According to published accounts the operating expenses of Ibrox etc (not including salaries) are £14 million. It MAY be possible to slim this down to £10 milion.
Wages used to be around £25 million. If we cut them down to the bare bones of £5 million then we have a rough total cost of £15 million. Rangers may get about £3 million historical commercial revenue leaving a balance of £12 million to find. With little other revenue streams this money must be raised through tickets sales.
20 games at £600,000 per game = 30,000 fans at £20 per head.
The future of the newco solely depends on the fans, if the average attendance is 20,000 then it will run out of money 2/3rds way through the season. This is assuming the newco can reduce its fixed running costs and reduce its wage bill by 80%. It also assumes fans will pay £20 to watch glorified Junior football for the best part of 3 years.
This scale of downsizing is unheard of in modern business and I personally do not believe it is feasible.
Only an eternal optimist believes the average attendance will be 30,000. A more realistic figure is 15-20,000 and that will NOT be enough.
I estimate Rangers will be right back to losing £10 million per year for 3 years as estimated by Bill Miller.
Take a look at Leeds Utd in the Championship, average gate at 24,000 with high ticket prices, huge prize money and Sky-commercial benefits, they had an effective operating loss of £2 million.
There is a small possibility that 36,000 fans would renew their season tickets at the full price this year, if the fans knew it was NOT going to cost them a fortune in a future share issue.
The problem with CGs gameplan is he is asking fans to save Rangers, so he can charge them an arm and a leg to buy it off him in 4 years.
He has openly stated he is in it to make money for his investors, he has no more investors’ money, only fans’ money.
It’s a catch 22 situation for all Rangers fans.
In my opinion Charles Green will sell before the season begins once he sees the season ticket sales.
Posted by Niall
Random Thoughts Re Scots Law by Paul McConville 
£5m seems a bit high for a “bare bones” salary figure. That’s only a fraction under £100K a week, and they have almost no players left likely to be on four figures, let alone five. There are non-playing staff too, of course, but it still seems a bit of a stretch to get to £100,000 a week.
dont for get sallys pie bill????
mick, this is one of the few places on the internet I can look at without seeing stupid, inane, rude or offensive comments. It is out of order to be commenting on a) the pies ate (not very many I would say) and b) calling him an inoffensive name which is intended to be offensive. Feel free to make comment on the issues and posts but leave the personal abuse out of it. Yours, sick of stupid paddies, Liam O’Dublin – and before anyone calls me a bigot I’m of flipping Irish catholic descent and it’s ironic!! Doh!
A £5 million wage bill for a club in SFL3? It would be mad to operate at those levels. Ross County won SFL1 with a wage bill about 1/10th of that.
I understand Neil Alexander is on £400k per annum…
Yes Paul
Slightly less than three times the First Minister’s salary and has been picking up £8 grand a week since the start of June when full pay resumed. Well we know that wont last.
Just as matter of interest I would like to see a breakdown of the £14million running costs.
The break even figure for Coke Park Dublin (capacity c.82,000) is generally agreed to be around 30,000. So at £20 per head £600,000 just to open the doors.
Oh dear – Croke Park of course – damned SC.
And just to add a little more clarity for those unfamiliar with Gaelic games. The GAA being an amateur sport, players do not receive wages. The expense I mentioned is entirely stadium related.
Morning Paul,
Neal Alexander is a favourite topic of mine, he just finished a £1.8 million 3 year deal and played 1800 minutes in this period, that is £1,000 per minute in my book. Commercial insanity to pay a reserve GK 3 times the rate of Hearts first team GK to win the SPL.
Paul, I also read that Neil Alexander is on £8k per week. But the article didn’t make it clear if that is the total. If it is just his basic pay, then appearance money, win bonuses, etc. could boost that amount by at least £1k per match. Possibly a lot more than that.
Good morning Spungo,
Rangers has approx 200 non-fooballing staff, if we half this and pay them £400 per week = £40,000, bearing in mind the are still trying to run a business with 20,000 customers. This leaves £60,000 to be divided by 22 squad players plus 3 backroom staff = an average of £2400 per week.
It is not going to be easy to attract good players and coaches for 120k per year.
Ross County in SFL1 last season paid a basic wage of £400 per week to all first team players with a little bit more to the captain. Bonuses on top. This coming season the basic wage is not going to be much higher than that.
