection from the main takeaway here: their eye-watering £17.2 million loss.
This convenient narrative wasn’t limited to the BBC; other publications were quick to pounce on it too, falling in line to chase the distraction.
It’s a perfect example of what the media should resist but fails to.
There’s a brilliant scene in The West Wing, season two, that brings this to mind. Martin Sheen’s President Bartlet is incensed when a Colombian drug gang manages to down special forces helicopters by using a fake radio signal to trap them.
“We weren’t prepared for someone to try and outfox us with a stratagem so sophisticated it’s an entire generation beyond ‘Hey, look, your shoelaces are untied!’” he fumes. “Is that how I just lost nine guys to a street gang with a ham radio?”
But “litigation free” wasn’t even the only sleight of hand.
Ibrox pushed out another story about a so-called billionaire “investor”—hardly a new player on the scene and not even investing, strictly speaking.
Instead, he’s merely restructuring debt for more shares, not pumping new capital into the club. Few in the press examined that objectively; instead, most opted for the pro-Ibrox script. It’s astounding that none of them appears interested in exploring what it means to have yet another shareholder carrying the club’s debts rather than Ibrox actually living within its means.
Yet that’s the true question for anyone who imagines the club as a serious challenger to Celtic’s dominance.
Our media is appallingly susceptible to PR fluff, trivia, and gossip.
The Ibrox PR machine must be chuckling as they feed journalists these half-baked distractions. Yesterday’s figures could have triggered serious discussion on the sustainability of Scottish football finances. Still, the media only touched on it lightly, then veered off into the usual speculative guff. They could have taken lessons from the crisis in Inverness, a club whose finances ran into ruin and where the warning signs were left unaddressed. The only difference at Ibrox is the backers, who’ll shoulder the debts—for now.
But that’s what the Ibrox club is; Inverness, with slightly deeper pockets. But what’s in those pockets runs out eventually. Always. It’s just basic math.
Inverness’s fall highlighted why we need financial sustainability rules here, like those seen across European football. England has adopted Financial Fair Play with strict sanctions for violators, and the question as to why we haven’t followed suit is essential for the sport’s future.
Right now, Scottish clubs run with no financial guardrails, many relying heavily on outside funds—a ruinous path if ever there was one.
It’s not as if Scottish football hasn’t been burned before. Hearts, Hibs, Motherwell, Dundee, Gretna—they’ve all faced financial calamities from unsustainable practices. Rangers themselves went under, and Gretna’s collapse came after their benefactor could no longer foot the bill. These examples stand as grim warnings, and yet they’re repeatedly ignored.
No league in Europe cries out more urgently for financial sustainability regulations than ours. With no billion-pound TV deals to prop up these clubs, it’s essential they operate within their means. And yet we’re moving in the opposite direction. I remain convinced this approach serves only one club—and that club’s opposition keeps us from enacting meaningful change.
The figures themselves are a mockery of our league and an insult to every club that’s lost revenue and titles to the Ibrox club’s debt-fuelled spending.
Hearts, Aberdeen, Hibs, Kilmarnock—they’ve all been affected.
They seem oddly willing to go along with it, perhaps hoping for their own deep-pocketed investors to carry debts on their behalf. It’s reckless beyond belief.
And for what? This reckless path hasn’t exactly brought much glory either, with results that are laughably meagre considering the resources poured in. Investors have had poor returns on every pound, and yet the myth of potential success lingers.
Meanwhile, the media continues to play along, oblivious or unwilling to examine the wider implications. The Scottish media understands full well that, if Financial Fair Play were enacted, the Ibrox club would likely breach those regulations tomorrow.
But without that spotlight, the Ibrox club continues its unsustainable approach, fuelled by new injections of capital rather than living within its means.
What’s widely misunderstood is where that money goes. Despite the vast sums, it’s not just wages or transfers bleeding Ibrox dry. The club itself is a cumbersome, costly machine that drains tens of millions before a player even steps onto the pitch.
To operate sustainably, the club would need to slash football spending significantly, yet they continue to rely on shareholders to foot the bill. The latest headlines highlight one word, and that word is not “debt” or “losses” or, God forbid, “consequences;” no, it is “billionaire”, as if this “investor” stands poised to sink everything he has into the Ibrox black hole, as though his wealth will change their fortunes overnight. We all know the reality is different. He’s here to refinance debt, not inject cash, yet the spin would have you think this is a game-changer.
People – including some of the hacks – see that word and lose their minds, thinking that this has to be the big development which changes everything. You never would believe that financial sustainability rules existed outside our imaginations.
So once again, the media chases a carefully planted pair of squirrels, and have resorted to pushing a false narrative and convincing fans that this endless cycle can continue unchecked. They cling to the myth that this club can sustainably keep up with Celtic. The reporting on this issue has been like this year after year, blind to the long-term consequences.
If the media examined this issue with a fraction of the depth found on Celtic fan sites, they’d cover why Financial Fair Play is essential. They’d delve into what truly living within one’s means would look like for the club across the city.
But this superficial reporting doesn’t encourage change. As each new benefactor enters the Ibrox fold, they’re met with the same pressure to chase the impossible dream.
In a twisted way, this cycle works to our advantage, yet it endangers the game as a whole. This is the second time an Ibrox club has run itself towards the cliff, and the press won’t even acknowledge what happened the first time. It’s no surprise that with numbers this grim, the spin machine is in overdrive. But this short-sightedness will cost them.
As Hemmingway wrote in The Sun Also Rises, “How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
Football clubs die in much the same way. It happened at Ibrox once. They seem largely oblivious to the fact that it could happen again … and that’s why they are locked in this doom cycle. Because the media acts like this is normal.
More cash goin outta Liebrox to a place near you soon…
Fillipe Fillop and his bank Building in Scotland –
Go ye Dandy Dons and Thank Youse !!!
I love your articles, well thought out and well written but please cut out the math patter it’s boaking.
They’ll never learn James, Murray ran the club on Other People’s Money through the Bank of Scotland and the tradition of burning OPM lives on. The Scottish Media think they’re helping the gullibillies with their soothing squirrels, but all they’ve done is soothe them to a dark place. Finding a road back to financial stability will be hard, and with a bit of luck impossible.
Can anyone explain how FFP would affect these issues. If this potential investor story is true, does this mean he can invest £XM but they can only spend a percentage of what they’ve brought in on players? I saw the headline saying Souness’ plan to save Sevco. I opened the article to see what his business plan was, only to find it consisted of “plough £50m into the club for players”. Could they do that under FFP rules?