Radical Fiscal Changes required at Ibrox: Who's got the Stomach for it?

[Zappa 0]

It became evident in Charles Green's now infamous train wreck interview with STV reporter Peter Adam Smith that Green & co had actually already started making some job cuts. They started doing so well before recent events unfolded which led to Green tendering his resignation, but they've been trying to cover it up by not being truthful about the departures.

 

The full extent of the various club staff departures which have been job cuts/redundancies disguised as something else has yet to be revealed, but we know it had definitely started as Green was cleverly cornered and manipulated into admitting it with regards to the departures of Pip Yeates and Neil Murray in the aforementioned STV interview.

 

That raises serious questions about some of the other recent staff departures and whether or not we were actually told the truth about them. It also puts some serious weight and credibility behind the rumour which emerged about Green & co wanting to axe Ally's management team. It's not as if we ever doubted there must be an element of truth behind that particular rumour though, is it?

 

The truth of the matter if we're brutally honest with ourselves, hard to stomach as it may be for many fans, is that job cuts and radical cost cutting is long overdue at the club. Unfortunately the concealed, cloak & dagger efforts of Green & co in recent months is too little to make a significant difference to the monthly bills.

 

Having made the fundamental error of stating early doors after their takeover last summer that there wouldn't be job cuts at the club because they wanted to keep the current staff for returning to the top flight, Green & his partners won't have wanted to cut too many jobs at the club or they wouldn't have been able to try to conceal it from the fans.

 

They've pretty much failed on all counts on that front because not only do we know that job cuts and cost cutting is required in order to guarantee that our club survives 140 weeks never mind another 140 years, but we know that Green & co started doing it after saying they wouldn't, then lied about it, making up fairy tales about Neil Murray's suspension, Pip Yeates leaving to focus on his own business and who knows what else?

 

Charles Green has now resigned for a catalogue of reasons and I think we really need to ask ourselves and the club if his partners Imran Ahmad & Brian Stockbridge are worth the extremely high salaries plus bonuses and expenses they're currently taking home. These guys are supposed to be running our club well, with prudence and at least a semblance of a plan for the future and yet what we see is little more than disorganised chaos. It's a shambles.

 

You really do have to wonder what they've been up to behind the scenes while Charles Green's been strutting around doing interviews, Q&As and generally just distracting everyone's attention from the important issues facing the football club. The simple fact that Ahmad, Stockbridge & their backers were actually allowing Green to continually talk nonsense on the club's behalf and on the club's expense account makes me distinctly sceptical about their suitability for their own self-appointed jobs at the club.

 

The current period of loss-making caused by lowered ticket prices and reduced revenue streams can only be fixed by cutting costs and to do that would primarily mean taking a machete to the wage bill via making redundancies. Personally, I think this is something which should have been done long before now, but it appears as though nobody has had the stomach to do it properly. Ahmad & Stockbridge aren't likely to be making their own jobs redundant in a hurry, which is a shame, since a significant amount could be cut off the wage bill. The job cuts should have started long before now though. Long before now.

 

Despite what the playing staff or anyone else at the club wanted in an ideal world, the fact of the matter is that when Whyte plunged Rangers into administration, the administrators, Duff & Phelps should have made a string of major job cuts in order to significantly reduce the monthly bills. Indeed, there were a fair number of Bears who thought that should have been one of their main initial priorities when they were appointed administrators and eventually discovered the extent of the loss-making. For some strange reason though, they chose not to do it.

 

Instead of swiftly and decisively cutting costs the way they should have been cut, Duff & Phelps messed around for weeks while running up their own administration costs bill, then eventually chose a temporary fix (the players and management taking temporary wage cuts) which was barely even enough to see out the season last year, such was the severity of the situation.

 

Take that into account whilst also considering that had Duff & Phelps immediately reduced the monthly bills properly as they should have, the old corporate vehicle would most likely have stood a better chance of being sold to a suitable buyer and saved via a CVA. That's an outcome which wasn't impossible had the administrators done their jobs properly. They said a CVA was possible themselves many times, but they didn't do what was required to achieve it, which stank to high heaven at the time and still stinks to this day.

 

The club's new owners and majority shareholders who've gotten involved over the past 12 months or so are going to have to be honest with the club staff and the fans and start making some pretty severe job cuts at the club to bring down the monthly bills to a sustainable, break-even level. There's no point in saying, oh but we need to keep all of these staff for our return to the top flight if there isn't a club left to play in the top flight.

