Don’t tell the bears but the Bassey and Aribo windfalls have been spent

Ibrox fans expecting their club to splash the cash in the summer are in for something of a shock.

Micky Beale might be talking about his unlimited budget but unless an existing shareholder has a spare £20m sloshing around the rookie boss will have to be very imaginative when he goes into the transfer market.

With Dave King and Douglas Park no longer directors two significant past benefactors can be discounted.

Some fans are expecting to see the windfalls from Calvin Bassey and Joe Aribo used but the bad money is that last summer’s income has already been spent- and a little more.

With four less UEFA matches this season and virtually no sell-able assets it is going to be a bleak summer across the city.

Earlier this week Companies House published the accounts to 30 June 2022 with details of crucial events since that deadline included.

While the Mainstream Media looked the other way Four Lads Had A Dream broke the bad news to their readers:

Another important takeaway from TRFC Ltd’s accounts is the ‘movement in respect of player registrations and football management team’ under note 29 – Post Balance Sheet Events. This is where material information that occurs after 30 June is disclosed to shareholders via the financial statements.

This particular note details that – in the transfer windows of summer 2022 and January 2023 – the club purchased twelve players and sold or released seven. It also states that in November 2022 Giovanni van Bronckhorst and his backroom team were relieved of their duties.

Here is the key part: “the net amount payable of these movements, after adjustment for the notional effect on deferred payments, is £0.9m.”  So while there are accounting adjustments for the deferred payments / instalments the bottom line is we’ve essentially spent all the money.  

This isn’t just the instalments received to date, it means that we have committed to spend the total money we have received and are due to receive, save for unknowns like sell-on fees etc.

The cost therefore of our summer signings (£15m), Raskin, Cantwell and the removal of the management team was £0.9m more, after accounting adjustments, than we received from the sales of Bassey, Aribo and Itten.

While this proves that funds have been reinvested in the team – excluding a rather hefty pay-off for van Bronckhorst – it also therefore reveals that we’ve had such little value for money for that spend given we are now facing the serious possibility of a trophyless campaign and with the manager stating that this squad needs a rebuild / revamp.

To be in the position of ripping things up after reaching a Europa League Final, the Champions League groups and having 3 major player sales in six months really is something which has not gone unnoticed by the fanbase.

Supporters hoping that we’d have excess cash from the Patterson and Bassey sales to spend in the summer can therefore think again. We’ve already committed to spend that money with very few hugely valuable assets remaining in the squad and that’s a concern.

Sell on clauses in the deals for Bassey, Aribo and Nathan Patterson are highly unlikely with only Bassey playing regularly to the bemusement of many former Ajax players.

In January Celtic made a £4m profit while bringing in Alastair Johnston, Yuki Kobayashi, Tomoki Iwata and Oh Hyeon-gyu from the sales of Josip Juranovic and Giorgos Giakoumakis.