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Rangers increase revenue despite pandemic

From his fastness in Zurich, the authoritative Swiss Ramble takes a look at the 2019/20 accounts of Rangers.

The club's pre-tax loss widened from £11.4m to £17.8m, despite revenue rising £5.9m (11%) to £59.0m, though profit on player sales fell £2.4m to £0.7m. This was due to £11.5m (18%) increase in operating expenses, as the club invested in the first team. After tax loss was £17.5m.

The main driver of the revenue increase was the Europa League, which was worth £20.7m compared to £14.3m prior year. However, player and other wages surged by £8.9m.

To increase their revenue by £6m (11%) in a COVID impacted season is a noteworthy achievement, especially considering the hefty reductions in most other leading clubs across Europe.

Rangers have consistently lost money in recent times, aggregating £70m of losses in the last seven years. The £18m loss in 2029/20 is the largest in that period, partly due to the investment in the squad, but also adversely impacted by the pandemic.

The club have made very little from player sales, making only £6m from this activity in the last eight years, while they received just £1m after accounts closed. In future, will have to sell more profitably to be sustainable.

In the last two years revenue has grown by impressive 81% (£26m) from £33m to £59m with all three revenue streams up: match day £13m (55%), broadcasting £9m (209%) and commercial £4m (84%). However, matches behind closed doors likely to mean £10m revenue loss this season.

The Scottish Premiership TV deal is very low, so Rangers only received £2.4m. To give this some context, Premier League winners got £152m, while last place was worth £97m. Even a Championship club (no parachute payments) got twice as much (£7m) as Scotland’s winner. There is a new five-year Scottish Premiership TV deal with Sky Sports worth £30m a year from 2020/21, but this is not really going to move the needle. For example, it’s still only around half of Poland’s Ekstraklasa £58m.

European qualification is very important for Rangers as seen by €17m from the Europa League driving the improvement in revenue in the last two years. However, Scotland’s UEFA coefficient has improved, meaning there’s a decent chance that the 2021/22 Scottish champions will automatically qualify for the Champions League group stage.


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