It is nonsense to suggest that Rangers are going to need to spend £2400 per week on player’s contracts. There is undoubtedly a problem over legacy contracts, such as with Alexander, but other than that, Rangers just need to pay a bit more than the going rate for SFL2 and SFL3, all of whom are part-time BTW, and give no more than 2 year deals. Once they are in SFL1, they can get a new batch of players of an appropriate standard and wage, and then the same again if back in the SPL.
WHAT? Are you honestly trying to say that over two grand a week is NOT ENOUGH for Division Three? The guys they will be playing against are lucky if they’re on fifty quid a week!
great post niall the 30mil black hole that we all forgot about finally gets back on the agenda ,the same black hole that miller used as the sole reason not to buy rfc “in admin”does green know about this our did they just show him the glossy mag they made ??d&ps should have cut costs at beginnig now green will have to do it for them
At least £50m on a bad day ! How much on a very, very, very bad day ?
I wonder how long it will take for Rangers’ fans to turn on their own promising but inexperienced young players if they find themselves struggling against the seasoned pros that they will face in Division 3? How many of these fans will continue to turn up after the novelty of resurrection has worn off?
how much when the sfa say no licence due to lack of clarity on the fit and proper person test ,greensaid today new back got 10%for 1mil so its a ten mil pot so far ????if a house builder comes in with 20 mil they have doubled there money ,thats show business ???
thats stuart regan had to close his twitter due to abuse hes saved them and is taken action on it even thou hes a goal post shifter he still deserves not to be abused its sad ,people should leave things to roll out with out threats a hope he forwards it to the police
just because hes made bad decisions doesnt give people the right to threaten him it seems to be lots of sevco fans
Apparently Green has been moving around in safe houses due to threats aimed at him also and these threats are from the fans he claims are warming to him… Jeez what’s it gonna be like it they really get to LIKE this guy..!!
jim all this bullying is well bang out of order he should sell to tesco and thats the end of it
if he does that, he’ll need to line up extensive plastic surgery first. If the lunatic fringe can issue threats over a transfer embargo, it will be full on fatwa. Charles Green – last seen pole dancing in Vegas.
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-816272
the fbi are in the game now lol
“Di Stefano has stated that it is still not too late to mitigate the damages caused to the 1872 club that founded Scottish Football.” WHIT???
Good morning Kenny,
The afore mentioned person is as crazy as a bag of snakes.
This loony, who has NO qualifications in Scots law whatsoever, and it is dubious if he indeed a qualified solicitor in any jurisdiction, is basing his whole argument (as set out on a previous piece published on his own and other web-sites) on the theory that in 1899 when Rangers (then an unincorporated voluntary association) converted to a limited company, that no ‘consideration’ was paid by the limited company to the unincorporated voluntary association. By consideration, he means money effectively, even if a single £1. He then concludes that the 1899 limited company did not really own Rangers, so the club continues to exist despite the administration/forthcoming liquidation of the 1899 company.
The fact he overlooks is that for a contract to be valid in English law, consideration must be present, but that is most definitely not the law in Scotland. The lack of any consideration is completely irrelevant. As is anything this nutjob says on the topic.
All that the whole Rangers imbroglio needs is for Stefano to front a new bid for Rangers.
Good post. Getting increasingly hard to see how Rangers can get through next season – which of course raises the question of whether they’ll be able to start it.
I have said for a while IF they get a start I cannot see them survive past Xmas and realistically even excluding any financial issues, the 2 cases outstanding should see them out of the game for a year at least.
Maybe if D&P would have done as Mick said earlier (ie, their job) and punted the players they could, murray park, they might have been able to keep the admin staff on and their younger boys/coaching staff, whilst being outta football for a season. Not the most attractive option for a buyer wanting to make money but it may have been more attractive for a longer term investor with Rangers in their blood. Give them a season to regroup and plan for, as well as keeping the admin people on, avoiding redundancies.
Take their medicine and restart with a clean slate.
