I suspect that the newly released accounts by the Rangers International Football Club (RIFC) would have made for sober reading in the boardroom.
The Parkhead boardroom…
If the events of 2012 taught us anything, it is that the people who run Celtic cannot see a future without a neighbour called Rangers.
Despite the usual succulent stenography, these accounts are stunningly bad.
Dear reader, consider this:
The basket of assets brought in millions from transfer earnings for Joe Aribo and Calvin Bassey.
That was on top of Champions League Group Stage money.
Quite simply, this was the best year for revenue in Sevco’s short existence.
Yet they posted a £4.1m loss!
Rugger Guy, in happy retirement from this site, was moved to reach out.
On an admittedly quick glance at the numbers, he stated that he was “stunned” at the bottom line.
The featured image is what he included in a WhatsApp message.
For my egg-chasing mate, this was the most important data point.
Given how much free time he gave to this subject over the years, I could not, in good conscience, ask him to crunch the numbers one last time.
I contacted someone else in the accountancy world to get the skinny and asked him to send it to me in Golden Retriever.
This is what I got from him:
Phil let’s put this in layman’s terms. Rangers consumed £11.9m more in cash than they took in from all sources. If you are asking about the financial health of Rangers, this negative cash flow number for 2022/23 is probably the most useful. There is no smoke and mirrors. Rangers spent £11.9m more than they received in a Champions League season and one in which they finally sold some players for good fees.
I’m told that the mood in the meeting of the Sevco High Command when the accounts were discussed was somewhat “sombre”.
The scuttlebutt inside that place as the accounts were being compiled was about the size of the profit in the bottom line.
No one was expecting a loss.
After the banking crash of 2008, the original Rangers were a financial timebomb waiting to go off.
In the absence of any effective governance from Hampden, the only other possibility of oversight was scrutiny from the local media.
Please, please no laughing at the back!
Their reportage of these accounts shows that they’re happy to double down on the new Ibrox entity.
As in 2012, it was those out with the mainstream media who provided accurate reporting on the Ibrox situation.
The Rangers Tax Case blogger, winner of the prestigious Orwell Prize, proffered these perceptive observations on Twitter/X.
Unlike the Stenography Corps, he opted to follow follow the money at Ibrox.
Across the city, the financial situation is night and day.
Yesterday, I caught up with football finance expert David Low to get his take on these accounts.
He was Fergus McCann’s guy on the ground during the takeover saga in the 1990s.
This is what he said to me:
We have financially decoupled from our nearest rival. We’re in a domestic financial league of our own, which is not a good thing.
I suspect that there are a few in the Celtic boardroom who agree with his take.
They need the basket case to keep breathing, and so does the organisation that provides the match officials.
Just think about that one.
VINDICATION ONCE AGAIN
That nice Mr Warburton popped up yesterday and spoke about the time he…err… resigned from Sevco six years ago.
You can listen to him here.
Now, dear reader, here is my contemporaneous reporting of his sudden departure in February 2017.
Unlike the usual succulent suspects, I take my work seriously and think that you deserve the truth.
Discover more from Phil Mac Giolla Bháin
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
One for you Phil.
Everton receive immediate 10-point Premier League deduction
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67448714
That’s how it should work.
Many thanks.
I’ve already commented on Twitter/X regarding this matter.
Our Board require a competitive league to help both finances and quality of team . Many of our most vocal anti Board wanting Sevco , couldn’t live without them either . Partial closing of Celtic Pk only happened with no Rangers2012 in SPL . We often had to watch bad football & losing often , but we still had to keep all stands fully opened .
How many of our fans listen to Radio Clyde & other talk shows to laugh at Rangers2012 . How many tease Sevco fans at work
It appears Board are not alone
I also noticed that the capital assets value has been revised upwards at more than 20%.This seems at odds with the general decline in property values, even allowing for completion of Edmiston House. I would have thought that Ibrox would have remained at roughly the same value as last year, even allowing for some improvements/maintenance. EH would have had some value as land and partly developed site last year, so an uplift of approx £10m couldn’t be based on that either. I think some slight of hand at play. I also find it bizarre that operating profit can be touted so loudly. It’s akin to a gambler who wins twenty quid on the puggies but loses £100 on the horses. He can big up his isolated win but the kids still go hungry that week.
Yet another glowing example of how the SMSM just “cut ‘n’ paste” the Press Release from iBroke and present it without as much as a Fact Check.
In other news, I see that disgraced SNP minister, Michael Matheson, is blaming his kids for the £11,000 roaming data charge, as they were watching an Old Firm game on his i-Pad. Who knew that the History Channel was so expensive???!!!
I assume the game went into extra time!
They get their season ticket money in early, so you’d expect there to be a hefty wodge in the bank at the end of the year. Last year they had £13 million, but this year it’s just £5.3. It’s going to be a cold winter.
The Celtic board, before and after the rebels won, have always been rangers’ greatest ally. How many times could we have left them well behind but chose not to?
Warburton said: “I would never say anything derogatory about the club” and then he went on to say that he was treated appallingly. Isn’t that a derogatory comment?
No, it is simply the unvarnished truth.
To slightly misquote Homer Simpson “I never apologise for anything – I’m sorry Lisa, but that’s just the way I am!”…..
