The crisis facing Dave King at Ibrox has to be faced this month as their recently published Annual Report confirms.
Behind the smoke and mirrors of the Gerrard Revolution lies a mountain of debt with the Three Bears backing off after being led up the garden path by the man described by a South African judge as a glib and shameless liar.
Upbeat stories about transfer interest in Alfredo Morelos won’t pay the estimated £100,000/week wages due to Jermain Defoe and Steve Davis.
According to the report to 30 June 2019 additional funding of £10m is required to see out this season. That’s without any mention of the ‘many millions of pounds’ due to Sports Direct and a payment to Memorial Walls.
You can add in the transfer funds committed on Ryan Kent and Filip Helander plus anticipated actions from Hummel and Elite as their contracts are terminated on the back of the ruling in favour of Sports Direct.
Under the Strategic Report on page 14 of the Annual Report the message is clear
At the time of preparation, the forecast identified that the Group would require £10.0m by way of debt or equity funding by the end of season 2019/2020 in order to meet its liabilities as they fall due. The first tranche of funding is required from investors in November 2019. However, the final amount required is dependent on future football performance, European football participation and player trading amongst other factors. The Board of Directors have discussed the Club’s forecast cash flow shortfall and have reached agreement with Laird Investments (Pty) Limited whereby it will provide additional loan facilities as necessary to meet shortfalls to the above requirements and any further amounts that may be required a result of variances to forecast cash flows. Further to this, Laird Investments (Pty) Limited have agreed to provide a £5m facility to October 2021.
In the 2017 Annual Report the auditors confidently stated that Dave King had agreed to meet the shortfall for the 2017/18 season, in January 2018 Close Brothers came to the rescue. Again, in the 2018/19 season Close Brothers bailed out the sinking ship.
Club 1872 are polling members to donate £500,000 which should cover the losses for almost three weeks.
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Crunch time is likely to be in January when funds are at their lowest, Eros Grezda, Andy King, Wes Foderingham, Jamie Murphy, Jon Flanagan and Andy Halliday will still need to be paid.
With Gerrard desperately trying to offload players the arrival of the Sports Direct bill (ruling on January 17) could push the company into administration with funds at the bank drying up unless King can uncover an unlikely billionaire in Motherwell to try and stop Celtic.
