McCoist misses out on £30m transfer war-chest
Twelve months ago on the back of the successful company share issue optimism knew no bounds as the big ‘anded Yorkshireman prepared for his exit to the ‘orse breeding fields of France.
With the share income all but spent new chief executive Graham Wallace, a man of substance apparently because he once worked for Manchester City, has the task of breaking the bad news to big spending McCoist and the unhappy Sevco support.
Rather than breaking into a transfer war-chest it seems certain that Sevco will be shipping players out next month in a move similar to January 2012 when the sale of Nicky Jelavic delayed administration by a fortnight.
Wallace admitted: “If you look at the size of our playing squad, the financial components of our playing squad, we have the second most expensive wage bill in Scotland and yet we are playing in the third tier. You need to look at that at a point in time.
“It is getting that balance between what we need today and then looking forward for the next two years.
“Whether we get to the point (in January) where we agree that there are a number of players we would be open to either letting go on loan or take offers for is, obviously, dependent on there being a market for them and clubs being interested.
“What we have to do, and we are starting that process with the manager now, is looking at the squad and making what we hope are the right decisions for the club, for the near term but with an eye firmly through to the next 18 months.”
Twelve months ago the garden couldn’t have been rosier as Green spouted moonbeams to the gullible fans who had bought into the share issue with those 70p shares now trading for 34p on the Alternative Investment Market.
“It was a fantastic day with shares trading around 10 per cent up and that is a great platform,” the Yorkshireman announced
“Ask yourself ‘ow many clubs in Europe are sitting with no debt, no borrowings and £25m or more in cash and you would be lucky to count more than an ‘andful, yet that’s where we’re at. And we have £100m in assets.
“It is a really enviable position to be in and if Rangers was in any other league in the world – England, European, Atlantic, whatever – this club would be worth £400m.
“What we ‘ave now is a solid, rigid platform on which to rebuild Rangers instead of up to now what has been a temporary and changing one. We ‘ave a structure where Rangers are no longer a boom-or-bust club. It’s about managing this club professionally and increasing revenue.”
Looking at the transfer market Green added: “We’ve allocated £10m for Ally to spend on players as soon as he’s able to do that.
“We ‘ave a transfer ban for another year but Ally is looking at who is out of contract when we can sign pre-contracts in January. We can register a player who is out of contract, then from September 1 we can sign them.
“We’re not saying it’s £10m and only £10m because if fans, as we expect, buy their season tickets next year there is perhaps another £20m there and that is a fantastic position for the manager, the club and the fans to be in.”