calscot

More disgusting and unacceptable greed. The guy costs them 7.8M, they give him a signing on fee and �£6M wages plus bonuses over 3 years; they manage to get a couple of million back for him to sign for a club he likes where he'll probably get a signing on fee and earn about another �£6M over four years - yet he also wants a payoff? What is it with these guys? The average Joe paying their wages will likely earn around �£1M over their whole lifetime yet even "nice guys" like Cuellar want to play hardball to squeeze them for more, despite their already massive incomes. All the clubs really need to get together and agree some kind of transfer code so that if one club refuses to pay some silly demand from an agent, another club doesn't come in and do it. Then if anyone breaks the code, the rest stop trading with them. They have lost all power to the players due to a lack of cooperation and they are misspending their fan's money as a result. Basically we need rules between clubs that will stop the wage spiral.

I think the reason for the deadline is to give us time to find someone else if he says no. We have a finite and limited budget and the CB position is a top priority. We can't wait on him then lose the chance of getting someone else if he eventually says no.

Sounds like evil agent work where they try it on for every last penny they can squeeze. It's why there is so much money disappearing from the game as most reasonable people would not do that kind of dealing themselves. It's like trying to haggle in a hard nose every time you go into a shop. It often works but most people wouldn't have the cheek or motivation to do it.

Totally agree with you and think it's strange they haven't played the other way around...

Money has always been number one for him; darkest Turkey in the pursuit of greed may have been too much for his family, but Cardiff will probably be fine for a millionaire family. Can't see us getting him but he does deserve a big, "told you so"... Just shows you there IS more to life than pursuing as much money as you can, even for a mercenary.

Could easily have been villa or the agent...

Webster doesn't seem to be Walter signing given the timing. I would say it was Weir - and he was a massive signing for us which started the complete turnaround of our team and results. He was also the signing that showed why PLG was completely clueless, it was exactly what we needed and he just couldn't see past his own ego.

What I want to know, is that apart from Celtic noising the whole issue up, certain journalists mischief making and the pretty bad event of couple of nutters posting a home-made bomb, what has really happened differently last season to cause all this furore? Has our society suddenly deteriorated into a religious hate-fest without some of us noticing? Is there some kind of neo-nazi turf war going on or something? What is it all these SFA officials, politicians and police are trying to achieve? I'm pretty lost about the whole motivation and what behaviour they are trying to stop. Rangers fans seem to be the ones picked on by the police, the press and SFA and yet they are not even told what they are doing wrong. And indeed much of the stuff they are accused of is racist and sectarian in itself. They are told they bigotted for singing the national anthem and Rule Britannia which is just an anti-British, racist accusation, the Sash and Derry's walls which is a sectarian accusation and many other innocent songs. The word Fenian is pretty much describing an IRA supporter in today's parlance but and somehow Rangers fans are bigoted for being against terrorist supporters and the Famine song is sarcastic mocking of our society's detractors who pretend to be downtrodden foreigners in their own country, so why is it ridiculously illegal? Why are the actual people who are inciting religious and racist hatred as well as glorifying terrorist acts the ones who are let off Scot free? At best, the whole country seems to have lost it's sense of humour, at worst it seems like a witch hunt from the dark ages.

I've got a rumbling afterthought... I wonder what the vast number of players now on the scrap-heap think about the huge wage demands of players who are doing well? I wonder whether they regret the wage spiral that caused the big reduction of playing squads and so took away their dream?

