The £85m ‘investment’ keeping the lights on at Ibrox

While BBC Scotland and the Daily Record clutch onto the mysterious £252,000 operating profit Internet Bampots have been able to dig deep into the Ibrox accounts for the year to 30 June 2023.

Most folk expected turnover in or around £100m, still far short of Celtic but the published figure of £83.8m came as something of a shock.

Having turned up for the group stages of the Champions League and duped Ajax and Southampton into buying damaged goods it is difficult to see how last season’s figures can be bettered.

The shortfall in income is matched by the incredible wages being paid out which started with Kemar Roofe and his alleged £45,000 a week deal when he moved from Anderlecht in 2020.

Traditionally the accounts are released late on a Friday night to be buried by the weekend fixtures, releasing the 2023 accounts at the start of an international break has given the Bampots more scope to probe.

Free agent John Lundstram probably started negotiations at that figure a year later, with James Tavernier and Connor Goldson signing new contracts that figure is probably the dressing room for the Leadership Group except for Ryan Jack.

Players don’t move from Italy to the SPFL to be the poor relations in the dressing room with Sam Lammers and Cyriel Dessers both on long term deals.

Funding that squad strength on the back of three worthwhile transfers in a decade with a stadium 10,000 short of your domestic rivals falls on the Directors.

They have certainly dug deep, chucking in £85m that they are unlikely to see again, whether they are prepared to throw even more money at Philippe Clement in January remains to be seen while Dessers, Lammers, Danilo, Ben Davies, Rabbi Matondo, Ridvan Yilmaz and Nico Raskin clog up the wage bill remains to be seen.

Meanwhile Lundstram, Borna Barisic, Roofe, Jack, Leon Balogun and Jon McLaughlin can walk away as free agents in six months.