The truth of the £13M Ibrox figure revealed by Rangers board at club’s AGM

Ibrox Noise’s resident finance guru has been looking at the AGM and in particular the presentation by Kenny Barclay (who was in James Blair’s place) whereby the director informed us all that £13.1M is in Rangers’ bank compared with the quarter of that which was in place when Steven Gerrard was manager.

As much as that sounds like ‘four times better’, as Ibrox Noise explained, it doesn’t mean we have that kind of money disposably ‘for sweeties’. In fact, our expert went further – it’s actually completely meaningless in itself.

He said:

“It is accurate that we have £13.1M in the bank, but it’s there at a ‘given moment in time’ We need to consider its value alongside current liabilities. £13.1M in the bank is basically useless if the club owes £30M.”

Which means that far from having £13M to spend in January, it may be that we have a lot, lot less to essentially use on Ibrox investments next year.

He went on:

“It doesn’t suggest better financial management, it just reflects the facts our revenues themselves have increased.”

In short terms, just because a club, in this case Rangers of course, gets a tonne more revenue (player sales, Europe etc) that is meaningless if the financial management of those monies isn’t any better than before. It’s still the same people running Rangers, they’ve just been given more money, which was revealed at the AGM.

But by telling the world we have £13M in the bank, doesn’t actually mean we have that kind of cash to invest, it may not be disposable.

If the club has liabilities over that amount, then it’s a pretty meaningless figure in itself. Of course, we know the debt and liabilities are a lot better thanks to all the revenue, and Rangers did post a profit in the accounts, albeit a small one, but that isn’t black and while or that simple.

For example, the last accounts reported £15M total current liabilities (accounts payable etc), which instantly cancels out that £13M in the bank and leaves it -£2M.

So having the cash in the bank is better than not having it, but unfortunately it doesn’t mean we’re signing Ronaldo.