 

Obviously job cuts aren't the only way to slash the club's monthly bills, but certain aspects of the staffing at the club do need to be addressed ASAP because if the club is to survive this testing period, then it simply cannot afford to still be paying some of the remaining staff from before the insolvency event and subsequent crash landing in Scottish football's Third Division the same salaries as it was when we were winning the SPL and playing in Champions League group stages.

 

We can pay top flight salaries when we can afford it again after returning to the top flight, but in the meantime, the club needs to cut it's cloth and everyone from the owners, to the staff, to the fans, everyone to a man and woman needs to take this on board and get our heads around the idea of radical changes for the sake of the club and it's future. Have you got the stomach for it?

 

http://www.gersnet.co.uk/index.php/latest-news/134-radical-fiscal-changes-required-who-s-got-the-stomach-for-it

Edited April 24, 2013 by Zappa
fixing editorial mistake

[simplythebest 0]

We should look at the playing squad before anything else, we simply don't need to be paying so much to win part time divisions.

[barca72 440]

I guess that would prevent the return of Bocanegra and Goian. Maybe Alexander, too.

[tangent60 0]

My opinion is that Green was indeed trying to cut costs. In my view, that was the correct thing to do.

 

And while I am on-side with McCoist remaining in place, I am certainly not on-side with calls for "war chests" and £10m spending sprees. And I don't want to see a Rangers first team full of players near the ends of their careers. That isn't sustainable.

 

The only sustainable footballing model is to aquire the best young, talented players available (scouting), train them up (physically and technically -- via daily coaching and strength and conditioning work), have them succeed, and then have them move on, with thanks, to an English club for a healthy sum.

Edited April 24, 2013 by tangent60

[forlanssister 3,050]

We were woefully undercapitalised from the day Green & Co bought the assets it was more by good luck than good business practice that avoided going tits up almost immediately as demonstrated by the bizarre £50k 24 hour loan from Stockbridge.

 

It will be interesting to see the total taken out of the club by Green, Ahmad and Stockbridge alone via the various different payments they've basically awarded themselves.

 

Do not be surprised to see Green claim an outrageous sum for his loss of office even though he resigned of his own free will.

[Zappa 0]

My opinion is that Green was indeed trying to cut costs. In my view, that was the correct thing to do.

 

Absolutely, but he wasn't going about it in the correct way because he made the fatal mistake of saying he wouldn't axe jobs and then by the looks of it, proceeded to slowly axe one here and axe one there under the radar.

 

And while I am on-side with McCoist remaining in place, I am certainly not on-side with calls for "war chests" and £10m spending sprees. And I don't want to see a Rangers first team full of players near the ends of their careers. That isn't sustainable.

 

The only sustainable footballing model is to aquire the best young, talented players available (scouting), train them up (physically and technically -- via daily coaching and strength and conditioning work), have them succeed, and then have them move on, with thanks, to an English club for a healthy sum.

 

Can't argue with that.

 

Even if you count Goian & Boca, we've actually only got a handful players left who are on mega bucks, so I think the playing squad only accounts for a certain part of the wage bill which needs cut back.

 

Following on from that we've got the manager, his assistants and their team of staff, who as far as we know are still earning top flight salaries while we play in the lower leagues and that's just madness.

 

Then there's the new guys who came in with Green last year. As forlan points out, the combined salaries + bonuses + expenses for Green, Ahmad & Stockbridge for just this one season alone, are going to add up to an astronomical sum of cash for a club in our position and it's wrong. You're not talking about hundreds of thousands, you're talking about millions that these three are walking out with for a single season at Ibrox. I wouldn't have as big a problem with them walking in and awarding themselves top flight salaries and bonuses if we were still in the SPL, but we aren't, so what on earth are they doing?

 

I don't know what the right approach is going to be, but the way the club's being run needs to change quickly or I think it could be in big trouble again.

 

I'm not saying sack half the club staff, but there's probably going to have to be significant costs cut and that needs to be achieved somehow, whether it be via individual wage reductions across the board, some brutal job cuts in the high earner bracket or even both.

 

One thing's for sure, Rangers can't be put into administration again because of bad management and people lacking the balls and/or ability to do what's required to safeguard the club's future.

[simplythebest 0]

Ally and his assistants are on top flight wages as well.

