Finance expert reacts to Rangers situation as Daily Record journalist slams ‘ridiculous’ numbers
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.
Finance expert Dan Plumley believes there is “no cause for concern” in Rangers’ most recent financial reports despite question marks over their profit.
The club announced a £252,000 profit in their accounts, but the figures included money earned by the sales of Calvin Bassey, Joe Aribo and Champions League football from the 2022/23 season too.
That sparked some concern about the financial situation at Ibrox with Daily Record journalist David McCarthy blasting the Glasgow club’s “ridiculous” spending on transfers on PLZ Soccer (15 November).
Plumley believes there is a bigger picture than just those numbers and feels Rangers don’t have much to worry about in that sense.
“I think it’s just the way you interpret those numbers which is why having that bigger picture overview becomes really important,” he exclusively told Ibrox News.
“If you look at a football club and its finances, one of the things that’s always going to cause a lot of volatility is behaviour in the transfer market and there are times where there is natural squad rotation or squad upheaval or squad composition changes, and that can be a number of factors.
“That could link to new managers coming in, new owners, new board composition going in a different direction, it could be a cost-cutting exercise linking to sporting performance, all manner of things will drive that transfer activity and that has a real impact on the bottom line.
“So you can spin this a number of ways. You can exclude the transfer activity from the numbers because it can fluctuate year to year or you can include it and kind of account for that and what the club is trying to do.
“My view is that you should be looking at both of those figures, and the overall profit and loss, and the revenue position and wage etc, so you’ve got to throw more things into the mix.
“I know people like to look at individual numbers and you can fit a particular story around that one number, but it’s much bigger than that and I think what I would always advocate for is a look at the broader picture.
“I think when you do that you can see the volatility and what Rangers have been trying to do in recent years which is why on the bigger picture, those numbers for one particular year are not really a cause for concern because there is a lot of growth they’ve had over the last few years and you’d expect at some point to get some fluctuation in the numbers year to year. “
In other Rangers news, new long-term conract to be signed in next 48 hours for first-team ace.