Finance Expert: ‘One one winner’ as Rangers sued for £1.6m by Sydney Super Cup organisers
Football finance expert Kieran Maguire has suggested legal professionals will be the only winner as Rangers enter into a lawsuit against the Sydney Cup organisers.
Rangers were set to feature in the midseason tournament but pulled out due to the promoters labelling the clash against Celtic as an Old Firm fixture.
Furthermore, the Gers were unhappy with the organisers using the event as a “homecoming” for Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou. However, Maguire believes certain individuals will see the court case as “money for old rope”.
“There were 39,000 unsold seats. The promoters are saying we’ve lost out here so we are going to sue you for around £1.6million, which is a sizeable amount,” said Maguire (Price of Football Podcast, 13:03, 1 December)
“Rangers said they were unhappy as the match was being promoted as an Old Firm game when Old Firm matches are cup and league matches. Fans were also unhappy as it was being marketed as Ange Postecoglou’s homecoming.
“Rangers could be counterclaiming against the promoters for marketing the game in the wrong way but when it comes to all this with Mike Ashley, Elite Sports, the promoters and Rangers counterclaiming, we all know that there’s only one winner.
“It’s the people who don’t have to buy bottled capers, they can get them delivered by hand. It’s our silver-tongued friends in the legal profession, in the accounting profession, who will be seeing this as money for old rope.
“It’s money that drains out of the football business.”
Court case after court case
Rangers are involved in far too many court cases and fans will be beginning to get quite sick of the Gers constantly being sued. Better decisions need to be made by the board to avoid situations like this emerging in the first place. Quite why Rangers agreed to compete in a glorified friendly against their bitter rivals is still up for debate.
They should never have said yes to participating in the competition in the first place, as it should’ve been abundantly clear how the event was going to be promoted. The Sydney Cup organisers were never going to promote the match as a midseason friendly with nothing on it. They would’ve wanted as many fans as possible packed into the stadium to witness an Old Firm match.
Furthermore, it should’ve been blatantly obvious that there was going to be a focus on Postecoglou because the event was being hosted in his native country. The Gers simply have to be savvier when it comes to making decisions in the future because this is a court case that they now look unlikely to win.
In other Rangers news, Michael Stewart slammed Beale for an “unsavoury” incident at Ibrox.