The Herald newspaper has redeemed itself to a great extent today revealing that Rangers owe £108m to Murray Group Holdings.
The same newspaper has run various stories over the last few months proclaiming that various individuals are on the verge of buying Rangers suggesting that a £30m bid is all that is required to make the garden rosy again.
£30m or less may buy Rangers but with the overall debt of Murray Group Holdings causing Lloyds/TSB serious concern they are unlikely to allow a fairly cash-rich part of the empire be given away at a bargain price.
The level of debt owed to the Murray Group explains why no local businessmen have given serious thought to buying Rangers.
Anyone looking to buy Rangers is likely to require to pay off a serious chunk of the debt to the Murray Group, make a realistic offer for Sir David Murray’s shares and also satisfy Llyods/TSB that they have a sound business plan to pay off the debt in a realistic time frame.
Until those conditions are met Rangers can expect to function in the same manner as they have over the last 18 months with incoming transfers unlikely regardless of how much money the club generates.
How Celtic capitalise on this is the question for the Celtic board- whoever takes over as manager from Tony Mowbray will comeinto the job knowing that their only domestic rivals are at their lowest possible ebb.
Herald story
i've gone through this blog. i found it really interesting. nowadays im working and also studying in reputed college.
online business
Wasn't a football journalist, says it all really. I'm sure of the laptop loyal will be along later today to dismiss this story as not affecting Rangers in any way.
The Herald has let itself down with lots of it's coverage of Rangers financial problems, I'm pretty certain that Simon Bain, there's an interesting surname, 'broke' the story of the elusive Florida based Scottish ex-pat billionaire… that story has been deleted from the Herald's website.
This news item paints an entirely different picture to what has previously been published.
If this is the true level of Rangers debt starting to emerge it explains why there are no local big hitters willing to get involved, there may only be a handful of British based businessmen able to a take a £100m+ hit, with little prospect of turning around much in the way of a profit only a fanatical Rangers supporter with amazingly deep pockets could consider taking the club on.
Here's hoping that we get to see Celtic maximise this opportunity.
Joe,
Two points I wish to make….
First of all…I've been saying for months about the debt owed to MIH, so it's not news to me.In fact on a recent holiday I met up with a Rangers supporter from Paisley, and we had a few beers.He said he couldn't understand why nobody would buy Rangers when they only had debts of £3o million!!I pointed out what the Herald has now pointed out…and he was gobsmacked . He and his mates were totally unaware of the seriousness of the problem…and I think they thought I was mischief making….
Second point I'd like to make is…while wishing Rangers all the worst.. it doesn't matter to me what state they're in….I'm only interested in us and our situation should have no bearing on theirs.I know it's easy to say ….well they're really struggling financially so we should be better than them.That's totally irrelevant as far as I'm concerned…we're in the mess we're in through bad decisions made at the top and whether Rangers are loaded or skint …we should still be number one …and we ain't.
Interesting article. The problem with Celtic is that we've been too interested on what's been happening across the City and complacency has crept in. Meanwhile Uncle Walter uses articles such as this to motivate his players to levels of performance that the "Fat Cats" in hoops can't attain. I don't care about Rangers, they exist, what I care about have a squad of honest players who have heart and bite who win games week in week out who play for the jersey. Leave Rangers to the bankers.
Just like to say that LaLaguna and I aren't related or in collusion..
Also Joe…any chance you could change the colour layout of the comment page ?? It hurts ma heid !!
In an ideal world, which we don't live in, Celtic's fortunes would be independent of Rangers.
However in the last 25 years it's Celtic or Rangers that have won the title, the weaker that Rangers are the better Celtic's prospects are domestically at least.
Europe and a return to competing in the Champions League is what Celtic aspire to, getting there is easier with Rangers in a weak position.
Tommy Burns got close to a good Celtic team, with Rangers spending beyond their means TB's side never got a look in for the Champions League
Joe,
This season sees a Rangers who are skint….threadbare of players…
playing a 39 year old centre-back…and still giving us a lesson.So where does your arguement stack up?? How do you reconcile that " the weaker Rangers are…the better our chances are domestically"?? This is the weakest , in every respect, I've ever seen them and our chances domestically have gone completely down the toilet.
You've lost me here I'm afraid.
I know that Rangers are weak… but they can still call on virtually a whole team of players that cost over £1m each.
They are still capable of putting out a fairly strong side and have also had the rub of the blue with a number of honest mistakes upsetting managers of various clubs in games against Rangers.
In their last significant transfer dealings they spent freely- Edu, Lafferty, Mendes, Bougherra, Davis, Velicka, Miller at a total of £17m.
That is serious spending, if Walter Smith was offered £4m a year to spend over the next four seasons he'd think that Christmas has come early.
Rangers are still benefitting from that spend, Miller, Bougherra and Davis have made big contributions this season.
It looks like Boyd, Bougherra, Broadfoot, Beasley and Novo (four B's plus Nacho!) will leave in the summer with no signings likely.
If Celtic can get things together the new manager has much less of a benchmark than Martin O'Neill, Wim Jansen or Tommy Burns faced from Ibrox.
I don't expect anything from Celtic in Europe next season, the last two campaigns have been brutal, but whoever is in charge has a fantastic opportunity to succeed domestically and the deeper Rangers financial problems are the greater Celtic's chances of success.
its interesting to see how mucked up rangers are!
@keaneasmustard, It's funny how when you speak to the fans they have no idea of the "real" state of their club. I live in Newport South Wales and there's a few of them lurking, one of whom I consider a mate.
Speaking to him sometime ago, I told of the the real debt his club has, he assumed I was mischief making and completely disregarded everything I said. Now it's in print I'll show him and see what his reaction is!
It's surprising that none of the tabloids want to run with this story though, given the way other clubs financial problems are handled and lauded about in the press this should be front page and not resigned to the business section which is often overlooked. It's way too complicated for them to understand, hence why no Rangers supporter is aware of the real issue with the "wearrapeoples" debt!
Hail Hail.