It just took a leader from hampden to put the ducks in the correct row order, whereas now Rangers have been VOTED down the league with sanctions and still have the 2 cases outstanding…
I cannot help but think that the dual contracts thing which of course has a wider reach than just cheating on a Scottish basis, has the potential to stir FIFA into action if they see no suitable punishment meted out. Many European clubs could argue they were cheated by this issue, a whole new can of worms….Maybe affecting more than just the ibrox team…
jim theres that many cans of worms we will be the biggest exports of silk this year
Could never make Di Stefano out, he seems to have gotten his teeth into the rangers fun for sure… Thin line between genius and madness they say..!!!
please do not comment on this video or he will sue the site
Well judging by his exiting knowledge of Scots law, if he sues the site, he will end up give Paul many millions in cionsideration.
listen to the bit about cornbeef lol
hes a small share holder was this after dundee ?????
I’ve been saying this for a wee while now and what amazes me is that all this horsetrading and denial around the inevitable goes on? My prediction has long been a voluntary or forced spell in the wilderness that will kill them stoned dead. Its pointless asking the question how our game will survive without them? whilst they make their glorious comeback, cleansed of all sin, when the reality of total extinction has always been and remains the most likely conclusion to this. Be careful where you aim? Didn’t have to move a muscle;)
breaking twitter news msm uefa and fifa said they had no pre planned meeting with charles green today ,liar liar pants on fire
You would have to be stark raving mad to have anything to do with this Sevco / rangers disaster never mind claim ownership . . .unless of course you have absolutely no moral scruples at all and that your only motivation is pure unadulterated greed. This being the case Chico Green would be well advised to sell, sell, sell while there is still something to sell before another round of the proverbial hits the fan. Murray Park alone would bring him in a quick return – and he wouldn’t have to go through the sham of renaming it. Wonder why that hasn’t been done yet? He could also sell Pandora’s iBrox which is bound to be worth quite a bit more than what Duff and Duffer valued it at. That is of course that he owns these two buildings in the first place which is very doubtful indeed. Either way it looks like the Sevco / rangers will not make it past Christmas if indeed they get to kick a ball at all before the start of the new season given the list of charges outstanding against them. Could we be witnessing the second Third Lanark F.C downfall in 45 years. . . methinks yes. They hitched their wagon to five stars and silently they are falling, one-by-one, falling back to earth and their light has all but gone.
It isn’t renamed because he thought he was clever and said that onlt ST Holders could suggest a name and vote on it – So far they’ve only got one vote – for somebody called Green I heard 🙂
This is very persuasive arithmetic, given that it’s founded on a best case scenario. There is one possible factor missing. It would not transform the projections but it would make a difference. And it is thus. You may recall an era when the draw for the semi-final s of the Scottish Cup was made without the tedium of independent observation. In miraculous defiance of probability these private events rarely resulted in Rangers and Celtic meeting before the final. A pleasant and regularly surprising outcome for many.
Now what if the run of the shoe should suddenly change during, say, exactly the next three years? Whereby at the whim of lady luck Rangers and Celtic are seemingly magnetically drawn against each other in every cup competition for which they express the remotest interest. Be it the Ramsden Cup, the Scottish Cup, the Glasgow Cup, Bellahouston Cup, Lanarkshire Cup, Renfrew Cup, Sauchiehall Street Lane Cup, Sevens, Fives, Threes and other exciting knock-out-events. It may even come to pass that the Scottish football’s fine and noble and many and various authorities arrive at the simultaneous realisation that the answer to the malaise affecting the game is not more league football at all but, of course, more randomised cup football.
We would naturally expect the path of fortune to perpetuate the inexplicable forces conspiring unbidden to pit green against blue on possibly a monthly basis. If we consider the possibility of a few unavoidable replays for the sake of nostalgia, suddenly there is light at the end of the tunnel after all.
Apart from giving Celtics’ fans opportunities to gloat over the thrashings they would anticipate, what would be the attraction? Men versus boys is only too literal a description of the disparities between the two clubs’ current playing squads.
Does the bull often win? Car crash, bear baiting, Christians v Lions etc. Massacres have historically drawn a good crowd. I see what you’re saying though. It hadn’t occurred to me that it might involve sporting prowess. I thought it was all about the potatoe famine, immigration, private armies, loyalty and other topical events.
Not forgetting the Battle of the Boyne and the Plantation of Ulster.
Excellent Article,
Even with a hefty tolerance applied to the credits and debits mentioned in the article above Sevco’s time in this world, as things presently stand, is short.
Perversely, I feel this only adds to Green’s bargaining power as potential new owners will not want to see what’s left of Rangers forced into administration once again.
