calscot

Fair enough but do you have a citation for that? But we're quibbling over one wage of the equivalent of Frank Lampard at a time when we could not only afford it, we could afford a squad of over 30 AND break records in transfer fees, all without going into horrendous debt, or overpricing the fans.

And the parallel is that the "customers" are being shafted in both scenarios. Supplies are also artificially limited in both examples. What you are saying may the truth but it doesn't mean either industry is morally justified or acceptable. Pure capitalism is a very unhealthy and destructive philosophy that eternally needs to be morally regulated even for it's own survival. In a true dog eat dog world, all you are left with is one very large dog which then dies of starvation.

A smiley does not always make a comment funny or light.

I agree with you - but idealistically I'd rather not sign guys who are the biggest arse-holes. I would hate to sign the likes of Di Canio, Hartson and Lennon. Diouf was a "good guy" compared to that lot.

PS Oil companies are just trying to get the best deal for themselves...

I don't think I'm late and if I am, I can't see how that matters. Maybe I was a bit late for my enthusiasm for recycling and composting, but I don't see why that should stop me now. But I don't think your comparison stands up. Players wages were far lower then and that was for some of the best players in the UK. We could also afford those wages, without huge increases in tickets to a level where fans feel priced out the game, and at a time of economic boom. Rangers' finances were healthy and in the black, so the wages were not causing us to limp along and worrying about damaging losses or administration. We are now crippling the club to pay much higher wages to mediocre players while losing targets to England's second division while many of our fans are being made unemployed or suffering from a reduced disposable income and personal wealth. I fail to see how you can compare the two scenarios in this way. It was not a great position before but you have to draw the line somewhere, and I think the line is now so far away, the Hubble telescope would have trouble resolving it. I personally recall Trevor becoming the UK's highest paid player on 10k a week. That also reflected his reputation as the UK's best player who would have befitted any top CL team. We're now talking about 20k for players who are targets for the likes of Cardiff City and Bursaspor. Even now, I'd bet the wage bill is around double that of the Souness era. If nothing else I'm sure it is still now higher but with about half the playing staff. Would you care to compare the standard of player? To me it's a bit like saying you're happy with the price of a tank of petrol compared to 20 years ago and would still be if the quality was dramatically reduced and the size of the tank halved. Tell you something, I'm not happy with it. Doesn't mean I can do much about it but people trying to justify it doesn't make me feel any better about it either.

I disagree that he's committed his future to US, he's committed it to his huge wage packet. With players wages so high and inextricably linked to the welfare of the clubs and taken from the financial commitment of people who are not fairing well in the economic downturn, I would welcome far more transparency for players' wages. I don't get the logic that the fact that something has happened before and that people have gotten away with it before automatically means that everyone should be let off scot-free from now on. I don't even see how it makes a difference to a moral viewpoint. If something is distasteful, the fact it has been done in secret or not noticed or highlighted, does not make it less distasteful. I also think things have escalated dramatically in the last 20 years and gotten so out of control it will eventually kill the game as we know it. You can't easily compare Whittaker on 20k a week with Trevor Steven on 10k a week as UK's highest paid player. In an economic downturn it's much more in your face. It has already ended the careers of thousands of footballers who are the casualties of cuts made elsewhere - look at the current size of our squad. It has also almost put our club to the wall. The game is sick due to the greed just as the banking world was sick but until there is a huge collapse for someone else to bail out, too many people think everything is rosy and fine with greed driving an industry. I think that's because you have your purely business head on rather than something like your philanthropic one.

I think the trouble is that Whittaker is pretty much of an age where he should be at the peak of his career. At the moment that's a bit disappointing...

I'm not really sure if this is fair on McCoist. He's in quite a weak position financially and I can imagine the negative publicity and attitude of many impatient fans if no news at all was coming out of Ibrox at all while each day fails to materialise a new signing. What he's doing is managing expectations while keeping us happy that we can see that there is something happening. You've got to balance things up - there is not always a massive advantage to keeping things on the quiet, and at the moment it is probably being weighed up against the background of the last three seasons of relative poverty of signings. I personally think he's doing the right thing - it's certainly keeping me from panicking.

