GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - AUGUST 17: Rangers' Leon Balogun, James Tavernier,, Connor Barron, Ross McCausland and Cyriel Dessers celebrate with the fans at full time during a Premier Sports Cup last sixteen match between Rangers and St Johnstone at Hampden Park, on August 17, 2024, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Craig Williamson/SNS Group via Getty Images)
The Daily Record has suddenly realised the accumulation of expensive dross at Ibrox.
Two months after the end of the 24/25 season no contracted players have been sold, with each passing week there is less chance of Ben Davies, Rabbi Matondo and the rest walking away from their lucrative contracts.
With Russell Martin raking through the middle tiers of English football the squad size and wage bill has increased massively with little sign that the quality of the team has improved.
Despite the media frenzy over all things Ibrox other clubs just aren’t interested in signing their serial flops.
Andy Newport of the Daily Record reports:
Of course, with a crucial Champions League qualifier scheduled before most of the Ibrox faithful have unpacked their holiday flip-flops, there was simply no time for Martin and the club’s new owners to hang about on the hunt for fresh talent.
But it does beg the question – is signing up so many new faces without getting shot of the old ones storing up trouble?
The squad list at Ibrox now extends to a hefty 33 first-team names, most of them sucking substantial wages out of the club coffers while only a few have ever contributed anything meaningful in return.
And they’ll be sucking substantial pay-offs in order to move on- just like Connor Goldson, Sam Lammers and Todd Cantwell a year ago.
The heaving dressing room at Ibrox is close to bursting point, a fact Martin acknowledged himself earlier this month.
But cutting the numbers won’t be straightforward if Andrew Cavenagh and his new American money men are intent on recouping anything close to the frivolous sums spent by the previous board on men who now firmly out of favour.
Cavenagh and the 49ers have inherited a patch-work mess thrown together by a succession of bosses.
The redundant Rangers XI who must be sold to cut bulging squad down to size for Russell Martin ? | @AndyNewportDR https://t.co/jSgs5OOLAg pic.twitter.com/cUQORLbxP5
— Daily Record Sport (@Record_Sport) July 19, 2025
Newport then starts to name names:
ROBIN PROPPER has already made clear he won’t be agreeing to a £1.5million move back to FC Twente until he’s given a golden handshake, with his former Dutch employers unable to match his Ibrox terms.
JOSE CIFUENTES has returned to Glasgow this summer looking to fight for his place.
But while the Ecuadorian had a decent season on loan at Greek side Aris Thessaloniki, it looks like the ex-LAFC man’s time in Scotland is up after he was among a clutch of players left behind when the team travelled to their training camp at St George’s Park.
And Record Sport understands he will also demand his contract is paid up if he’s to move elsewhere.
Paying off someone like RABBI MATONDO definitely won’t be cheap. On an eye-watering salary rumoured to be north of £30,000 a week, the injury plagued Welsh winger might just turn out to be pound-for-pound one of the club’s worst ever recruits.
Signed for £3million by van Bronckhorst, he’s registered just 26 starts and eight goals in three seasons. Currently out crocked again until next month, good luck finding anyone prepared to take on the final year of his contract.
You would imagine youngsters like LEON KING and CLINTON NSIALA would be keen to find news clubs and get on with careers that have stalled at Ibrox – but then King knocked back a move to Wycombe last week.
ROSS McCAUSLAND could definitely do with a fresh start elsewhere. The Northern Irish kid burst onto the scene at a time when Beale had emptied Gers stocks of wide options.
Don’t forget Ben Davies.
Funnily enough all of those players were greeted as superstars when they moved to Ibrox or made their debuts after coming through the ranks.
No transfer fees will be coming in from the players listened, they’ll require sweeteners to move on.
Meanwhile the club is being held hostage by the expectation that Dembele Dollars will be raised for Nicky Raskin, Hamza Igamane and Mohammed Diomande.
James Tavernier, John Souttar and Kieran Dowell are out of contract at the end of the 25/26 season.
Just a quick calculation on the dross 33. Plus bhoys, management, training facilities, women’s team, directors expenses, Ibrokes stadium, travel etc. You are talking ball park £2 million per week,
£104 million per year. Even Celtic’s turnover isn’t near that. They are heading for Rang3rs. Can’t believe it’s not Sevco! Let’s pray Panathinaikos blooter them, that’ll be £40 million of the turnover gone, and heading for the rocks. May well be a convent on the site of the big hoose yet. From my mouth to God’s ears.
The SFA / SPFL have just let Dumbarton FC off Scot Free with a liquidation event…
So rest assured Kerryair that the square root of fuck all is happening to Sevco should liquidation befall them this time around !
As ever it seems the tribute act are desperate to flog their flops to try and make an annual profit for the first time in their history. Surely the new owners don’t want to carry on with a loss making business? Yet the media are keen to tell us they turned down £13m for Igamane, £7m for Diomande, £Xm for Dessers because they’re in “no rush” to sell.
