Rangers finance chief details plan to wipe out £10m figure as he makes squad funds promise

Rangers finance chief James Taylor has mapped out the Ibrox club’s plan to wipe out the £10.5million pre-player trading loss that chairman John Bennett told shareholders “had to go away” and to “keep an eye on” at the AGM.

Bennett promised supporters the Light Blues will break even and pledged never to return to the dark days of 2012. The club’s last set of accounts showed an operating profit of £250,000 to the year ending June 30, 2023, but a net loss of £4.1m and overall revenue down on the previous year.

Taylor was appointed as the club’s new chief finance officer and outlined his plans for the club in the next five-year financial cycle. In an interview with the Rangers Review, he said: “There are a number of different facets around how we make that go away. You will see across various different football clubs that that is a challenging target, to be clear, but it is one that we should set ourselves and that we believe as an exec and a board that we can deliver against.

“It will likely take the first half of the strategic cycle to really deliver on that and deliver on that consistently but we do think that we are on the right path. The changes that we have made in the first four or five months, we are seeing the outcomes of those. But it will take a little bit of time to make sure that we have that sustainable number moving forward and making that £10million go away.”

Rangers have committed to a significant fee to sign rising Ivorian Mohamed Diomade with the midfielder FC Nordsjælland set to cost £4.5m after an initial loan fee – with young Colombian Oscar Cortes similar from Lens.

But Taylor says, while driving down that £10m deficit, that they will invest in the team while trying to rake in transfer fees. He said: “There are funds there that we will look to utilise and build the squad with. While we recognise it in one year, the cash benefit comes through a number of different years. It is important that the football board and the finance world are fully joined up and we are beginning to see the merits and benefits of that football board as we move forward.”

Taylor also has personal experience in the football industry as the son of the late SFA chief executive and UEFA Events chief executive, David, and insists there are no issues in terms of complying with European football’s governing body’s strict Financial Fair Play rules. He said: “From a UEFA standpoint, we feel that as a football club we are progressing. We have got a really good relationship with UEFA, we maintain that relationship with UEFA and I think that is important as we move forward as well. That doesn’t mean to say that we should be relaxed about it. We need to be on top of it, we need to continually assess and make sure that we are where we need to be.”