Craig Whyte fires back at the Daily Record
This morning’s edition of the paper painted a bleak picture of the clubs’ finances with former Chairman Alastair Johnston and former director Paul Murray speculating that the club could be about to be placed in administration.
The main issues raised by the Record was that four seasons of season ticket money had been mortaged to a company called Ticketus and that HMRC had issued a demand for VAT of £5m on that deal.
While denying the VAT element Whyte admitted to a deal with Ticketus without going into any specifics.
He told the Rangers website: “First, I would like to address specifically the latest attempt to undermine Rangers in today’s Daily Record which devotes five pages to trashing our efforts to get this Club back on a sensible financial footing.
“In the most lurid terms, the Record accuses the Club’s management and, specifically me, of using supporters’ money to help fund the buy-out of Rangers. Not true.
“The Club is accused of not paying £5million in VAT. Not true.
“What is true is that Rangers, like many other clubs, has a financing arrangement in place with a company called Ticketus which enables the Club to receive revenue from a portion of season ticket sales in advance.
“There is nothing unusual or untoward in this arrangement which was put in place at the Club long before my takeover last year and was used by the previous management. For members of that regime to criticise the use of a scheme they put in place is, frankly, outrageous.”
He added: “The Daily Record’s approach to this story sought to distort and dramatise the matter. I for one will not be reading or buying the Daily Record again and I’m sure many other Rangers fans will share my disgust at yet another smear on this football club.”
Whyte’s statement confirmed that a fee had been agreed with Everton for the sale of Nikica Jelavic but it’s unlikely that there will be enough time to bring in any replacements.
The statement claims that the Croatian wanted to leave and that there was no point in trying to keep a player who no longer wants to be at Ibrox.
Whyte went in to some detail about the summer transfer window which involved 14 different deals including lucrative contract extensions for Allan McGregor, Steve Davis and Steven Whittaker.
Football clubs are notoriously wary of giving out too much information on their finances but the new Rangers chairman confirmed that there is a £10m deficit between the clubs income and expenditure.
He added: “As it stands at the moment Rangers has operating costs of approximately £45 million a year and revenues of around £35million – not including revenue from possible Champions’ League and Europa League participation.
“As we know, European money cannot be taken for granted and it doesn’t take much to work out that without it there is a big financial hole to fill every year – regardless of who owns the Club.
“I’ve said many times that in Scottish football we have to move on from this mindset that you have to keep spending more and more money – that’s what got this Club into financial trouble before. We have to live within our means, continue to develop talent and spend wisely.
“These are challenging financial times for Rangers – as they are for many other businesses. What I can say to you as a Rangers fan is that everything I will do as chairman will be in the interests of the Club and I thank you for your continued support.”
CLICK HERE for Neil Lennon worry over Emilio Izaguirre
CLICK HERE for Daily Record turns on Craig Whyte
Follow Video Celts on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube