A
lly McCoist has put his job on the line by claiming that he is staggered by the losses at the club which is on the brink of liquidation.
The fun loving former Question of Sport skipper was one of the founding fathers of the club investing his pennies alongside Charles Green, Imran Ahmad, Brian Stockbridge, Blue Pitch Holdings and Margarita Holdings.
McCoist’s public endorsement of Green helped bring onside supporters who were ready to back John Brown’s ‘starve them out’ policy. With Green, Ahmad and Stockbridge no longer present in the blue room it’s the club manager that knows the finances better than most with regular cups of tea with chief executive Graham Wallace giving McCoist an inside line to the club finances.
With no sign of a summer warchest and full-time opponents to be faced next season McCoist has gone public with his fears over the direction the club is heading- although tellingly he never issued a rallying call for fans to buy season tickets.
McCoist- known as Sleekit within the Blue Room- avoided voting at December’s AGM but selectively gets involved in the troubled politics of the club when the circumstances suit.
Earlier today he revealed: “I am hoping that the club moves forward but I was staggered at the losses, the money that has gone for one reason or another.
“And I probably should mention that I am totally against any indication that the players have the money. One or two people have wrongly questioned players coming in and money being spent.
“Just to put the record completely straight on that, we didn’t spend any money at all on the players, the budget came down, the wages in relation to turnover at the club is probably the envy of any club in world football.
“So although some of the money has gone on players’ wages, it is a very small fraction of where the money has gone.
“It (ratio) is maybe 27/ 28 per cent. I think the lowest in the Championship last year was 53 or 54 per cent so that would give you the indication that the players’ budget should be well within the overall turnover and is within the overall turnover.”
McCoist’s in-depth knowledge of finances in the English Championship probably excludes the fact that none of those clubs are maintaining a 50,000 seater stadium and state-of-the-art training complex.
With his insight into finances at clubs like Doncaster, Yeovil and Millwall it’s surprising that the accounts of a club he is a shareholder in come as any sort of surprise.
As well as winning promotion next season Mr Wallace’s 128 day review targets winning the 2017 Premiership allowing the club to cash in on the Champions League that same year.
Achieving that goal would involve toppling Celtic with the current Ibrox boss far from optimistic about that task.
“We have always been ambitious, always set our targets as high as possible and I understand and accept that,” McCoist added. “I wouldn’t want that to change at all and hopefully, if we do get investment those targets can become realistic which is where we want to be.
“We need investment. I don’t think it is as much rocket science as people are making out.
“If you lose in the region of £35million to £45 million worth of players and don’t buy to replace them you are going to struggle to compete at the level you once were.”
It’s likely that less than £10m would be enough to sign up Kyle Lafferty, John Fleck, Steven Whittaker, Allan McGregor, Steven Naismith and Steve Davis at current market rates.