There are other choices. We may accept it happens for the time being but we don't have to condone it and can still at least frown upon it. The more acceptable it becomes the worse it will get and that greed above everything attitude could spread to the general populous. The single minded and selfish pursuit of personal wealth at the expense of many others much less well off than yourself is truly an ignoble goal no matter how much it actually happens or how normal it becomes. The world becomes a far worse place when everyone happily accepts and indeed compliments behaviour that is solely motivated by pure self-interest without regard to others. "Greed is good" is a terrible mantra that is killing the world.

I don't think we should ever take this pilfering of fans wage packets as nothing wrong. There would be a difference in an environment where there is plenty of money and in a good economic situation. In a time when the club is struggling and when many of the people who actually provide the cash are taking pay freezes, cuts and increased pension contributions as well as having to absorb inflation, tax increases, high interest rates and the soaring cost of utilities and petrol, it leaves a very sour taste the mouth. There used to be the excuse of a short, risky career etc but the riches and gap between the wealth of players and fans are now so embarrassing that to hold the club and therefore the punters to ransom to fund their next Aston Martin or whatever is positively quite grotesque, vulgar and insulting. Even far more so, when they are not even seen to be providing (pseudo) "value for money" in their own surreal environment - as Whittaker's popularity with the fans last season attests. They may be able to earn more elsewhere, but avarice is still a sin or at least morally hollow in a great many cultures and philosophies. Thankfully, there are few individuals in normal life who work their ticket in this extreme way.

You put accountant last but I know you think its significance is first and foremost! The rest is just mere decoration around a precious stone...

I also thought it may be that he's a poacher turned gamekeeper in the game of signing of players. He should know all the agents' tricks, how to handle them and when to walk away. I really hope he's a wise old codger at this. If he can improve our publicity and youth system as well, then so much the better.

I'm ambivalent about selling MacGregor as although we have an able deputy and the money could be incredibly useful, our top goalie is of a level that could be the difference to us winning or losing the league. We have won three times in a row with very small margins so it would only take the removal of the odd extra special save to lose us a couple of points. He is a proven match winner and loss preventer. It's like the marquee signing we're supposedly not going to make - except he's just about affordable and wants to play for us. How many players in the UK who are in the top bracket can we say that about? You could say he's "effectively" costing us �£8M but when you think about it, to buy a player of similar standard to him from the Prem (even if they would want to come and their club want to sell) would IMHO be more like �£25M and at least 40k a week in wages, so he's a real bargain in reality.

Frankie, I think there is a good dose of realism at Ibrox these days and you are communicating that very well. We can't be happy Murray is gone and then be unhappy that we've learned from his mistakes. We SHOULD have �£5M to spend BUT we need about 6 players, fund their wages, plus new, more lucrative contracts for personnel we want to keep. Our spending power is pretty much peanut butter that has to be spread very thinly. We need to keep risks low until we've sorted out the tax case and hopefully qualified for the CL. I have a feeling we are using proper scenario planning these days. Even apart from those two challenges, we have to resist being drawn into the addiction to a heavy debt cycle that is prevailing in other countries, and which we ourselves have spent much time in rehab to kick the habit. Our priority is to compete with Celtic and concentrate on financial parameters of a more modest, sensible and sustainable monetary arena. Celtic seem to somehow have had better finances than us lately but after we cleared a lot of debt and seem to be stable, I doubt they want to risk debt funded overspending and eventually swap the places we held for the last few years - especially as there is only a very small likelihood they could recreate our remarkable success in the pauper's role. We can't and shouldn't try to compete with the likes of Championship teams who are throwing caution to the wind and risking oblivion in the process. That is one of the most debt ridden leagues in Europe and is stacking up like a house of cards. We just have to try to pick up the best of the rest at more sensible prices.

