Rangers’ outgoing summer transfer business earned them a paltry return of less than £1 million – despite selling five first-team players in that period.
The revelation was one of the key talking points to emerge from yesterday’s AGM, where shareholders took the opportunity to put the club’s hierarchy in focus ahead of another turbulent 12 months at Ibrox, both on and off the pitch.
Interim chairman John Gilligan made no apologies to those gathered at the Clyde Auditorium in Glasgow. He admitted – with much understatement – that ‘it has been a challenging period for the club’, a period which has left Rangers without a permanent chairman or CEO and eleven points behind leaders Celtic.
A summer sale to clear some of the dead wood from the playing group would have raised enough capital to allow manager Philippe Clement to sign the likes of Mohamed Diomande, on a permanent deal, Nedim Bajrami, Robin Propper, Hamza Igamane and Jefte.
Instead, the club’s recently published accounts revealed that trading in players only generated around £800,000, a minuscule amount considering five players were sold during that period.
The combined income from the sale of signed first-team players was previously thought to have raised Sam Lammers to FC Twente, Todd Cantwell to Blackburn Rovers, Scott Wright to Birmingham City, Connor Goldson to Aris Limassol and Robby McCrorie to Kilmarnock. several million pounds.
The combined compensation for Wright, Lammers and Cantwell was much lower than proposed
The sale of Connor Goldson would have made £1.7 million… but that wasn’t the case
James Taylor, Ibrox’s chief financial officer, arrives at the Clyde Auditorium for the AGM yesterday
Instead, finance director James Taylor confirmed to a stunned meeting that the £800,000 figure in the annual report was correct, and that these fees contributed little in a year in which Rangers recorded a loss of more than £17 million.
“Yes, it’s been confirmed that £800,000 is the number,” Taylor said. ‘Contractual agreements have been made about the individual amounts, but we have included that.
‘In terms of the player trading model, it hasn’t worked for a number of years. It is an ongoing problem that we need to address and take a different view of.
“Historically, the strategy for acquiring players has been very different to what was looked at last summer. What we are seeing now are the ongoing challenges of decisions made 12, 18 or 24 months ago.
“There is no guarantee of success in transfers, but what we can do is stick to our principles and try to increase the value of the squad, while at the same time bringing players to a more sustainable level.”
Gilligan also apologized to Rangers support for the failed and delayed rebuilding work at the Copland Road stand, which saw the team decanted to Hampden for the first few months of the season.
“I would like to once again, on behalf of the board, offer my full apologies to you, our supporters, for any inconvenience this has caused and thank you all for the excellent support you have given the team at Hampden,” he added, conceding that The full cost of the temporary move would be six figures.
‘I would also like to thank the Scottish FA, SPFL and UEFA for their understanding and support during that difficult period.’