Rangers forced to pay Mike Ashley eight-figure sum after legal dispute
Rangers have been forced to pay tycoon Mike Ashley an eight-figure sum after the Sports Direct boss won a legal battle with the Gers.
The official financial report for the previous year was released on Wednesday (9 November) with the full details of every transaction made during the stated time period.
Among the sales of Nathan Patterson to Everton and Aston Villa poaching Steven Gerrard, there was a big outlying figure which saw £8.25million leave the Ibrox accounts and head to Ashley.
The former Newcastle United owner was pressuring Rangers over a court case and the hierarchy at the club opted to pay him off to avoid further disruption and chaos.
Overall, the football club made a profit over the course of the year with much of that thanks to the sale of Patterson and the run to the Europa League final.
Not needed
At a time when money is priceless in football, and life in general, splashing this amount of cash to get Ashley off the club’s backs is not what they needed to happen.
Thankfully, this debacle can now be parked well in the past and moving forward, the club have to stop creating problems for themselves that cause such financial problems.
Giovanni van Bronckhorst may well need a hefty amount of cash in January to make some big changes to the squad, if he’s still in charge, and he won’t be able to if the club continues to spend so much on non-footballing matters.
Douglas Park has plenty of cleaning up to do, though, at Ibrox and he has to ensure things don’t get worse in the foreseeable future to start turning the club around.
It might be a long road to the eventual target finish but the sooner they get there, the better for everybody at the club.
In other Rangers news, the Light Blues’ stance on this Champions League manager has become slightly more clear after reports over his future.