Craig, I pretty much see what you're saying and agree with the practicality of it - however, what I'm against is the "casualisation" of the situation, if that's a fitting word. To me it's a bit like bribes, in some countries they are necessary to do business at all, but that doesn't mean we have to see it as something that's ok. We perhaps will pay the bribe to get the business done, but I don't think we should be encouraging it or vastly upping the rates to beat our rivals. Because you put a pure business head on, it sometimes seems you think it's all good and proper, whereas I'm trying to point out that the ordinary fan is being shafted, and while we may have to give in to some of the inflated demands to have any sort of success, in no way should we have sympathy for the lowly paid professional footballer who is playing hard and fast with the fans' cash. My point is, we shouldn't be fighting the player's corner. I lose all feeling for them as soon as they start earning more than me - which seems to be at age 19. One problem I see with today's society, is that looking after number one and being motivated by greed seems to be seen as a virtue, something to aspire to, and that's not good for the future generations. We're already suffering from the repercussions of this attitude by the banks, and now the newspapers are the latest scandal in the news. Football is on a precarious precipice, and we IMHO shouldn't be using business sense to encourage people to take it over the edge. We SHOULD USE business sense, but see the greed for the evil that it is. It's the old saying about all it takes for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing. One point you seem to have missed out is that surely the Rangers board understand all what you have said and are taking that into account - unfortunately so does Wylde's agent. So while 40k might seem low compared to some peers, it's probably a starting point and he could end up with a lot more. It all depends on the results of sabre rattling and the stare downs. I could also use your points about Fleck and Ness as a counter argument. Maybe Fleck could have walked on a lower wage offer - but would we have noticed? Or would we have replaced him with another guy on a much lower wage. In fact when it came to the team, last season we did just that. The guy's name was Wylde... Who is to say we don't have another Wylde waiting to come through on an affordable wage? The thing is, if we didn't have Fleck's 1500 a week wage, how many Wylde's could we have had in the U19's for that money? Maybe that's the long term business model to follow... So in the end, I think it's up to the board to weigh everything up and make what they think is the right offer, and not for us to bleed for the player if that offer sounds "a bit low".

Sorry, I misinterpreted what you said. Personally I think that is a mile off - it might be true for a small number but they would be few and far between. Almost everyone I work with is a graduate, most with at least 10 years experience, and the average wage must be around 35k. Granted I work for a University but then I sometimes get emailed job details for experienced programmers for industry jobs and they usually come in at 30-40k. Even at the top of that, I'd struggle to match all my benefits here. I think 18-22k is far more likely for most graduates - if they can get a career job at all. I think you missed the analogy - I was talking about a university graduate with 20 years experience... In football terms that's maybe more like 7 years experience. In those terms it's pretty far fetched. Can I also quote again that the average wage in Glasgow is �£24k? I don't think I was being precious, I just counter the glib assumption that footballers should earn massively more than the fans that pay their wages. To me football has become like a pyramid scam, with the mugs who give all the money at the bottom and the few that cream it all off at the top. I think people try to apply industry standards and market pressure to this to make it all sound ok and normal but football is nothing like proper industry or economics. It's just people continually paying more and more to get exactly the same product due to a lack of wisdom and restraint on the part of football bodies and clubs. The problem is out of control and unless people see this, there is going to be an almighty crash - except I doubt the governments will bale it out. That may or may not happen, there are only so many team places and there is not always someone who will offer more. When you think about it, there is a finite limit of the number of players we can't afford and someone else can. The board have to weigh this up and find the right figure. However, this is not my beef - what I don't like is pressure from fans that players deserve more. Again that is up to the board to decide, they have to gauge the finances correctly, but that doesn't mean automatically writing huge salaries into contracts. They also need some balls. I don't pretend to know the amounts we should be giving players, but I can't see what the criticism is of trying to get a fair deal and keep the wages down. If there's one thing we should know by now, we only have so much money to spend on wages, and even with the largest turnover in Scotland, we're struggling to afford to pay a decent size squad of players. That's a financial fact. You can always pay players a bit more - in fact that's what seems to happen all the time, but there's a line that's been crossed that Rangers are trying to step back from. The problem is that there are too many other clubs who don't care about that line. The fact they are leaving the line way behind, doesn't mean that fans should just get used to it and encourage it's recession into the distance. It was a bit of sarcasm. You give the impression you are well off and have no problem increasing players' salaries willy nilly, I think that's a bit glib when there are plenty of people at Ibrox, who pay for the wages, who are not on comfortable salaries - and the vast majority are on less than the �£40k in question for 19 year old. My response may have been skewed as I had the impression you thought he was being offered a labourer's salary - sorry again. My whole point is that although we need to be realistic about wages, we need to stop the encouragement of increasing players' wages even when they are already far more than they deserve compared to people in other walks of life. The thing to remember is that they are not sharing out a benign windfall - the fact is there is just not enough sustainable money and the fans are being increasingly squeezed dry.

