Rangers’ outgoing summer transfer business earned them a paltry return of less than £1million — despite the sale of five first-team players during that period.
The revelation was one of the key talking points to emerge from yesterday’s AGM where shareholders took the chance to grill the club’s hierarchy about another turbulent 12 months at Ibrox, both on and off the field.
Interim chair John Gilligan made no excuses to those in attendance at Glasgow’s Clyde Auditorium. He conceded — with considerable understatement — that ‘it has been a challenging period for the club’, one that has left Rangers without a permanent chairman or chief executive and trailing league leaders Celtic by 11 points.
A summer fire sale to clear out some of the deadwood from the playing squad was understood to have raised sufficient capital to allow manager Philippe Clement to bring in the likes of Mohamed Diomande, on a permanent deal, Nedim Bajrami, Robin Propper, Hamza Igamane and Jefte.
Instead, the club’s recently published annual accounts showed that player trading raised only in the region of £800,000, a miniscule figure given five players were sold in that period.
It had previously been thought that the combined income for the sale of under-contract first-team players Sam Lammers to FC Twente, Todd Cantwell to Blackburn Rovers, Scott Wright to Birmingham City, Connor Goldson to Aris Limassol and Robby McCrorie to Kilmarnock had raised several million pounds.
The combined fees brought in for Wright, Lammers and Cantwell was far lower than suggested
Connor Goldson’s sale was believed to have raked in £1.7m… but that wasn’t the case
Ibrox chief financial officer James Taylor arrives at the Clyde Auditorium for yesterday’s AGM
Instead, chief financial officer James Taylor confirmed to a stunned gathering that the £800,000 figure in the annual report was accurate, those fees contributing little in a year when Rangers made a loss of more than £17million.
‘Yes, it’s been confirmed £800,000 is the number,’ said Taylor. ‘The individual amounts are subject to contractual agreements but that was what we brought in.
‘In terms of the player-trading model, it’s not been working for a number of years. It’s an ongoing problem that we need to address and we need to take a different view on.
‘Historically, the player acquisition strategy is very different to what’s been looked at last summer. So, what we’re seeing now is the continued challenges of decisions made 12, 18 or 24 months ago.
‘There is no guarantee of success with transfers, but what we can do is stick to principles and look to enhance the value of the squad, while at the same time bringing players in at more sustainable levels.’
Gilligan also apologised to the Rangers support for the botched and delayed reconstruction work in the Copland Road stand that saw the team decant to Hampden for the first few months of the season.
‘I want to again, on behalf of the board, offer a full apology to you, our supporters, for the inconvenience this caused, and thank you all for the outstanding support you gave the team at Hampden,’ he added, while admitting the full cost of the temporary move would run to six figures.
‘I’d also like to thank the Scottish FA, SPFL and UEFA for their understanding and support through that trying period.’