What i am utterly flabbergasted about is how the MSM could not have come up with a similar article over the last month or so. The best bit is they simply cannot see that their strategy of not pointing out the cold, hard truths to Rangers fans, and the public in general, has been a major contributing factor in the demise of RFC.
On the other side of that point, anyone could also point out that you really, really shouldn’t believe what you read in the papers.
Off the radar wealth! Succulent Lamb and fivers and tenners spent!
great point maertyn ,the msm are as much to blame as murry and whyte ,jabba broke the billioniare story and and was murrys poddle throw out the we,ll spend a tenner for ever fiver years ,the msm in scotland had the sevco fans living the life of the jim carry trueman show
jim carry my top man of hollywood
Great article Niall and very consistent with your previous posts. I still have to disagree that a “Rangers” with a severely reduced wage bill could not survive in the SFL. The major question would be, would the quality of player on a reduced wage bill be enough to get them back into the SPL?
The costs of running Ibrox are the main drain on revenue, however any astute businessman could reduce costs to a manageable level should the Rangers Loyal fail to come good on their promises of 50,000 crowds every other week. If Rangers did achieve packed houses every other week then they would certainly survive and be back in the SPL in three years.
Will Green still pay Ally his reported £1 million a year salary? I really can’t see it,
There is no more passionate fans in England than at Leeds Utd( We are Leeds), and yet they only average 24,000 playing in the Championship with/against players that the SPL could not afford. I find it inconceivable that this figure will be achieved and maintained for 3 years at Ibrox watching players on 1k-2k per week against SFL opposition. I have ths feeling that if Green persists the crowds will be around 10,000 by Christmas and Green will be facing enormous losses.
No wonder he is keeping the assets nice and safe in an Engish holding company.
The Leeds Utd crowd is only down at 24,000 due to a sustained and organised boycott by hardcore fans while Ken Bates is the owner. That, and the fifth highest ticket prices in England. Without both these factors, their crowds in Championship would be north of 30,000.
what film sums up the money side of things ????
Mick,
You might be hogging the show a touch. 16 out of the 28 posts to date are yours. I do not want to stifle your enthusiasm for posting – well maybe just a wee bit. It’s not my site though, and I would defend your right to do as you see fit. Just some feedback.
cool m8 ave muilti screens up this 1s ma fav.its pure factual secondary data wits on here today is the back page in three days
Keep it up Mick, your enthusiasm reminds me of the jokes in the readers digest, a welcome break from the serious stuff! You also make salient points which I have missed.
I feel it’s not quite cricket to criticise the frequency of posters and Mick why not try and put together a guest post?
I regretted posting my churlish comment a couple of seconds after pressing the send button. Sorry Mick.
Mothballing Ibrox and groundsharing at, say St Mirren might be a consideration in the short term.
thats if they get a licence this “proper person issue “is well a spanner in greens works
No way. I live in Paisley. it was bad enough having the knuckledraggers in town twice a season.
Seem to recall a figure of 39,000 season tickets last year. If the fans want to keep their team alive then buy the £400 ticket for the next 3 years. £15.6M p.a. or as they say in th Ads £1.10 a day. That’s the price of survival the alternative is look around the Leagues and pick the next team to support because Mr Green will frankly have no choice but to cash in his chips. The Catch 22 was that if Yosarian (main character) knew he was mad then he couldn’t be mad and therefore could no be discharged from the US Airforce on the grounds of being mad. If Mr Green puts season tickets at £140 p,a. then he would be mad. He isn’t so he will be hitting the eject handle.
If the Rangers fans had said several months ago, you know what, our club has cheated, by paying players more than we could afford, and we as the fans have had the benefit of that, and the ability to celebrate trophies and to gloat and lord it over our rivals as a result. Therefore as the taxpayer has subsidised our ticket prices for the last 12 years, we will repay that subsidy. If every season ticket holder pays £100 for each year they had a season ticket, and each corporate box holder did likewise in a an appropriate proportion, that would have produced enough money to pay off all the creditors, take Rangers out of administration via a CVA, and kept them in the SPL.
So based on past performance, I don’t see Rangers fans ponying up their readies in any great numbers – more likely to wallow in their victim-hood.
smoke, mirrors and a bunch of horsesh!t.. My short summary under green’s tenure…
Seems inconceiveable that 30,000 will turn up at ibrox each week. He’ll either need to sell up or consider renting somewhere else to play to cut the costs. He may do some kind of groundshare deal with a smaller club as it is perhaps more financially viable to sell out a smaller ground whilst locking out fans that have a half full ibrox with cash draining running costs.
