Finance Expert shares £4m swing after new Rangers and Celtic reveal
We’re delighted to welcome football finance expert Dr Daniel Plumley as our exclusive columnist. Each week he’ll be giving his views on the biggest talking points at Rangers...
Dan Plumley has insisted that there has usually always been around a £4million swing between Rangers and Celtic in the amount they pay on wages every year.
After Rangers posted their latest financial accounts, it was revealed that the club have spent more on their wage bill than their Old Firm rivals, leading to calls of underperformance on the pitch.
The finance expert hit back at those claims though, insisting that the whole picture should be taken into account with the “tricky” landscape of Scottish football finance.
“We’ve got to be careful with how we define underperformance,” he exclusively told Ibrox News.
“I think a lot of the research I’ve been involved in down the years, it tries to look at things more holistically and try to take into account the revenue, the overall profit and loss, the wage bill, the ownership structure and position, the balance sheet position, we have to look at it in its entirety.
“If we focus on the wage bill, and over the last couple of years looking at the figures for Rangers and Celtic, for the wages, there has always been about a £4million swing, sometimes that’s been Celtic spending more, this time it’s Rangers spending a little bit more on wages for this period, but over the last three years, they’ve been pretty close.
“I think that there are some wider things around Scottish football and the wider issues around that, and we’ve said this a lot about what dictates the balance of play financially for Rangers and Celtic and that is European competition.
“They are jostling for that as there is only one automatic spot available so we have to be aware of that narrative as well, so there will be people who will look at those wage bill comparisons and if they are spending more, you can see where the calls are coming from, but it is tricky because we should be looking at a more complete picture of the accounts between those two clubs.
“Also, be aware of the swings in finances of Rangers and Celtic dependent on the nature of Scottish football finance generally.”
In other Rangers news, Plumley has insisted that the club can argue they have missed out after a £900m+ deal was signed off