By David Owen
November 22 – Rangers, the Glasgow club which has built up an eight-point lead in pursuit of their first Scottish top-flight title in a decade, has posted an increased loss for the year to end-June 2020.
The Ibrox outfit, now managed by ex-Liverpool talisman Steven Gerrard, reported a pre-tax loss of £17.8 million, up from a loss of £11.4 million the previous season.
This was on revenue of £59 million – an advance of 11% on a year earlier, in spite of the impact of Covid-19.
Acknowledging that the virus had brought “the severest of strains to all of our business and personal lives”, Douglas Park, chairman, said that playing matches behind closed doors was “likely to adversely impact the club by in excess of £10 million in the current season”.
He disclosed that the club had “submitted a claim on its business interruption insurance for losses caused by Covid-19, the curtailment of the 2019-20 season and the ongoing pandemic”. The scale and timing of any claim was said to be “uncertain”.
The trends revealed in these latest figures contrast markedly with the recently-published results of arch-rivals Celtic, who managed to stay in profit – just – in spite of experiencing a revenue dip of 16% to just over £70 million.
The Hoops’ bottom-line performance was helped by full-back Kieran Tierney’s big-money 2019 move to Arsenal.
For Rangers, the good progress made in last season’s Europa League – they were eventually eliminated by Germany’s Bayer Leverkusen at the Round of 16 stage – had a big impact on its favourable revenue outcome. The club said this European run was responsible for £20.7 million of the overall turnover figure.
Staff costs rose more than 25% from £34.5 million to £43.3 million. Key management personnel received £1.38 million, up from just over £895,000.
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