But hey, common sense hasn’t been on the agenda much this summer so who knows what will happen next.
Makes Castle Greyskull seem like a good option at this point.
I reckon Clyde would be a good bet for them – don’t know if that final stand has been added yet but that’s the kind of ground share that would work from a Sevco Rangers investors’ viewpoint as they would clear Ibrox and develop it.
There has been rumours of Clyde moving to play in east Kilbride and a Glasgow rugby team taking over broadwood stadium. Not sure how much truth is in them though
What is it with Rangers` peepul that they assume everyone is falling over themselves to offer their ground to help out. Get your own ground.
Yea JimBhoy
A lot of accusations. If he provided just one solid case of malpractise backed up by evidence, I might be inclined to take him more seriously.
Niall – great post and opens up all sorts of issues. One thing that Green could do is charge full price on season tickets and issue fans with shares to the value of say £2-300 a season.
It would actually cost him nothing. The fans would feel they are helping the club and also get something back for it and unlike mystery investors they aren’t driven by the profit motive so would hang onto their shares.
As always with Green though you have to watch his lips and not just listen to him whe he talks as there is a continual changing of ground.
When he arrived he said the fans would be able to buy the club but today it’s that they can buy up to 50% and in reality at some stage this will drop to 48/49% so the fans can never buy the club.
There’s also the other problem that I came across when researching my AIM Blog and that’s the class of shares used. The class bought by the fans will be non-voting so it doesn’t matter how many or what % fans hold they cannot take ownership or control the club. That power lies with the tight group of major and usually founder shareholders. And a sign of the times is that the founder shareholders in Sevco Rangers who will invest £10 million will have their shareholding doubled. Effectively even if the fans had voting shares, which they won’t, they will need to hold more than £20 million £1 shares to outvote the founder shareholders,
That just won’t happen. I’ve wracked my brains and I just don’t understand what Green is up to – OK he’s not investing a penny in Rangers but how does he get his pay-off. And where does the money come from to pay dividends to the founder shareholders – and btw the shares fans are given won’t pay dividends, Another real puzzler is that a lot of these investors come from Asia or have connections there – even in the current global economic crisis they could get better returns of a street corner kiosk than from investing in Sevco Rangers, So what is driving this whole madness?
Ecojon
I think what’s happened is that the Green gamble has failed. Everything was fine with his plan pre-purchase because the share issue was simply a nice stocking filler. Now it’s become do or die due to everything that has happened post-purchase. Green’s demeanour has changed remarkably as the realisation has dawned that this “is not going according to plan”.
Until full disclosure is given to the SFA around his business plan (for all we know there acutally is 30m waiting to be pumped in) we can only speculate (and laugh) but as things stand it looks increasingly likely that he will look for a way out very soon.
if there is 30mil and he pays football debt can small creditors sue why pay soccer debts but not the small businesses????
ecojon we still have not recived clarity on the share holders “fit and proper”,when this happens we will be able to peace it all together
I’ve got an update blog probably going up tomorrow and got told a sizzler of a story earlier on but I’m waiting on the guy giving me the OK to use it.
The Asian investors bet on the outcome of Rangers matches, Rangers throw games, investment recouped via gambling. Stenhousmuir 10-1 to beat Rangers, £5 million on Stenhousemuir, Stenhousemuir 1 Rangers 0, £50 million return. Simples.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18881004?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
if hes got 30mil would he be wanting 500,000 back at this stage d&ps have conned him this is the begining of the end me thinking
An interesting figure from D&P most recent report:
Food and beveridge sales: £300k
Food and beveridge cost: £900k
Period: 5 months
This from a club running under the ‘tight’ controls of administration and includes a period of weeks when evryone was off on holiday leave.
Over 12 months this equals close to £1.5million.
Just in Food and Beveridge.
