Strathclyde Police could hold the key to the short-term survival of Rangers.
Saturday’s home match with Kilmarnock is likely to attract a crowd close to the 50,000 capacity of Ibrox following yesterday’s news that the club have applied to go into administration.
The reality of administration is that creditors are likely to be offered a pennies in the pound deal for their debt to the club or receive nothing at all.
Unless Rangers offer to pay Strathclyde Police in advance for Saturday’s match the force will have to decide whether or not they can cover the game with the likelihood that they won’t get paid for their services.
Last season the BBC published costs for the policing of matches with an ordinary SPL match costing between £10-15,000 underneath the headline grabbing figure of £300,000 to police a derby fixture at Celtic Park or Ibrox.
G4S provide stewarding at Ibrox, Celtic Park and Hampden and will have to decide whether they can afford to cover the Kilmarnock match.
If Strathclyde Police or G4S are unwilling to cover the match without being paid in advance or having previous bills settled the SPL could be forced to call the game off.
Every company that provides Rangers with match day services will have the same decision to make before Saturday.
The timeline between applying for administration and having it granted could be crucial to the clubs survival with a knock on effect throughout Scottish football.
Hearts, who are facing a winding up order from HMRC on Thursday, are owed £800,000 for the transfer of Lee Wallace while Dundee United are due a 45% cut of the gate money from last week’s Scottish Cup tie at Ibrox.
Yesterdays announcement created plenty of headlines- the fall out from administration is likely to be even more dramatic.
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Depending on who is running Rangers’ finances at the time (Whyte or the Administrator), they would probably be up for paying whatever it takes to see that any profit-making match goes ahead.
For the same reason, the Administrator will see that McGregor/Davis/Naismith continue to be paid in full, so that they can be sold in the summer, while many of the youth players and non-playing staff (tea ladies, janitors, office workers) will be made redundant, as cruel as this is.
How will the match be profit making?
They have already sold most of the tickets, they don’t get a penny from the catering or the publishing (programs have been farmed out) so al the games from now on are money loosing events.
The only way to change that is to tell all the season book holders that their books are invalid and if they want entry they must pay again for a ticket.
And the hits keep coming…
I can’t understand why Piebox is classed as an asset in the accounts but is not an asset to be sold off to recover debts ?
HMRC should simply take ownership with Whyte getting a small part to repay his supposed £ 18m and then lease it back to TaxDodgerRus (2012) Ltd at £ 1m a season for the forseeable future…thereby everyone gets their money back.
Sell off Murray Park to the SFA to replace Largs for a nominal £ 1-2m – Rangers won’t need it as they can’t afford a youth setup.
I’d also ensure that the record books are amended for the last 12 years due to financial doping & any money won should be repaid at x amount per season with a -10 point deduction in place until paid in full 🙂
Still getting off lightly for me