Pay Cut for Ally McCoist? Does Rangers’ Boss Have Highest Basic Wage in Scottish Football?

Rangers* do not have financial problems. Their Finance Director made that clear last week. They have £10 million in the bank after all!

But the doubts are still there. When former Directors like Messrs Johnston and King talk of administration, that, especially to Rangers fans, should ring warning bells.

So it was against that backcloth that the press reported Mr McCoist’s willingness to consider whether or not to accept a wage cut, if asked.

Recent criticism of spending at Ibrox has mentioned the salaries of executives and management. Mr McCoist’s basic wage is understood to be £700,000 (plus bonuses). As that was his salary with the now liquidated Rangers, he was entitled to insist on keeping those terms when his employer changed from Rangers Football Club PLC to Sevco Scotland Ltd/The Rangers Football Club Ltd and thence to Rangers International Football Club PLC.

Have Rangers* Spent Over £32 Million Since June 2012?

There was a meeting of “influential” Rangers fans on Thursday with the senior officials of Rangers*.

(*More precisely of the company which owns the company which owns the assets and business which make up Rangers Football Club).

I want to mention two points arising from it – the first being one which has been subject of much heated debate ever since the Green takeover, and the second, which will be in the follow up post, a strong candidate for “Joke of the Year” if it had been delivered at the Edinburgh Festival. (Right up there with Tim Vine’s one-liner from a couple of years ago – “Crime in multi-storey car parks? That is wrong on so many levels!”)

Ever since the share issue in December there has been speculation about the amount of money remaining in the coffers of Rangers International Football Club PLC. Talk of imminent insolvency has continued despite the PLC’s efforts to disparage them. Until the PLC accounts appear there will not be a definitive answer and even then that will only reveal an historic snapshot.

Why is this important?

A Lesson in Blatant Spinning by Rangers – How It Reported the Charity Investigation Decision

Back in the mists of time, when Duff and Phelps roamed the earth, and only investors in Middle Eastern construction firms and fans of Sheffield United had heard of Charles Green, there was a football match arranged to raise funds for the Rangers Charity Foundation and for the AC Milan charity.

However the nature of the match changed and, in some unexplained (until this week) way, it became a game to raise money for Rangers.

I was amongst the first folk (a month before the game was actually played!) to raise concerns about how a charity could effectively treat the football club with which it was closely connected, and whose Trustees were employees of the football club, as a case for charity despite the terms of its founding deed. You can read what I wrote here and here. The issue was also publicised on Scotzine.com. And I posed a couple of questions for the Trustees here.

The dogged pursuit of the issue however came from the person known as @corsica1968 on Twitter and through their blog which can be found here.  

In the Name of “Sporting Integrity” Should the SPFL Relegate Hearts?

The SPL, earlier this week, issued a statement regarding Hearts.

Following Heart of Midlothian plc lodging a Notice of Intention to Appoint an Administrator with the Court of Session in Edinburgh on 17 June 2013, the SPL confirmed that a number of sporting sanctions have been applied to the club.

An SPL spokesperson said: “As Heart of Midlothian is subject to an Insolvency Event, a 15 point deduction will be applied to its total points in the League Championship for next Season 2013/14.  In addition, Heart of Midlothian is subject to an embargo on Registering Players with the SPL whilst in administration.”

There are a couple of thoughts about this.

First of all, how does the change at some point before next season from the SPL to the SPFL affect this? If the 15 point penalty which is based on 1/3 of the points gained in the preceding season is an SPL rule (as it is) how does this carry across to the SPFL?

Will Hearts’ Financial Woes Save Dundee From Relegation? Tough Choices For the SPL

The SPL have decided to discuss the situation at Hearts on Monday, after the SPL season ends.

The majority owner of Hearts and the main creditor, UBIG and UKIO Bankas, are both in, or have applied to go into, administration.

Mr Romanov’s always interesting stewardship of Hearts seems inevitably at an end.

The Lithuanian administrators will see what they can realise from Hearts – perhaps only the ground will prove worth anything?