You’re a dirty rotten wanker. You can tell!
The 49’ers didn’t inherit the Ibrox show. They bought into it!
They saw £22 million flash before their eyes and they went for it. But it could well turn out to be just a flash in the pan and they will have to keep on digging!
And superstars don’t walk into Scottish football. It is where they are made!
Apparently there’s 7 CB fighting for 2 places,BOOM!
They’re going to have pay up these players’ contracts. There’s no way that Martin can operate with such a bloated squad and it’s detrimental to squad morale to have so many serial losers and has-beens stinking up the dressing room.
It’s a good job that they’re the richest club in Scotland bankrolled by the mighty SF 49GERS with a mighty warchest of £20m.
Do you think the investors were hoodwinked into thinking they would get 10s of millions in player sales. Even the media were reporting this…
In case you missed it:
Alan Pattullo sooks Davie Murray’s champer in the Scotsman –
https://archive.is/HHqUX
Don’t know what you are on about. According to transfer expert Mark Fantasyboy Pirie, the Ibrox board have rejected bids of £7m for Diomande from his usual name pool Besiktas and Everton. He says Besiktas are planning on coming back with an increased bid so what is all the worry about. Turkish sides must be spending a fortune on air fares for all the scouting missions they must be making to Glasgow. Seems they all want Celtic and Rangers players. Pirie goes on to write a non story about Maeda. Again it is Pirie’s list of usual suspects who want him for a mere £21m ie Trabzonspor Everton Brentford West Ham Everto etc etc and he end is by saying Maeda is hinting he wants to stay at Celtic. Total guff from that paper and him in particular as non of his stories ever come to fruition
Who the actual fuck is Mark Fantisyboy Pirie daviebhoy54 !
You really would think think that the unlimited wealth of the 49r’s would mean these trivial amounts required to pay off contracts would not be an issue.
Just settle the contracts and off they fuck, then start bringing in the Modric’s on megabucks.
Its really quite some feat to manage to get a whole support so absolutely gullible.
Never wanted a Greek team to win 2 games as much in my life.
But when they signed them ..
Cifuentes was the best player in America
Matondo was faster than Usain Bolt
Propper was a proper leader and one of the best defenders in the Dutch league
Hopefully uefa are monitoring sevco , their as straight as a coiled spring
There is no wealth coming in from “the 49ers”.
there is a group of american businessmen, associated with the 49ers but they are not using their money, time will tell who it really is.
The 20m share issue, cant be used on players, it is non-football , and not earnings.
Their lack of a pre-season this weekend, before the biggest game in their history is telling me, austerity comes first, they have to cut their cloth, this is their 1994 moment.
Meanwhile Celtic “projects” and our fringe players beating two potential Champioons league opponents.
Who said Inamura wouldnt wear a Celtic jersey ? The bhoy is a fine technical player.
He will do for me.
Absolutely!
If sevco can’t shrink the overpaid squad,
then there have to be swingeing cuts off the pitch to balance the books.
It’s that simple.
[Just can’t see the Yanks pouring money into the bottomless pit at ibrox? ]
It’s break even first – then the football…
The cheating gang of EBT outlaws at Dodge City were caught by a posse of lawmen from HMRC and finally brought to justice. After a court fight at the O.K. trial. Accused with a list of shameful crimes, the Rustlers FC PLC were rightfully found guilty and given the death sentence at Tombstone. Sevco alias Billy the kidded took the deceased place at Dodge, which was run by Shi**ing Bull Greene and his bandits who were shortly ran out of town for asset stripping.
New settlers like Calamity King took over, fixin’ to fetch some desirable “silver”, he hired donkeys and saddle tramps in his quest but ended up in the Rockies with cow-chips. An uncivilised tribe of bluenose natives called Boo-hoo Bears continually aimed buckshot at their failing range bosses, whose fate ended like Jesse’s, they were all shot in the back by the namby pamby owners.
Prospectors Cisco Kid Cavenagh and his 49ers cohorts rode into the territory with a grubstake deal, in exchange to provide some elusive “pieces of silver” (often garnered by rival Pistol Pete’s Bhoys) and venture yonder into Europe, they’d agree to mine the gold for a profit with the help of “experts”. The cockeyed plan to change its fortunes by appointing Russell “tinhorn” Martin with the task of replacing a squad of tenderfoots with a downgraded team with the aim of extracting the “silver” is risky. Likewise electing Paddy “gunslinger” Stewart to offload all the contracted slackers on high wages and sell a bunch of losers for eight figure sums is nigh impossible. Anyways there ain’t enough room in the “Deadwood” Stagecoach to accommodate the number of “passengers” in the Ibrox side, what’s needed is a wagon train, yee-haw!