[RANGERRAB 3,299]

Ally and his assistants are on top flight wages as well.

 

We've a £7m wage bill as I understand. Be interesting to see a breakdown of that wage bill. How much is playing staff ? Paying a manager £750k in SFL3 is ridiculous is true.

[chilledbear 16]

I've thought since D & P came in that there should be redundancies.

 

I think most supporters would have realised this if we had been told the truth and what the plans were for the future.

 

Where is the person is to drive this forward ? I'm not sure he is at Ibrox, someone completely new needs to be in place.

[ian1964 10,447]

CHARLES Green is poised to walk away from Rangers with almost £3million after agreeing to sell his shares.

 

The scandal-hit businessman – who quit as chief executive after links to shamed ex-owner Craig Whyte were uncovered – has agreed to sell to bus tycoon James Easdale.

 

The deal will make Easdale and his convicted fraudster brother Sandy the biggest shareholders at Ibrox.

 

The pair will control 14 per cent of the club. James, 42, and Sandy, 45, have already snapped up six per cent of the shares in Rangers – now to be topped up by Green’s eight per cent.

 

Green bought five million shares in Rangers at 1p each last October. At today’s value of 57.5p, his 5,071,629 shares in the club would be worth £2,916,186 – giving him a startling £2.86million return on his 10 months at Ibrox.

 

He can’t sell his shares now as he is locked in by Stock Market rules until December.

 

The Easdales own McGill’s Buses, a Greenock company who have become the largest independent operator in Scotland.

 

James is the chairman of the firm, who operate more than 350 buses and 55 routes and employ 700 staff.

 

On Saturday, the Record revealed Rangers director Imran Ahmad, an associate of Green, had been closely courting Sandy.

 

In November, Green reacted angrily when we revealed how the businessman had been shown round Ibrox and given VIP treatment at the club.

 

Sandy, who lives in a luxury home overlooking the Firth of Clyde, was jailed for 27 months in 1997 after Customs investigators uncovered a VAT scam linked to computer parts. He served 18 months of his sentence.

 

Sandy has built a business empire and ploughed cash into McGill’s. Scotland’s Traffic Commissioner has deemed him a fit and proper person to run a bus firm.

 

But some members of the Rangers board are believed to have reservations about whether he should have such a powerbase in a club brought to its knees by Whyte.

 

Club sources say non-executive director Ian Hart, who has until now been a staunch supporter of Green, has concerns about doing further business with the Easdales.

 

Hart is said be ready to switch his support to the boardroom faction which is spearheaded by former manager Walter Smith and chairman Malcolm Murray.

 

There is also a growing concern about the club’s position with the SFA, who have reacted angrily to revelations linking Green with disgraced former owner Whyte.

 

In that context, Sandy’s conviction is likely to be of interest to the SFA, Rangers insiders say. A source close to the club’s board said: “This is all very delicate and the last thing we need is an even bigger problem with the authorities. It makes you wonder what Green’s game is.

 

“The main priority is to appoint an independent chair to the commission investigating Green’s links to Whyte.”

 

There is also boardroom concern that more bad publicity about the club could further damage Rangers’ share price.

 

As well as McGill’s, Sandy Easdale also listed himself at Companies House in 2010 as a director of Arranglen, a holding company for Inverclyde Taxis, who have the £2million-a-year cab contract for Glasgow Airport. Records show he resigned from Arranglen in June last year.

 

Green has informed Rangers’ board he intends selling to James Easdale, who has agreed to buy.

 

He resigned last week after a probe was launched into reports that he colluded with Whyte to buy the Ibrox club’s assets.

 

Whyte claimed Green was his frontman to buy the assets of the club Whyte took into administration last year. Green denied those accusations, claiming he was going to “shaft” Whyte.

 

The Rangers board are probing links between Whyte and Green.

 

This latest twist indicates an all- out power struggle in the boardroom and among the club’s shareholders.

 

The Easdales are expected to team up with Zeus Capital investors, who are backing the Green-Ahmad-Stockbridge alliance.

 

But the city institutional investors are understood to be standing firm behind chairman Murray and Smith.

 

Nottinghamshire businessman Craig Mather is expected to be confirmed as the new chief executive, perhaps only on an interim basis, once Green’s departure from the role has been formalised.

 

Speaking about his past, Sandy Easdale said in 2010: “The conviction was almost 14 years ago.

 

“I run two very successful businesses and have nothing to be ashamed of.”