Just had a look, the average wage in Glasgow is �£26k. Seems like the best choice of career by a mile must be labourer with a teenage starting salary of �£40k.

I don't know which world you live in but 40k for a 19 year old labourer? No chance! Sticking in at school, spending 4 years at university and then gaining 20 years of professional experience rarely even gets you that in most careers - unless you're an accountant. In fact the average for 20+ years experience in the Uk is just under �£39k. Footballers are greedy enough as it is without fans saying they should be earning even more. Saying 40k is peanuts for a raw 19 year old is incredibly insulting to 90% of the fans who pay for his wages and that earn less. Perhaps all the rich fans who think they should earn more should pay something like 10% of their salary into a fund for these poor, underpaid wretches.

I think you're right, and while it may be hard in the short term, the club will benefit in the long term. What we really need in these times, is the best value squad we can amass for the money we earn. If that means missing out on player after player, then so be it. The early bird catches the worm but it's the second mouse that gets the cheese...

It means being kept in the dark while being fed manure - like how you grow mushrooms...

How can people breaking "secret laws" be constitutional in any sense?

Look at the team sheets for last season. Walter played plenty of youngsters.

Bursaspor have made their valuation of Miller's worth - it's �£400,000. I can't see how they can think he is worth more now. Ok, he's on a longer, larger contract, but to me that is made irrelevant when you are the wrong side of 30 - players' values start to drop after 30, as do their wages. They also got him during the best spell of his career when he was scoring massively, that no longer seems to be the case. He's now an older, worse player who is unhappy and I think they will do well to get their money back on him - and they are hardly in a great bargaining position considering the huge wages they are paying him, which will be a massive drain on their resources if he's not firing on all cylinders. They may have money, but I don't imagine they can afford to burn it. I would be seriously disappointed in the new board if they offered even a penny over 400k for him.

I can't see how his words will make a difference after the board's actions have shown the club are no longer mugs. If the price is totally wrong we'll walk away. However, I think he's in a difficult position with not much movement forward and due to that he's communicating with us to reassure us he acknowledges the problem. I really can't see anything wrong with that and welcome it. It's the complete opposite of PLG who infuriatingly never seemed to act like there was a problem in the slightest. I don't see that just because we've been mushroomed so much in the past that we should be so wary of a refreshing change.

I thought results were unimportant to many and instead it's how prettily we play the game and how many youngsters we play... Where is the discussion on these metrics? :fish:

The main problem for me is that I see the Olympics for football as no more important or interesting as an U21 invitation tournament - and certainly less important than the likes of full international, friendly competition like the Kirin cup. It's a complete non-event in football terms. I'd even put the current home nations cup above it. I think the attitude may differ in Australia, not for footballing reasons, but because they win so many medals in total at the Olympics that they want to seriously compete in everything in an attempt to keep their high standing. The additional problem I have with Moore, is that he was one of the over-age players which makes playing far less of a distinction. Few top players consider entering as an over-age addition - and rightly so. To me that seems a bit like a pro helping out his local pub team in a cup final... If it was proper international football then I'd understand.

I don't like the comparison: the corollary is that you could infer that Celtic are the Barcelona of Scotland, and to that I completely disagree.

I don't think it's about finding the money, it's getting proper value and so we're testing Utd with the waiting game. He's not exactly been snapped up elsewhere for the Tangerine's asking price.

Was going to say it looks like Glasgow Airport...

So is he pronounced Ortith or Ortiss?