Strikes me as a lot of Succulent Lamb.
did whyte no set up new pie stalls maybe the cash from that went stright to him and the 600,000missing is under the floor boards of the castle whyte made a statement when he took over about pies and new stalls these are my personal views lol am not hit out with a sally pie joke lolor a jabba lamb bribe lol
thats a scam d&ps have to answer this ,this is serious miss management and could amount to grand thief the small creditors see this then they will be feeling hard done by
mick, the figures are from the D&P report of 10th July as sent to “all known creditors”.
the credit reports on here the lads were on about it throw week
I would have thought that the profits margins on this stuff would be astronomical so how do you only make £300K from £900K stock. It must be the other way round surely? Not unless they’ve been practising the fish and loaves trick for when they get to SFL3
sally will be bealing theres a pie story breaking kds will have a field day with that lol
600,000 black hole add say another 600,000 thats 1.2mil as you know theres good profit at matches with the catering that figure is well low as you get good discounts the more you buy .d&ps weres the pie money
ecojon, actual figures from report are £388,973 Food & Beverages Sales under Income column then £991,155 Catering/Food and Beverage under Expenditure column.
My interpretation (without the detail or a degree in accountancy) would be that even allowing for a 0% profit on sales, the club spent, in just a 5 month period that includes off season when most employees would be gone, £602,182 on food & beverage over and above what they sold (to fans on match days). I assume this expenditure must be on players and other employees. And over a 12 month period that would be a running cost of £1,445,238.
Of course, there may be a good explanation for this eg the pie’s were being baked for £3 each but sold for only £1 each. Under such circumstances D&P would probably argue this would be in the best interest of creditors as it kept the pie business as a going concern (where ‘rangers’ = ‘pie’ ).
p.walliams well spotted
project walliams do a quick long post on the pies it would be front page in three days on all the msm ,lets get it in the public domian
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18880822
bombers in with 40,000 and backing of barry ferguson the panto continues theres no let up at all its 10 storys a day
a final laugh before bedtime, thanks mick
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18881004
And Green is going off his head because he reckons D&P have stiffed him for £500,000. You know what they say abiout when thieves fall out 🙂
ecojon its games a boogie this week there ment to be mates ,may be its was all a con get green to buy it snooker him then the real ranjurs men step in ????
its the start of green wanting his money back a thought div3 was the end its now looking very much like a scam to con green and his backers
oh its getting well messy ,theres a pie scandal on the boil am not makeing any jokes about sally although am dying to
OK leave Sally outa it – I heard that Eric Pickles was up doing an enviromental inspection and had to test a few pies as one of the investors had complained the pies were blue-mouldy. Nah that ain’t funny just use the Sally Pieman jokes 🙂
I’ll bet Sally is regretting the “we don’t do walking away” line. I think he would love nothing more than to resume his TV career…
I think what Sally is regretting most is eating all the pies 🙂
Sally has been offered a job with Sky at twice the money he’s on with Ranjurs. He’s actively considering it as he reckons there isn’t much to installing dishes.
it would need to be blue if you said green they would not eat it
or maybe the lads running the pie stalls nicked everything its a massive thief thats money from the creditors pot more police investigations devo its a grand figure
to be fair 500,00 buys a seasons worth of pies.
Debit player purchase
Credit pies
Barry Ferguson has commited though to the John Brown fanatics fund so it’s all good.
no worrys its barrys turn to take the stage break a leg barry as they say to each other at the thearter when entering the stage lol
all those pies thats why sallys no walked away lol
there was a pie stall refit last year thats 1 of the first things whyte done ,that explians it
mick, not sure that a refit of a year old would fall under catering expenses for the last 5 months.
People have been saying ‘follow the money’ when maybe they should have followed the dough. Bomber was hinting at something when he rallied the troops outside Ibrox. mick we have stumbled upong Piegate!
pmsl do a long post call it pie gate that would be better than any story lolhaha
what will the bdo say ,sally will be hating this ,kds will be some buzz with this this is the top story ,the piegate scandal
no at the time a thought he was doing a refit to scam it but hes not in the game at those dates so it down to d&ps to explian the piegate scandal ,a said a refit when skint that strange
just for any 1 who doest know how bomber brown is the latest man to step up and try and take over the mighty ranjers
Thinking over some famous tax evaders who might have had some affinity with Rangers.
Possibly:
Leona Helmsley, known as the Queen of Mean famously said “We don’t pay taxes, only little people pay taxes” She also had a dog called Trouble that was fond of biting people.
And maybe:
Al Capone, American gangster, guilty of many more serious crimes, including the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, but finally brought down by the humble taxman.