The past week is one that Rangers will want to forget in a hurry. The club announced an increase in debts which now stand at a staggering £31 million, they were fined £18,000 for the trouble caused by fans in Bucharest and the English Premier League rejected a proposal to welcome the old firm as part of a two-tier set up.
The communication department at the club must receive some criticism for failing to send out a consistant message during this crisis. At a press conference on Monday, team manager Walter Smith announced that Lloyds banking group 'was now effectively overseeing the club's spending and that all the players had been up for sale since January.'
Within hours of Smith's comment Lloyds released a statement saying "We do not run or manage the companies that we bank - that is, quite properly, the responsibility of the management.'' It seemed that nobody wanted to take responsiblity for what was going on at Rangers.
There was still no official word from the club about the financial situation at Ibrox. This led to rumours between fans that the club had actually gone into administration and that Lloyds had forced chairman, David Murray to step down from his position.
To make matters worse the club was fined for the second time in two years for crowd trouble at european matches. Surely this matter would be handled much better? Nope...Rangers released a statement that blamed Romanian stewards for lack of organisation and being hostile towards the travelling fans. Images shown in the Daily Record of Rangers fans hurling seats at stewards did not paint the same picture.
This is quite an interesting story for a number of reasons. In the world of business I would not have thought that a debt of 31 million is all that bad! It depends on wehether there is a likelihood of an income stream to pay it off. In the absence of a billionaire who wishes to fund a football club as a hobby or to gain social status then both Rangers and Celtic will struggle to compete at the European level given the lack of strong competition at the Scottish level. In fact it might well be that the obvious business solution for both Celtic and Rangers if they cannot gain entry to the English Premier League and/or gain success in Europe over the short term would be to merge. Same for Hearts and Hibs and the Dundee teams I would have thought. Selling a Rangers/Celtic merger to their respective fan-bases would definitely be an interesting PR challenge! However its all about money so although its sounds far-fetched in a Scottish context it would make business sense - all other things being equal. Interestingly I've never knowingly heard the possibility being discussed in the Scottish media - but it must be an option.
ReplyDeleteIt was tried in Edinburgh a few years back Steve. Didn't work.
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