Rangers finance chief on 17m loss and fixing player-trading

James, what are the headlines of this year's accounts?

This year I am pleased to announce that we have delivered record revenue of over £88 million into the football club and taken together with one of recurring items we have actually delivered over £93 million of revenue and together with a gain in sale of the Albion have delivered £94 million. That's a really stunning performance from a commercial aspect for the football club over the last 12 months and again it's a testament to Karim Virani and the rest of the commercial team in delivering that success. As we move through the rest of the P&L our costs have gone up marginally, they've gone up 1% versus a number of other clubs have noted double-digit growth as a result of the inflation environment that we're in and that has led to a pre-player trading loss of £2 million. Now that's down from £10.5 million last year which was a stated aim of the chairman, the ex-chairman at that time, John Bennett, and so we've delivered a material improvement in the operating performance of the football club. As we move further down towards the bottom line we continue to need to improve the player-trading model and together with one-offs including settlement of litigation and associated finance costs through loans and interests associated we have a bottom line loss of £17 million and that's something that I'll touch on later on.

You mentioned commercial and also the player trading model, how important are they not only for the now but for the future as a football club?

Very is the short answer to that. I think for us as a football club I've mentioned before that we are in the market that we're in, in the structural market that we're in, we're really over-reliant and over-leveraged towards success in Europe so again the recent result against FCSB was extremely promising and again European performance for us is super important to be able to continue to invest in the squad, to continue to invest in the campus and to continue to invest n the football club in various different aspects. In terms of the commercial revenues again we've had a number of strong commercial renewals and indeed new partners into the ecosystem. Recently we've announced earlier coming back into the into the ecosystem we've recently renewed our front of shirt deal for improved terms and we're looking across the partnership portfolio across a number of different verticals in the football club to look to maximise the opportunity for us to invest in the first team. Linking that into the player trading model ultimately is the executives, Karim's world, my world, it's our absolute focus to deliver an efficient operating model that can really deliver the most amount of capital to Nils [Koppen], to the football department in order to maximise the opportunity to get the best possible team on the park for our supporters. I've said that before and I'll say it again that's why we're here, we're here to try and maximise the performance of the football team. So linking that into the player trading model clearly, it is imperative for us to to maximise the investment in the capital that we can provide Nils and the rest of the football department in order to get the best possible team in the park. Now we need to look at how are we going to develop players, how are we going to enhance our value, how are we going to make them successful. Not only in the here and now but also over the next two to three years so that we can start creating a virtuous circle of making sure that we develop players selling them at a higher value and ultimately lead to a gain through the accounts which you'll see through the accounts which can actually deliver us more investment and continue that virtuous circle as I mentioned. So the commercial revenues that we generate, the long-term commercial revenues that we generate together with the cost culture that we want to have in this football club of prioritisation of our spend to make sure that we're getting the best possible outcome in every single aspect of our performance that then allows us to invest more in the first team, more in the football department as a whole and ultimately gives us more opportunity to drive a successful player trading model. 

Read more: 

Rangers release annual accounts with record revenues but a significant loss

Nils Koppen exclusive: Here's how to fix Rangers' broken player-trading model

How do you then ensure along with the board that the club remains in a secure financial footing for the years to come?

That's a good question and again I think the thing to highlight here is there was a £17 million bottom line post-tax loss this year and that number whilst again is something that we should acknowledge and observe, is something that we recognise and understand how we're going to move forward and fix and again a lot of that loss is coming down to the impact of the player trading model in this year taking impairments on players from the recent past that we've moved on in the summer. Again one of the big talking points over the summer has been the normalisation of the first-team wage bill from the club's perspective and again that's allowed us to look at how are we going to move forward in a sustainable manner, in a manner that allows us to get to a break-even point pre-player trading which again is a stated objective. It will be challenging this year given the nature of the Copland, Hampden and indeed the Dynamo Kyiv result, that will be challenging but it's something we're focused on, it's something we're looking to achieve. So for us as a football club we have to get to a point where we have an operating model that's sustainable, that's successful. We then have the football side of the business that generates on the player side, generates us gains on the over a five-year cycle. If we deliver that we can then start bolstering our balance sheet, we can then start accelerating investment, we can look at various different ways of further enhancing the opportunities and the capital available to the first team. Just on that point in terms of some of the works post-year end and some of the impacts post-year end and again the Copland works are obviously a big talking point over the summer and again on behalf of myself and the rest of the exec and the rest of the board I would like to place on the record my thanks to our supporters for their patience, for their perseverance as we got through this and also to the SFA, SPFL and UEFA for their support throughout a fairly kind of challenging time. Again I think those who have been to Ibrox since will acknowledge the quality of the facilities that have been installed and it's a massive addition to our accessibility facilities here at Ibrox. So we're very proud of the works that have been done and been completed and once again I'd like to place on record my thanks. Again there'll be a marginal cost impact in regards to our move to Hampden but again I think for us the ability to work together with the rest of the Scottish game is certainly something we've taken a positive out of throughout this summer.