I would prefer to wait till after the court case; I would not like a convicted rapist on the books and on the park. Notwithstanding that it's personally repellent for me to have a sex offender in a Rangers shirt, can you imagine the stick we'd be giving to the other side of Glasgow to beat us with? And don't doubt they'd use it for decades. I actually find a lot of the excessive stuff about Torbett that our fans use to be cringe-worthy and undignified but still don't want some kind of evening of the score. Apart from that, is the guy really worth 2M in today's financial climate? I don't really think so but can understand why a club like Cardiff, who are desperate to bankrupt themselves on the off chance they can gain the riches of the Premiership would offer an over-the-top fee. I'd like us to stay above that kind of desperation that leads to financial meltdown - we've almost been there twice in the not too distant past, and should apply the painful learning outcomes that we should have experienced. It's going to be frustrating for the fans but far better for the long term health of the club.

What a weird thing to say. Are YOU a manager? Actually I would use my intelligence and use the money you seem to think we have for Cole to buy about five or six players of poorer ability but who are good enough to help us win the league. If I had to buy ONE player with the money, I look for someone else of equal value and ability but better professionalism, who would also not likely to be a disgrace to the great name of Rangers. BTW Struth seemed to be a pretty good manager while also being keenly discerning of the character of his players.

One of the biggest differences is that Goodwilly has not been convicted of rape yet. For all we know it's the latest in a string of women wrongly accusing famous men of rape.

I would say, on here most get shot down for their criticism being totally unfair and unreasonable. The criticism is thousands of times more judgemental than the critics are of themselves. I would bet none of the critics live up to their own standards they apply to Walter Smith and Ally McCoist in their careers, and should probably quit their jobs now in shame. The current criticism of McCoist is bordering on incomprehensible. To me it's a bit like criticising someone who keeps trying to buy several of a similar thing on ebay but then is outbid, sometimes at the last minute. If they are putting in reasonably high bids for the value of the item but some people are prepared to get into debt to give over the top bids, or are just a hell of a lot richer, then is that person incompetent? I don't think so - especially if they get decent alternatives in time for when they need them. The time to truly judge Ally, is the end of the season, or if he ever makes a complete hash of it like PLG.

I'd be loath to have an arse-hole like Cole in the team, no matter how good he is. Anyway, he wouldn't be able to play for us - think of the car crash he'd have when he heard our wage offer - I doubt he'd be able to play for anyone again.

What he's done is horrendous, but does ask the question - should people on the sex offenders list be banned from employment? If they shouldn't be allowed a profession, what job should they be allowed to do? It's a difficult question that many don't seem to have thought about...

Why would we want to risk our autonomy for the most boring and pointless International football competition around? Does anyone really care about having a team at the Olympics?

No need to apologise, I've no monopoly on that thinking. It is one of those sayings I find quite funny in football and can't resist this type of post. The irony was usually that a player's weight used to be worth about �£0.5M in gold which was often less than the transfer fee. With the price of gold meaning a value of �£2.5-3.0M, most of our players are now not worth that amount. Alan is a rare exception these days.

Perhaps we should be nurturing the anger about the greed in football. To be honest, I can't believe how acceptable it has become. All Whittaker is doing is insulting Rangers fans by telling them that the huge amounts they are prepared to pay out their pocket for him to live a very easy life as a millionaire, in return for playing the game he loves (and not even consistently well at that), is just not good enough for him. He deserves no sympathy whatsoever. All he's going to do is fleece some other fans somewhere else, who can't really afford it, and the cycle of greed and the debt to pay for it continues. We need to stop this culture of condoning that kind of behaviour - it's killing our club and killing the beautiful game.

Edu did have some shockers last season and became the whipping boy of the season - taking over from McCulloch, which poses a question. If McCulloch was criticised for his play in that position and Ferguson before him, could it be that players don't "look good" in that position. McCulloch received a lot of praise from professionals and was considered a big miss by the management when he was injured, so was he really as bad as fans say, or do some not really understand the position he plays? I do reckon a lot of people don't appreciate the finer points of defensive play and would probably prefer football as a sport if tackling was banned. So taking that into account, Edu had a bad season, but maybe not as bad as some opinions.