Douglas Park urged to break the bank for 1 goal wonder

Douglas Park has been urged to break the bank by putting an extra £20,000 a week on the contract offer to Ryan Kent.

It seems that the memo about clubs being on UEFA’s ‘watch list’ for Financial Sustainability hasn’t yet reached the Daily Record.

With no European football, or Champions League points, income at Ibrox will be substantially down this season with four less UEFA matches. Top earners Kemar Roofe and John Lundstram will still be getting paid at the same rate.

While Joe Aribo and Calvin Bassey left in the summer the wage bill is under extreme pressure with Tom Lawrence, Rabbi Matondo, Ben Davies and Ridvan Yilmaz picking up serious salaries.

Giovanni van Bronckhorst was unable to add any new signings despite reaching the Champions League group stage with Micky Beale unlikely to see much of a war-chest next month.

Flying in the face of all that evidence Keith Jackson tells Daily Record readers:

Chairman Douglas Park appeared to suggest at the club’s AGM that the gap between what Kent wants and what Rangers are willing to pay him is too wide to be bridged.

But there is sound economic basis to making an offer that Kent finds too difficult to refuse. Even if he is asking for £10,000 a week more than Rangers believe him to be worth, that’s a small price to pay for a player upon whom Beale is so utterly reliant.

As a matter of fact, if Kent wants £20,000 more than Rangers consider to be the going rate, there’s a strong argument to be made that it’s still worth giving him what he wants.

That might mean upping his wages by somewhere in the region of a million quid a year but if they should fail to stump up the extra cash then they will lose Kent for next to nothing.

And, having spent £7million to buy him from Liverpool in the first place, that’s a giant kick in the teeth. Let’s not forget, Rangers have also laid out fees of £3m for Cedric Itten and Rabbi Matondo. And more than £5m on Ridvan Yilmaz for that matter.

So releasing £1m a year to let Beale keep hold of his main man looks like chicken feed by comparison. And if, deep down, Kent is hankering for a move back across the border then that ambition can be satisfied too with a bespoke and cleverly constructed new contract.

All that would be required of Rangers is to insert a release clause which would be triggered automatically in the event that an offer of a specific amount comes in.

In November 2011 Jackson introduced billionaire Craig Whyte to the Record’s army of readers. Next week Leeds United are expected to be lining up their traditional January offer for Kent.