Rangers administration: Player wage cuts avoided 20 job losses at Rangers

IT’S been revealed that, had Rangers players not accepted drastic pay cuts last week, the likely outcome would have been a near-total cull of the first team squad.

Paul Clark, of administrators Duff & Phelps, said yesterday that up to 20 players would have been made redundant had there been no breakthrough on Thursday and Friday, including all of the marquee names.

“We were looking at complete decimation of the squad,” said Clark.

For the first time, Clark has spoken about the precise numbers involved in trying to slash the required £1 million a month off the Rangers budget.

“There was mention over the last week of between eight and 11 players being made redundant and those numbers were quite right but, even if we had made between eight and 11 redundancies, we would have still needed a 50 per cent pay cut from the players who remained. If those cuts had not been made, and I couldn’t do the sums up until now, we would have been looking at cuts of up to 20 players in total. We were looking at complete decimation of the squad.”

Clark also confirmed the existence of a “Craig Whyte clause" in the contracts of some of the bigger-name players in the Rangers squad.

“I didn’t make it clear on Friday about this Craig Whyte clause. I should make it clear now. It’s not in everybody’s contract but there are a number of players who did want a clause that said something like, should Craig Whyte either retain or regain, control of the club then they would be entitled to a free transfer.

“That’s in there for a number of them. More than a handful have that in their contracts, the ones who have most likely got value.

“What the senior players are saying is that, if this football club moves into the hands of somebody we trust, then we want to remain at Rangers. It should not be seen as the players taking an opportunity to get themselves away on a free transfer in the summer. They’re saying: ‘Like everybody else here, we’ve been through a lot and we’re not happy with what’s gone on and what we don’t want is for this to continue and to be stuck in a club where we don’t want to be without break from our contract. You’re asking us to make a big contribution. Well, we need to have flexibility’. And, to me, that’s a fair compromise.” Clark is adamant that Whyte, above, has no future at Rangers and that, ideally, a new owner will be in place before the end of the current season.