The Admirable Warburton’s unexpected reappearance seems impeccably timed with the festive manager sacking season getting underway in earnest.
Just wondering, Phil.
Would those figures include the £1m+ fee they received from the aborted Malik Tillman transfer ?
Keep shining your very bright light in the darkest corners of “Planet Fitba.”
Lenny was a rookie manager when Celtic appointed him first time round. He masterminded a win over a Barcelona side many consider to be one of the finest football sides in the history of the game. He also took us to the last sixteen in the Champions League.
Accounts don’t make much sense to me but given that, these are pleasing as I was expecting a real substantial profit.
To wit:
Turnover £83.3m, costs £108m, equals £0.25m profit. (BBC). Presumably, there are other earnings not counted in Turnover eg Bassey billions etc.
I’ve also seen costs of approx £96m, which ties in with near £12m cash burn over the year.
I guess GvB and crew payoff is in these figures too but as a one-off, although managerial change is almost an annual event in itself.
I can’t see how they can ‘only’ post a loss of just over £4m but its pleasing all the same.
If the Celtic board fear the loss of a competitive rival (their analysis) leading to a loss of interest hence revenue perhaps they can find another competition for us to be competitive in.
They are nowhere near a real profit. The truth appears to be that Rangers still require Director loans to keep the lights on (or to pay wages and HMRC each month).
It looks like they will be in the red over the next year too. The business is somply spending more money that it can afford.
Its spending more than it takes in.
Smaller amounts in very good years and grotesquely large in not so good ones.
They can, however, afford this, as long as Directors and others continue to finance the shortfall and this isn’t stymied by regulations.
Yes the Directors can make up the shortfalls but it is a chaotic way to run a business.
There WILL be another competition, within five to ten years. It will be a European League. Next years revamped CL is the first step towards it.
The aborted breakaway was a huge wake-up call for UEFA. They now realise that change IS coming, and they also realise that if they want to stay remotely relevant as an organisation, they have to control it.
They saw that an attempted coup by the super rich clubs was given short shrift by virtually every other club in Europe, AND their own fans! They also know that any attempt to form a similar setup would get the same, if not worse reaction. They know, and will be repeatedly reminded, that they are supposed to represent ALL leagues and teams in Europe.
I foresee two, maybe even three, twenty team leagues, with promotion and relegation. The top division will initially be made up predominantly of teams from the top five leagues. Leagues two and three will be made up predominantly of representatives from the smaller countries.
I foresee Scotland having ONE representative, probably in the second division. That place MUST be ours.The prize money available will dwarf ANYTHING ever seen in any sport.
Domestic football will become, in general, a complete irrelevance, and the other European competitions, will need to be reorganised to allow them to retain any kind of kudos.
Mark my words change IS COMING, and we either go with it, or get left behind!!
Maybe the BBC need to use their own boastful “verify” tool for their own misleading article on the accounts
One does wonder when the final tilt at the windmill will happen. In other words at what point will people stop putting money in ?
I had thought it might have been last season but no they ploughed more cash into it in the summer, or will do come January to see the season out.
If they have a poor run of results in their upcoming away fixtures culminating in Celtic beating them at New Year will they even attempt to find the cash to back the new manager in January ?
Surely this must be the final year if they fail to win the league.
That is their hope; that they can win the title and automatically qualify and Celtic fail to get there.
All eyes in our support now turn to our recruitment in January. Our Board, as Phil said, will be aghast at those figures yesterday. Will they sanction that acquisition of two or three really good players in the transfer window ?
I personally don’t think they will.
Remember… we were warned without a ‘rangers’ there was the very clear fears of unrest, violence and trouble in the streets.
Well they got their new ‘rangers’ and there has been unrest, violence and trouble in the streets… George Square anyone….
Yesterday was a perfect example of Rangersomics. I saw the headline that Rangers had made a profit of £250 000 and then looked at the article. Now I admit I quit accountancy after one year and have spent most of the last 30 years teaching Year 6 around the world, but I was lost how they came up with a profit from those figures.
No matter what we say or think, keeping Sevco afloat is sadly needed by Celtic to keep us stronger. Remember the seasons they weren’t there: 25k attendances, top tier closed etc. We don’t have to peddle the Old Firm myth but, we do have to admit they are a necessity for Scottish football’s SPL. Plus, it’s great to see them struggle every year.
Rangers vital to SPL? The only thing the SPL needs is for Celtic and Rangers to disappear to another country and leave us with a competitive league. Never happen though so Football here will get more and more boring.
What Scottish football needs is some of the other clubs to start showing a bit of ambition. You just need to look at the managerial appointments of the other “big” clubs in Scotland to see how much of a lack of ambition there actually is.
The fudging of the continuity lie is what led to this. The “other teams” meekly accepted it was only a matter of time until the duopoly returned, so why risk it? In the years 2012 to 2017 other clubs could have ran us close, or even won a league. Imagine Aberdeen with a 30 million cash injection? They might never have looked back. But their own meek acceptance of how Scottish football is hampered them. All of them.
There *are* systemic issues with Scottish football dating back to the late 1980s, but they’re not insoluble. Ambition from other clubs to at least be consistently beating the non Glasgow clubs would be a start. Appointing rookie managers isn’t the solution.