To close the gap on Celtic, Graeme Souness suspects his former club Rangers need to spend a figure in the region of £50million. Three or four quality signings, he believes, would make all the difference.
There’s a problem with that, of course. Speaking on the William Hill podcast Three Up Front, the former Ibrox boss acknowledged the brass tacks of the situation when he said: ‘Rangers don’t have the money right now. If they were to spend £50m, it’d be nip and tuck between the two of them.’
Since a chastening 3-0 defeat at Parkhead, the subject of external investment has focused the minds of supporters. A financial deficit off the park is now mirrored by the deficit on it.
And with their bitter rivals set to hoover up another £40m from participation in the Champions League, many now see a Middle Eastern sovereign or a Texan billionaire as their best hope.
Before the loss to Celtic on September 1, a report in City A.M. claimed Rangers had been targeted by an American consortium for a £150m takeover, suggesting that a number of existing shareholders at the club might be willing to sell.
Philippe Clement doesn’t have the same resources available to him as rivals Celtic
Largest shareholder Dave King, the former chairman, wasn’t one of them. He dismissed the report outright.
Even if a benevolent sugar daddy with deep pockets came along waving a cheque book, UEFA’s financial sustainability rules — introduced two years ago — would make it devilishly difficult to catch Celtic.
More stringent than the rules which saw Everton hammered for Financial Fair Play transgressions, UEFA make compliance a condition of playing in European football.
Designed to ensure that clubs are stable, solvent and keep their costs under control, they were drawn up by Europe’s governing body after consultations with the European Club Association (ECA), European Leagues, FIFPro, supporters, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of Europe.
And, as football finance expert Kieran Maguire tells Mail Sport, the regulations effectively mean that Rangers ‘can’t do a Manchester City or a Paris Saint-Germain or a Chelsea when they were acquired by hyper-wealth individuals or sovereign wealth funds’.
Celtic’s new recruit Luke McCowan takes on recent Rangers signing Connor Barron
Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers was able to spend big in the most recent transfer window
Subjecting clubs to squad-cost controls for the first time, spending on player and coach wages, transfers and agents fees is restricted this season to 80 per cent of a club’s revenue.
Maguire, co-host of the Price of Football podcast, reveals: ‘What UEFA have said is that, for every £100 that Rangers or Celtic generate from ticket sales, TV money and commercial deals — plus the average of their player sales from the last three years — they can then spend in this calendar year £80 of that on player costs.
‘Player costs are wages, agents fees, and transfer fees amortised. If Rangers sign a player for £10m on a four-year contract, they have £2.5m costs going into the accounts every year on that player.’
Next season, the amount a club can spend on player costs will drop to 70 per cent of their income over a single calendar year.
While it’s impossible to predict what the final financial figures of any club might be in future, Champions League football and a profitable player-trading model from the sales of players like Jota and Matt O’Riley guarantee Celtic substantially more wiggle room under UEFA’s football sustainability restrictions than that available to their city neighbours.
Put simply, 70 per cent of what Celtic earn will be a significantly higher figure than 70 per cent of what Rangers bring in. And there is no magic wand the Ibrox club can wave to turn the situation around quickly.
‘When Rangers won the Premiership (in 2021) and qualified for the Champions League, with television money on the back of that, they narrowed the gap,’ adds Maguire.
‘But they had to keep moving forward and they didn’t. Celtic have now returned to being dominant on the pitch — and off the pitch they don’t seem to have the internal conflicts which appear to afflict Rangers.
‘I speak to John Bennett (Rangers chairman) and get on well with him. I have spoken to Stewart Robertson, the former chief executive, as well. They came on our podcast.
‘I’m a Brighton fan and I keep an eye on Rangers because Connor Goldson was ex-Brighton and Jamie Murphy left us for Rangers as well.
‘But I have no partisan position in this and it’s clear that Celtic have moved ahead. How Rangers catch up is now the question.
‘I think it needs Celtic to do a lot of things wrong and Rangers to do an awful lot right at the same time before the gap can be eliminated.’
As Manchester City and Leicester have shown, rules can always be challenged. While a call to a top sports lawyer like Nick De Marco might kick FFP charges down the road in the English Premier League, UEFA ordain that any club planning to enter its competitions must play the game.
Penalties for infractions might range from heavy fines to being booted out of their competitions altogether. Given how lucrative European football is in comparison to the SPFL, the latter simply isn’t an option.
‘If you take a look at the value of the domestic Scottish TV deal, then winning it brings in roughly £4m,’ says Maguire.
‘Yet Celtic would get £2.5m for winning one game out of eight in the new Champions League format.
‘Simply for being there they will get £30m, and that’s not the case in the Europa League where Rangers will play.
‘That’s why it’s very challenging for Rangers now. I read John Bennett’s comments in the summer and they were pretty sombre.
‘If I was a Rangers fan, I would have to take that on board. John hasn’t caused the problem, he is simply calling it out as it is and, as football fans, we sometimes don’t want to hear the cold, hard facts.
‘But Rangers have a lot of hard work to do in a country where finishing second is finishing nowhere so far as the fans are concerned.’
