Giovanni van Bronckhorst hasn’t even set foot in the manager’s office at Ibrox and already questions are being asked about how he will go about building his own team.
The recent financial results weren’t great – to put it mildly – but, as we have seen since Dave King and his colleagues swept to power, the board will underwrite any losses to enable our manager to operate without having their hands tied behind their back and a projected loss of just £400,000 for next season, without including player sales, is slightly more encouraging.
Steven Gerrard and his coaching team’s compensation will help but funds will be needed to strengthen in January and next summer with finance expert, Kieran Maguire, predicting that there could be in the region of £5-6million available if we are to meet financial fair play regulations:
“If they are in the Champions League, they are allowed to lose £25.5m over three years.
“In the most recent three-year period, they have lost £54m. So based on my calculations, they have a little bit of wiggle room.
“There are adjustments which you can make in terms of infrastructure costs, academy costs, bonuses for winning trophies and so on.
“That is something the club needs to be aware of because they either have to start selling players or getting their costs under control.
“After we consider my estimates of the other allowable costs, which I would say are around £20m, they probably only have £5m or £6m to play with.“
It has to be remembered that we have spent a lot of money on renovating Ibrox, the Auchenhowie training centre and into the Edmiston House project, not only this but our academy is an integral part of the club too and not neglected as an after thought as it was previously.
Obviously, this budget will increase if we sell any of our key players and, as we have seen this week, we should be able to trust Ross Wilson to get a decent price for any that we do all and have replacements lined up and ready to go.
Self sustainability is the promised land but we aren’t there yet, however, Van Bronckhorst will be fully aware that if he gets us into the knockout stages of the Europa League or wins the Scottish Premiership to qualify for the Champions League, his budget will rise considerably.